The snow has left the cottage top; The thatch moss grows in brighter green; And eaves in quick succession drop, Where pinning icicles have been; Pitpatting with a pleasant noise, In tubs set by the cottage door; While ducks and geese, with happy joys, Plunge in the yard-pond brimming o’er. The sun peeps through the window pane; Which children mark with laughing eye: And in the wet street steal again, To tell each other Spring is nigh: Then, as young Hope the past recalls, In playing groups they often draw, To build beside the sunny walls Their spring-time huts of sticks and straw. And oft in pleasure’s dreams they hie Round homesteads by the village side, Scratching the hedgerow mosses by, Where painted pooty shells abide; Mistaking oft the ivy spray For leaves that come with budding Spring, And wondering in their search for play Why birds delay to build and sing. The mavis-thrush with wild delight Upon the orchard’s dripping tree, Mutters, to see the day so bright, Fragments of young Hope’s poesy: And dame oft stops her buzzing wheel To hear the robin’s note once more, Who tootles while he pecks his meal From sweet-briar hips beside the door. The frost often returns after a few days, and binds Nature with his iron hand. In Great Britain, where the Spring is much earlier than with us, February is remarkable for what is termed the “_runs_” of moles.