I have added question marks whenever they are needed to clarify the text. I have also given ‘and’ for the ampersand, and capitalized all names.

In poems which derive from transcripts or from earlier published texts I have removed some of the editorial punctuation to move the text rather closer to Clare’s unpunctuated manuscripts.

In those few instances where a word in an unedited manuscript text is clearly an error or oversight, I have made a silent correction.

In general, I have used no convention or spelling which is not to be found somewhere in Clare’s own manuscript.

For the sources of all texts in this edition, see pp. 362 — 3.

DAYS AND SEASONS

Clare’s day is the day of the agricultural labourer-rising with the sunrise and marking the passage of time not with watch or clock but with shifts of light, the passage of the sun, the activities of birds and beasts, the rhythms of manual labour. It is a day of sustained physical labour, more or less exhausting. When he observes the activities of other people’s days, he tends to focus on those whose tasks are immemorial — the milkmaid, the shepherd and the ploughboy, working in a rural economy that offered a tolerable level of subsistence, until the effects of enclosure changed the economy of the village for the worse, and the Napoleonic Wars were followed by severe inflation.

Where, then, is Clare in all this? Is he creating a representative scene from a gentlemanly aesthetic distance or is he, so to speak, observing himself at work? Under the influence of the poets of the eighteenth century, he veers toward the former; but as he grows into a recognition of his own social position, he tends toward the latter. It seems to have taken him many years to resolve this contradiction, but when he acquires the confidence to write from a participant’s position, his poetry embraces with increasing confidence the expressive idiosyncrasies of his own native dialect and a more nervously vibrant sense of momentariness. Because his early literary models were of the eighteenth century - genteel and cultivated - he swings between a detached kind of visitor’s connoisseurship, composing ‘typical’ vignettes in which the rustics figure as ‘clowns’ or as pastoral idealizations, and an insider’s view, which provides a more authentic sense of rural life.

Clare’s year is clearly apprehended as a cycle of seasons, each with its own distinctive tones and emotions; and here again he first inherits, absorbs and gradually abandons many of the conventions of eighteenth-century pastoral poetry, learning to trust both the intensity and the intimacy of his own distinctive sensibility, acute in its perceptions, sensitive in its apprehensions, and finding expression in the ‘dialect of his tribe’. In his winter poems he celebrates the modest comforts and oral traditions of his own class: the exigencies of outdoor labour are never far from his mind; conversely his winter-evening vignettes convey a sense of modest contentment, despite the persistence of age-old superstitious fears. Spring and summer both invite him to the evocation and praise of plenitude, of immemorial assurances, of nature’s beneficence and a realization of living growth, of an organic burgeoning that is almost erotic in its intensity. Autumn, probably his favorite season, offers both fulfilment and melancholy, harvest fruits and a most vivid sense of transience. His early poetry is mostly innocent of negative tendencies, and only in the more inclusive poetry of his early maturity does he begin to register and explore the pains and contradictions of rural England in a cruel time.

EARLY IMAGES*

Come early morning with thy mealy grey
Moist grass and fitful gales that winnow soft
And frequent - I’ll be up with early day
And roam the social way where passing oft
The milking maid who greets the pleasant morn
And shepherd with his hook in folded arm
Rocking along accross the bending corn
And hear the many sounds from distant farm
Of cackling hens and turkeys gobbling loud
And teams just plodding on their way to plough
Down russet tracks that strip the closen green
And hear the mellow low of distant cow
And see the mist up-creeping like a cloud
From hollow places in the early scene

And mark the jerking swallow jerk and fling
Its flight o’er new-mown meadows happily
And cuckoo quivering upon narrow wing
Take sudden flitting from the neighbouring tree
And heron stalking solitary thing
Mount up into high travel far away
And that mild indecision hanging round
Skys holding bland communion with the ground
In gentlest pictures of the infant day
Now picturing rain — while many a pleasing sound
Grows mellower distant in the mealy grey
Of dewy pastures and full many a sight
Seems sweeter in its indistinct array
Than when it glows in morning’s stronger light

