It Is Early Spring In Ireland

It is early Spring in Ireland but the sky looking gray It has rained overnight and will rain more today And the cattle in farmyard sheds bellowing for silage or hay Many days from the calendar Spring to the true Spring of May The wind from the mountains blow with a cold chill And brown flood water is flowing bank high in every stream and rill Flowing to the big rivers to the far ocean shore Nature and her ways will live forever more It is early March in Ireland and birds do not sing And it feels more like Winter than the calendar Spring No leaf buds on the bare deciduous trees when cold March winds does blow And few flowers in the old fields and grass does not grow The weather is akin to Winter indeed And the barn swallows not yet home from far Lands to breed But every day nearer to April and May Time brings with it change as the wise one does say The mountains half cloaked in the gray fogs of rain And brown storm water flowing swiftly in every field drain The rain drizzling down from the sunless sky of gray It is more like Winter than early Spring in Ireland today.