Music of a thrush, clearbright Lovable language of light, heard I under a birch-tree yesterday, all grace and glee - Was ever so sweet a thing fine-plainted as his whistling ?

On the Spot

A cold clutch, a whole nestful, all but hidden
In last year's autumn leaf-mould, and I knew
By the smartness and the stillness of them, rotten,
Making death sweat of a morning dew
That didn't so much shine the shells as damp them.
I was down on my hands and knees there in the wet
Grass under the hedge, adoring it,
Early riser busy  reaching in and used to finding
Warm eggs. But instead this sudden polar stud.
And stigma and dawn stone-circle chill
In my mortified right hand, proof positive
Of what conspired on the spot to addle
Matter in its planetary stand-off.