THE MORNING WIND

There’s more then music in this early wind
Awaking like a bird refreshed from sleep
And joy what Adam might in Eden find
When he with angels did communion keep
It breathes all balm and insence from the sky
Blessing the husbandman with freshening powers
Joy’s manna from its wings doth fall and lie
Harvests for early wakers with the flowers
The very grass in joy’s devotion moves
Cowslaps in adoration and delight
This way and that bow to the breath they love
Of the young winds that with the dew pearls play
Till smoaking chimneys sicken the young light
And feeling’s fairey visions fade away

THE WHEAT RIPENING*

What time the wheat field tinges rusty brown
And barley bleaches in its mellow grey
’Tis sweet some smooth-mown baulk to wander down
Or cross the fields on footpath’s narrow way
Just in the mealy light of waking day
As glittering dewdrops moist the maiden’s gown
And sparkling bounces from her nimble feet
Journeying to milking from the neighbouring town
Making life bright with song - and it is sweet
To mark the grazing herds and list’ the clown
Urge on his ploughing team with cheering calls
And merry shepherd’s whistling toils begun
And hoarse-tongued bird-boy whose unceasing calls
Join the lark’s ditty to the rising sun

A MORNING WALK*

Ah sure it is a lovely day
As ever summer’s glory yields
And I will put my books away
And wander in the fields
Just risen is the red round sun
Cocks from the roost doth loudly bawl
And house bee busily begun
Hums round the mortered wall

And while I take my staff to start
Birds sing among the eldern leaves
And fighting sparrows glad at heart
Chirp in the cottage eaves
Nor can I help but turn and view
Ere yet I close the creaking door
The sunbeams eager peeping through
Upon the sanded floor

The twilight streaks of lightsome grey
Hath from the Eastern summit gone
And clouds cloathed in the pride of day
Put golden liverys on
The creeping sun large round and red
Yet higher hastens up and higher
Till blazing o’er its cloudy bed
It shines a ball of fire

Cows now their morning meals pursue
The carthorse to its labour’s sped
And sheep shake off the nightly dew
Just risen from their bed
The maids are out and many a smile
Are left them by the passing swain
Who as they lightly skip the stile
Will turn and smile again

All nightly things are on the run*
By daylight’s burning smiles betrayed
And gnats retreating from the sun
Fly dancing to the shade
The snail is stealing from the light
Where grass a welcome shelter weaves
And white moths shrink in cool delight
Behind the bowering leaves

The hares their fearful morsels eat
Till by a snufling dog descried
Then hastening to their snug retreat
They waited eventide
The rabbit bustled out of sight
Nor longer cropt each thymy hill
But seeks his den where gloomy night
Is kept imprisoned still

The walks that sweetest pleasure yields
When things appear so fresh and fair
Are when we wander round the fields
To breathe the morning air
The fields like spring seem young and gay
The dewy trees and painted sky
And larks as sweetly as in May
Still whistle as they fly

The woods that oft my steps recieves
I cannot search for resting bowers
For when I touch the sleepy leaves
Dews patter down in showers
But I can range the green and share
The charms the pasture scene displays
Crooking down sheep tracks here and there
That lead a thousand ways

Bowing dewdropping by the stream
The flowers glow lively on the sight
Awaking from night’s summer dream
As conscious of delight
Nor could I crop them in such hours
Without regret that I’d destroyed
A joy in my companion flowers
As sweet as I enjoyed

The stinking finweed’s blushing bloom
Their pea-like flowers appear so fair
That bees will to their bosoms come
And hope for honey there
For bumble bees ere flowers are dry
Will wake and brush the trembling dew
And drone as mellancholy by
When dreams are proved untrue

While waving rushbeds winding through
I idly swing my staff about
To free their tasseled tops from dew
The leveret startles out
And now the lark starts from its nest
But not to sing - on thistle nigh
It perks in fear and prunes its breast
Till I have journeyed bye

