I do love quiet places far from the noisy street <br />Where the sea going river and lesser creek meet <br />Where butcherbird in his cloak of brown and gray <br />Pipe his bubbling notes in the quiet Rural day <br /> <br />The water downhill to the great ocean flow <br />Yet so little of Nature's ways I seem to know <br />And even students of Nature will tell you that they <br />Learn something new of her every living day. <br /> <br />The workings of Nature beyond me to explain <br />Though from her such pleasure we all seem to gain <br />The wild duck quack and the moorhen cries out on the lake <br />And the kookaburra's laughter echoes at daybreak. <br /> <br />The first day of Winter is one day nearer Spring <br />And the praises of Nature i do love to sing <br />One might say there is a cold nip in the air <br />And the deciduous trees are now looking bare. <br /> <br />In a few weeks the tiny breeding frogs in the wind and the rain <br />Will sing in the pond and the dam and the drain <br />And though the cold sky may look overcast and gray <br />The Spring is drawing nearer with the birth of each day.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-first-day-of-winter/
