In The Cold And Damp Dawn Poem by Francis Duggan

An overnight frost has left the fields looking gray
In the cold and damp dawn of a December day
And only house sparrows the birds that cannot sing
Chirp on the bare trees ten weeks from the Spring
For blackbirds and thrushes on the frost hardened ground
Worms and slugs are quite hard to be found
In Northern Winters birds frail and old
In their thousands die in weather damp and cold,
From yesterday's heavy rain flood waters of brown
Are flowing bank high in the fields by the town
In latter December with January near
The weather wet and cold at the end of the old year
And the hungry cattle in the farmyard cattle shed
In the cold gray dawn bellow for to be fed.