Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TAKING AWAY THE BANKING, by WILBERT SNOW


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TAKING AWAY THE BANKING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When march winds carried prophecies of june
Last Line: When all the hills of god kept holiday.
Alternate Author Name(s): Snow, Charles Wilber
Subject(s): Farm Life; Spring; Agriculture; Farmers


When March winds carried prophecies of June,
We all went out and worked till afternoon
To take the spruce-limb banking off, and filled
The air with shouts, heaping what soon would be
A bonfire blazing by the willow-tree.

We tugged at big ends of the bottom brush,
The small ends as reluctant to let go
As winter was himself, although the rush
Of warmth, once started, was an overflow
Of sunny days, blue-birds, and brooklets racing
Like children from worn mothers, tired of chasing.

We found that spring already underneath
Had started on its work, the light-brown grasses
Were flaunting spots of green, the little teeth
Of mice and snouts of worms had chisled passes --
Worms we sent wiggling as a tempting cud
For hungry flounders coming out of mud.

O there were ugly days enough to come,
With rain and sleet and April fluffs of snow,
Big winds that moaned and made the wires hum,
And neighbors calling out, "We told you so";
But looking on it now I think the days
We coaxed the spring along, and felt the rays

Of March intensify the balsam smell
In those green boughs, and saw the underpinning
Exposed once more, and children run pell-mell
To hunt for crocuses, set fancies spinning
More rapidly than blooming hours of May
When all the hills of God kept holiday.





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