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.
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