The resting cow just turns its head
To stare then chews its cud again
The colt more timid leaves its bed
And shakes its shaggy main
The shoy sheep flye and faster still
The wet grass smoaking ’neath their flight
When shepherds urged their whistles shrill
And dogs appear in sight

Still there is joy that will not cease
Calm hovering o‘er the face of things
That sweet tranquility and peace
That morning ever brings
The shadows by the sun portrayed
Lye basking in the golden light
E’en little hillocks stretch their shade
As if they loved the sight

The brook seemed purling sweeter by
As freshened from the cooling light
And on its breast the morning sky
Smiles beautiful and bright
The pool’s still depth as night was by
Warmed as to life in curling rings
Stirred by the touch of water flye
Or zepher’s gentle wings

And cows did on its margin lie
As blest as morn would never cease
And knapping horse grazed slowly by
That added to its peace
No flies disturbed the herding boys
Save flies the summer water breeds
That harmless shared the morning’s joys
And hummed among the weeds

Birds fluttered round the water’s brink
Then perched their dabbled wings to dry
And swallows often stooped to drink
And twittered gladly bye
And on the brook-bank’s rushy ridge
Larks sat the morning sun to share
And doves where ivy hides the bridge
Sing soothing dittys there

The leaves of ash and elms and willows
That skirt the pasture’s wildered way
Heaved to the breeze in gentle billows
Of mingled green and grey
The birds the breeze the milker’s call
The brook that in the sun did glisten
Told morn’s delight that smiled on all
As one that loves to listen

O who can shun the lovely morning
The calms the crowds of beautious things
O where’s the soul that treats with scorning
The beauty morning brings
With dewdrops braided round her hair
And opening flowers her breast adorning
O where’s the soul that cannot share
The loveliness of morning

By hedgerow side and field and brook
I love to be its partner still
To turn each leaf of nature’s book
Where all may read as will
And he who loves it not destroys
His quiet and makes life a slave
His soul is dead to loves andjoys
His own heart is their grave

The very boys appear to share
The joy of morning’s lovely hours
In rapture running here and there
To stick their hats with flowers
Some loll them by a resting stile
To listen pleasing things around -
Dove lark and bee - and try the while
To imitate the sound

The shepherd muses o‘er his hook
And quiet as the morning seems
Or reads some wild mysterious book*
On ‘fortunes, moles and dreams’
While by his side as blest as he
His dog in peaceful slumber lies
Unwakened as he used to be
To watch the teazing flies

Rapt in delight I long have stood
Gazing on scenes that seem to smile
And now to view far field and wood
I climb this battered stile
There sails the puddock still and proud
Assailed at first by swopping crows
But soon it meets the morning cloud
And scorns such humble foes

The mist that round the distance bent
By woodland side and slopeing hill
Fled as each minute came and went
More far and further still
And the blue tinge which night renewed
Round the horison’s fairey way
More faster than the eye pursued
Shrank unpercieved away

By leaning trees beneath the swail
For pleasing things I love to look
Or loll o‘er oak brig’s guarding rail
That strideth o’er the brook
To mark above the willow row
The painted windmill’s peeping sails
Seeming in its journey slow
Pleased with the easy gentle gales

And oft I sit me on the ground
Musing upon a neighbouring flower
Or list’ the church-clock’s humming sound*
To count the passing hour
Or mark the brook its journey take
In gentle curves round many a weed
Or hear the soft wind first awake
Among the rustling reed

THE HEAT OF NOON

There lies a sultry lusciousness around
The far-stretched pomp of summer which the eye
Views with a dazzled gaze — and gladly bounds
Its prospects to some pastoral spots that lie
Nestling among the hedge, confining grounds
Where in some nook the haystacks newly made
Scents the smooth level meadow-land around
While underneath the woodland’s hazley hedge
The crowding oxen make their swaily beds
And in the dry dyke thronged with rush and sedge
The restless sheep rush in to hide their heads
From the unlost and ever haunting flie
And under every tree’s projecting shade
Places as battered as the road is made

