A WOODLAND VALENTINE 



flight has the quality of sun on a ripple.) 

 Where hemlocks gather, deep in somber 

 woods, the great horned owl has thus soon, 

 perhaps working amid snows at her task, 

 built a nest wherein March will find sturdy 

 balls of fluff. The thunderous love song 

 of her mate sounds through the timber. 

 By the time the wren has nested these 

 winter babies will be solemn with the 

 wisdom of their famous race. 



There is no season like the end of Feb- 

 ruary for cleaning out brooks. Hastening 

 yellow waters toss a dreary wreckage of 

 torn or ashen leaves, twigs, acorn cups, 

 stranded rafts of bark, and buttonballs 

 from the sycamore, never to come to seed. 

 Standing on one bank or both, according 

 to the sundering flood's ambition, the 

 knight with staff and bold forefinger sets 

 the water princess free. She goes then 

 curtsying and dimpling over the shining 

 gravel, sliding from beneath the ice that 

 roofs her on the uplands down to the softer 

 valleys, where her quickened step will be 

 heard by the frogs in their mansions of 

 mud, and the fish, recluses in rayless pools, 

 will rise to the light she brings. 



Down from the frozen mountains, in 

 [9] 



