Classic Poem

Last night the North flew at the throat of Spring
With spite to tear her greening banners down,
Tossing the elm-tree's tender tassels brown,
The virgin blossom of sloe burdening
With colder snow; beneath his frosty sting
Patient, the newly-wakened woods were bowed
By drownèd fields where stormy waters flowed:
Yet, on the thorn, I heard a blackbird sing. . . .
‘Too late, too late,’ he sang, ‘this wintry spite;
For molten snow will feed the springing grass:
The tide of life, it floweth with the year.’
O England, England, thou that standest upright
Against the tide of death, the bad days pass:
Know, by this miracle, that summer is near.