SUMMER EVENING

The sinken sun is takin’ leave
And sweetly gilds the edge of eve
While purple clouds of deepening dye
Huddling hang the western skye
Crows crowd quaking over head
Hastening to the woods to bed
Cooing sits the lonely dove
Calling home her abscent love
Kirchip kirchip ‘mong the wheat
Partridge distant partridge greet
Beckening call to those that roam
Guiding the squandering covey home
Swallows check their rambling flight
And twittering on the chimney light
Round the pond the martins flirt
Their snowy breasts bedawbd in dirt
While the mason ’neath the slates
Each morter-bearing bird awaits
Untaught by art each labouring spouse
Curious daubs his hanging house
Bats flit by in hood and cowl
Thro’ the barn hole pops the owl
From the hedge the beetles boom
Heedless buz and drousy hum
Haunting every bushy place
Flopping in the labourer’s face
Now the snail has made his ring
And the moth with snowy wing
Fluttring plays from bent to bent
Bending down with dews besprent
Then on resting branches hing
Strength to ferry* o‘er the spring
From the haycocks’ moistend heaps
Frogs now take their vaunting leaps
And along the shaven mead
Quickly travelling they proceed
Flying from their speckled sides
Dewdrops bounce as grass divides
Now the blue fog creeps along,
And the bird’s forgot his song:
Flowrets sleep within their hoods
Daisys button into buds
From soiling dew the buttercup
Shuts his golden jewels up
And the rose and woodbine they
Wait again the smiles of day
’Neath the willow’s wavy boughs
Nelly singing milks her cows
While the streamlet bubling bye
Joins in murmuring melody

Now the hedger hides his bill
And with his faggot climbs the hill
Driver Giles wi’ rumbling joll
And blind Ball jostles home the roll
Whilom Ralph for Doll to wait
Lolls him o‘er the pasture gate
Swains to fold their sheep begin
Dogs bark loud to drive ’em in
Ploughmen from their furrowy seams
Loose the weary fainting teams
Ball, wi’ cirging lashes weald
Still so slow to drive afield,
Eager blundering from the plough
Wants no whip to drive him now
At the stable door he stands
Looking round for friendly hands
To loose the door its fastening pin
Ungear him now and let him in
Round the Yard a thousand ways
The beest in expectation gaze
Tugging at the loads of hay
As passing fotherers hugs away
And hogs wi’ grumbling deafening noise
Bother round the server boys
And all around a motly troop
Anxious claim their suppering up
From the rest a blest release
Gabbling goes the fighting geese
Waddling homeward to their bed
In their warm straw-litterd shed
Nighted by unseen delay
Poking hens then loose their way
Crafty cats now sit to watch
Sparrows fighting on the thatch
Dogs lick their lips and wag their tails
When Doll brings in the milking pails
With stroaks and pats they’re welcomd in
And they with looking thanks begin
She dips the milk pail brimming o’er
And hides the dish behind the door

Prone to mischief boys are met
Gen the eaves the ladder’s set
Sly they climb and softly tread
To catch the sparrow on his bed
And kill ‘em O in cruel pride
Knocking gen the ladderside
Cursd barbarians pass me by
Come not, turks, my cottage nigh
Sure my sparrows are my own
Let ye then my birds alone
Sparrows, come from foes severe,
Fearless come, ye’re welcome here
My heart yearns for fates like thine
A sparrow’s life’s as sweet as mine
To my cottage then resort
Much I love your chirping note
Wi’ my own hands to form a nest
I’ll gi’ ye shelter peace and rest
Trifling are the deeds ye do
Great the pains ye undergo
Cruel man woud Justice serve
Their crueltys as they deserve
And justest punishment pursue
And do as they to others do
Ye mourning chirpers fluttering here
They woud no doubt be less severe
Foolhardy clown ne’er grudge the wheat
Which hunger forces them to eat
Your blinded eyes, worst foes to you,
Ne’er see the good which sparrows do
Did not the sparrows watching round
Pick up the insect from your grounds
Did not they tend your rising grain
You vain might sow - to reap in vain
Thus providence when understood
Her end and aim is doing good
Sends nothing here without its use
Which Ignorance loads with its abuse
Thus fools despise the blessing sent
And mocks the giver’s good intent
O God let me the best pursue
As I’d have other do to me
Let me the same to others do
And learn at least Humanity

