Explore "The Year's Awakening" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
HOW do you know that the pilgrim track / Along the belting zodiac / Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds / Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds / And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud / Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud, / And never as yet a tinct of spring / Has shown in the Earth's apparelling; / O vespering bird, how do you know, / How do you know?
How do you know, deep underground, / Hid in your bed from sight and sound, / Without a turn in temperature, / With weather life can scarce endure, / That light has won a fraction's strength, / And day put on some moments' length, / Whereof in merest rote will come, / Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb; / O crocus root, how do you know, / How do you know?