Classic Poem

So thick a mist darkened the wood to-day
My friend, the jay, flashed by two trees away,
While I stood in a hush
Seeing each tree and bush
Hung with buds green and white
Making unusual light,
Though of the sober green
Less in that wintry wood were to be seen.

That jay I followed, for behind the mist
Two jays, I knew, kept their love's angry tryst;
And where the track dipt down
Narrowed and overgrown,
As I brushed past each bush
White buds fell in a rush,
One might have said it rained,
While green buds on the barer boughs remained.

Then climbing where with looped and twisted twine
Wild clematis, bryony and woodbine
And such reptilian growth
Hung in decaying sloth,
I stood still thinking how
Two months or three from now
Those green buds would not tarry
More than the flashing drops of January.