Dark and darker glooms the sky
Sleep ‘gins close the labourer’s eye
Dobson on his greensward seat
Where neighbours often neighbour meet
Of crops to talk and work in hand
And battle News from foreign land
His last wift he’s puffing out
And Judie putting to the rout
Who gossiping takes great delight
To shool her knitting out at night
Jingling newsing ’bout the town
Spite o Dob’s disliking frown
Chattering at her neighbour’s door
The summons warn her to give o‘er
Prepar’d to start, she soodles home,
Her knitting twirling o’er her thumb
As, loth to leave, afraid to stay,
She bawls her story all the way:
The tale so fraught with ‘ticing charms,
Her apron folded o’er her arms,
She leaves the unfinished tale, in pain,
To end as evening comes again
And in the cottage gangs with dread,
To meet old Dobson’s timely frown,
Who grumbling sits, prepar’d for bed,
While she stands chelping ’bout the town.

Night winds now on sutty wings
In the cotter’s chimney sings
Sweet I raise my drowsy head
Thoughtful stretching on my bed
Listning to the ushering charms
That shakes the Elm tree’s mossy arms
Till soft slumbers stronger creep
Then rocked by winds I fall to sleep

MIST IN THE MEADOWS

The evening o’er the meadow seems to stoop
More distant lessens the diminished spire
Mist in the hollows reeks and curdles up
Like fallen clouds that spread - and things retire
Less seen and less - the shepherd passes near
And little distant most grotesquely shades
As walking without legs — lost to his knees
As through the rawky creeping smoke he wades
Now, half-way up, the arches dissappear
And small the bits of sky that glimmer through
Then trees loose all but tops - while fields remain
As wont - the indistinctness passes bye
The shepherd all his length is seen again
And further on the village meets the eye

WINTER EVENING

The crib-stock fothered, horses suppered-up
And cows in sheds all littered-down in straw
The threshers gone, the owls are left to whoop
The ducks go waddling with distended craw
Through little hole made in the henroost door
And geese with idle gabble never o’er
Bate careless hog untill he tumbles down
Insult provoking spite to noise the more
While fowl high-perched blink with contemptuous
frown
On all the noise and bother heard below
Over the stable ridge in crowds the crow
With jackdaws intermixed known by their noise
To the warm woods behind the village go
And whistling home for bed go weary boys

EVENING PASTIME*

Musing beside the crackling fire at night,
While singing kettle merrily prepares
Woman’s solacing beverage, I delight
To read a pleasant volume where the cares
Of life are sweetened by the muse’s voice -
Thomson or Cowper or the Bard that bears
Life’s humblest name though nature’s favoured choice
Her pastoral Bloomfield - and as evening wears
Weary with reading list’ the little tales
Of laughing childern who edge up their chairs
To tell the past day’s sport which never fails
To cheer the spirits — while my fancy shares
Their artless talk man’s sturdy reason fails
And memory’s joy grows young again with theirs

HAPPINESS OF EVENING

The winter wind with strange and fearful gust
Stirs the dark wood and in the lengthy night
Howls in the chimney top while fear’s mistrust
Listens the noise by the small glimmering light
Of cottage hearth where warm a circle sits
Of happy dwellers telling morts of tales
Where some long memory wakens up by fits
Laughter and fear and over all prevails
Wonder predominant — they sit and hear
The very hours to minutes and the song
Or story, be the subject what it may,
Is ever found too short and never long
While the uprising tempest loudly roars
And boldest hearts fear stirring out of doors

