XXXIX
’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town
  
The golden broom should blow;
The hawthorn sprinkled up and down
  
Should charge the land with snow.
Spring will not wait the loiterer’s time
  
Who keeps so long away;
So others wear the broom and climb
  
The hedgerows heaped with may.
Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,
  
Gold that I never see;
Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge
  
That will not shower on me.
A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
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