6 APRIL 1934, Page 13

Last Snow

ALTHOUGH the snow still lingers Heaped on the ivy's blunt webbed fingers And painting tree-trunks on one side, Here in this sunlit ride

The fresh unchristened things appear, Leaf, spathe and stem,

With crumbs of earth clinging to them To show the way they came

But no flower yet to tell their name, And one green spear Stabbing a dead leaf from below Kills winter at a blow.

ANDREW YOUNG.