Two little nature pieces - characteristically original and charming - from Andrew Young, the Scottish cleric poet. They are in his Selected Poems (Carcanet, £9.95).

WOOD AND HILL

Nowhere is one alone

And in the closest covert least,

But to small eye of bird or beast

He will be known;

Today it was for me

A squirrel that embraced a tree

Turning a small head round;

A hare too that ran up the hill,

To his short forelegs level ground,

And with tall ears stood still.

But it was birds I could not see

And larks that tried to stand on air

That made of wood and hill a market-square.

THE COPSE

Here in the Horseshoe Copse

The may in such a snow-storm drops

That every stick and stone

Becomes a tree with blossom of its own.

And though loose sun-spots sway

The night so lasts through all the day

That no bird great or small

Sings in these trees but is a nightingale.

Time might be anything,

Morning or night, winter or spring;

One who in this copse strays

Must walk through many months of night and days.