"Prickly brambles, white with woolly theft"

This isn't frost, or ice, or snow  but wool caught on thorns, snagged from sheltering sheep.

The title is a line from The Fleece, a neglected poem by the 18th century Welsh writer John Dyer. Don't rush to check it out though, it's neglected for a reason. The poem, which concerns the care and raising of sheep in close detail through the agricultural year, covers four volumes and is couched in high-flown poetic verbiage after the style of Virgil. No noun was without an adjective and no simple word would suffice when a more romantic one could be employed. The poem's turgid language even drew criticism from Wordsworth. Here's a tiny sample.


Now the blue vault, and now the murky cloud,
Hail, rain, or radiance; these the moon will tell,
Each bird and beast, and these thy fleecy tribe:
When high the sapphire cope, supine they couch,
And chew the cud delighted; but, ere rain,
Eager, and at unwonted hour, they feed:
Slight not the warning; soon the tempest rolls,
Scattering them wide, close rushing at the heels
Of th’ hurrying o’ertaken swains: forbear
Such nights to fold; such nights be theirs to shift
On ridge or hillock; or in homesteads soft,
Or softer cotes, detain them. Is thy lot
A chill penurious turf, to all thy toils
Untractable? Before harsh winter drowns
The noisy dykes, and starves the rushy glebe,
Shift the frail breed to sandy hamlets warm:
There let them sojourn, till gay Procne skims
The thickening verdure, and the rising flowers.
And while departing autumn all embrowns
The frequent-bitten fields.


I'm inclined to feel that the readers for whom the instruction was intended (shepherds, farmers, wool merchants and so on) were  unlikely to have waded through the volumes to check out the recommended procedures for best care of their flocks, however sound the advice contained therein. "The Argument" contains a brief run-down of the topics covered.