The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
The Pasture FieldEthelwyn Wetherald (18571940)
W
The ragged robe of winter, stitch by stitch,
And deftly turned
To moving melody the wayside ditch,
The pale-green pasture field behind the bars
Is goldened o’er with dandelion stars.
Quick pace with sinewy, white-shirted arms,
And daily steeps
In sunny splendour all her spreading farms,
The pasture field is flooded foamy white
With daisy faces looking at the light.
Her golden wealth upon the forest floor,
And all the days
Look backward at the days that went before,
A pensive company, the asters, stand,
Their blue eyes brightening the pasture land.
A sounding trumpet to his strenuous lips,
And shapes the drifts
To curves of transient loveliness, he slips
Upon the pasture’s ineffectual brown
A swan-soft vestment delicate as down.