Schoolboys in Winter

The schoolboys still their morning ramble take
To neighboring village school with playing speed,
Loitering with passtime's leisure till they quake,
Oft looking up the wild-geese droves to heed,
Watching the letters which their journeys make;
Or plucking haws on which their fieldfares feed,
And hips and sloes; and on each shallow lake
Making glib slides, where they like shadows go
Till some fresh passtimes in their minds awake.
Then off they start anew and hasty blow
Their numbed and clumpsing fingers till they glow;
Then races with their shadows wildly run
That stride huge giants o'er the shining snow
In the pale splendour of the winter sun.

The "pale splendour of the winter sun" is even now shining through my study window. We are off to walk on Woodbury Common again (see previous entry)... and hope not to be too "numbed and clumpsing...". Incidentally, you can listen to a walk on the Common if you follow the BBC link: a treat!