While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry And blackening east that so embitters March, Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch, And driven dust and withering snowflake fly; Already in glimpses of the tarnish'd sky The sun is warm and beckons to the larch, And where the covert hazels interarch Their tassell'd twigs, fair beds of primrose lie. Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid A million buds but stay their blossoming; And trustful birds have built their nests amid The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing Till one soft shower from the south shall bid, And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of spring.