But These Things Also + 

But these things also are Spring’s⁠— + 

On banks by the roadside the grass + 

Long-dead that is greyer now + 

Than all the Winter it was; + 

The shell of a little snail bleached + 

In the grass; chip of flint, and mite + 

Of chalk; and the small birds’ dung + 

In splashes of purest white: + 

All the white things a man mistakes + 

For earliest violets + 

Who seeks through Winter’s ruins + 

Something to pay Winter’s debts, + 

While the North blows, and starling flocks + 

By chattering on and on + 

Keep their spirits up in the mist, + 

And Spring’s here, Winter’s not gone. + 