Classic Poem

Oh, Valentino in new garment! See!
like to the twigs of the hawthorn tree!
But on your thorn-hardened little feet sweet
you only wear the skins of your feet;

you wear the shoes that your mother has wrought;
you never changed them after that day;
for a mere nothing for you they were bought,
but garments cost that she sews, so gay!

This cost, for Mother already has spent
all that into the jingle-box went:
now it is empty, and every hen
sang for a month, to fill it again.

Spite of the fire-log, you shivered, ah, me!
in January, and life was drear.
Then the hens cackled: An egg here for thee!
Just look! an egg here! Just look! what's here!

Then the hens clucked, and the March winds were heard.
Lean country lad, with clothes like a bird,
you were half clad, in the chilly spring air,
all feathered out, but your wee feet bare:

like to a bird from the ocean here flown,
dancing about in a wild-cherry tree,
that, more than to eat, sing, and love, has not known
there could be other felicity.