The schoolboys still their morning ramble take
To neighboring village school with playing speed
Loitering with pa**time's leisure till they quake
Oft looking up the wild-geese droves to heed
Watching the letters which their journeys make
Or plucking haws on which their fieldfares feed
And hips and sloes; and on each shallow lake
Making glib slides, where they like shadows go
Till some fresh pa**times in their minds awake
Then off they start anew and hasty blow
Their numbed and clumpsing fingers till they glow
Then races with their shadows wildly run
That stride huge giants o'er the shining snow
In the pale splendour of the winter sun