The schoolboys still their morning ramble take 
To neighboring village school with playing speed, 
Loitering with passtime'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 passtimes 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.