Close observation and an unexpected conclusion mark it as a typical offering by the clergyman poet and naturalist, whose Selected Poems are published by Carcanet..

THE WOOD

Summer's green tide rises in flood

Foaming with elder-blossom in the wood,

And insects hawk, gold-striped and blue,

On motion-hidden wings the air looks through,

And 'Buzz, buzz, buzz,'

Gaily hums Sir Pandarus,

As blue ground-ivy blossom

Bends with the weight of a bee in its bosom.

Heavy with leaves the boughs lean over

The path where midges in a loose ball hover,

And daisies and slow-footed moss

And thin grass creep across,

Till scarcely on the narrow path

The sparrow finds a dusty bath,

And caterpillars from the leaves

Arch their green backs on my coat-sleeves.

Bright as a bird the small sun flits

Through shaking leaves that tear the sky in bits;

But let the leaf-lit boughs draw closer,

I in the dark will feel no loser

With myself for companion.

Grow, leafy boughs; darken, O sun,

For here two robins mate

That winter held apart in a cold hate.