Fear’s ignorance their fancy only harms
Doors safely locked fear only entrance wins
While round the fire in every corner warms
Till nearest hitch away and rub their shins
And now the tempest in its plight begins
The shutters jar the woodbine on the wall
Rustles agen the panes and over all
The noisey storm to troublous fancy dins
And pity stirs the stoutest heart to call
‘Who’s there?’ as slow the door latch seemly stirred
But nothing answered so the sounds they heard
Was no benighted traveller - and they fall
To telling pleasant tales to conquor fear
And sing a merry song till bed time creepeth near

SUNSET

Welcome sweet eve thy gently sloping sky
And softly whispering wind that breathes of rest
And clouds unlike what daylight galloped bye
Now stopt as weary huddling in the West
Each by the farewell of day’s closing eye
Left with the smiles of heaven on its breast
Meek nurse of weariness how sweet to meet
Thy soothing tenderness to none denied
To hear thy whispering voice — ah heavenly sweet
Musing and listening by thy gentle side
Lost to life’s cares thy coloured skies to view
Picturing of pleasant worlds unknown to care
And when our bark the rough sea flounders through
Warming in hopes its end shall harbour there

COTTAGE FEARS

The evening gathers from the gloomy woods
And darkling creeps o’er silent vale and hill
While the snug village in night’s happy moods
Is resting calm and beautifully still
The windows gleam with light the yelping curs
That guards the henroost from the thieving fox
Barks now and then as somthing passing stirs
And distant dogs the noises often mocks
While foxes from the woods send dismal cries
Like somthing in distress the cottager
Hears the dread noise and thinks of danger nigh
And locks up door in haste - nor cares to stir
From the snug safety of his humble shed
Then tells strange tales till time to go to bed

NIGHT WIND

Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods
Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain
Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods
To spread and foam and deluge all the plain
The cotter listens at his door again
Half doubting whether it be floods or wind
And through the thickening darkness looks affraid
Thinking of roads that travel has to find
Through night’s black depths in danger’s garb arrayed
And the loud glabber round the flaze soon stops
When hushed to silence by the lifted hand
Of fearing dame who hears the noise in dread
And thinks a deluge comes to drown the land
Nor dares she go to bed untill the tempest drops

FIRST SIGHT OF SPRING

The hazel blooms, in threads of crimson hue,
Peep through the swelling buds and look for spring
Ere yet a whitethorn leaf appears in view
Or March finds throstles pleased enough to sing
On the old touchwood tree woodpeckers cling
A moment and their harsh-toned notes renew.
In happier mood the stockdove claps his wing
The squirrel sputters up the powdered oak
With tail cocked o’er his head and ears errect
Startled to hear the woodman’s understroke
And with the courage that his fears collect
He hisses fierce, half malice and half glee,
Leaping from branch to branch about the tree
In winter’s foliage moss and lichens drest

A SPRING MORNING

Spring cometh in with all her hues and smells
In freshness breathing over hills and dells
O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings
And meads washed fragrant with their laughing springs
Fresh as new-opened flowers untouched and free
From the bold rifling of the amorous bee
The happy time of singing birds is come
And love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home
Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove
And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love
The foxes play around their dens and bark
In joy’s excess mid woodland shadows dark
And flowers join lips below and leaves above
And every sound that meets the ear is love

POESY A-MAYING

Now comes the bonny May dancing and skipping
Accross the stepping stones of meadow streams
Bearing no kin to April showers a-weeping
But constant sunshine as her servant seems
Her heart is up — her sweetness all amaying
Streams in her face like gems on beauty’s breast
The swains are sighing all and well-a-daying
Love-sick and gazing on their lovely guest
The Sunday paths to pleasant places leading
Are graced by couples linking arm in arm
Sweet smiles enjoying or some book areading
Where love and beauty are the constant charm
For while the bonny May is dancing by
Beauty delights the ear and beauty fills the eye

The birds they sing and build and nature scorns
On May’s young festival to keep a widow
There childern too have pleasures all their own
A-plucking ladysmocks along the meadow
The little brook sings loud among the pebbles
So very loud that water-flowers which lie
Where many a silver curdle boils and dribbles
Dance too with joy as it goes singing bye
Among the pasture-molehills maidens stoop
To pluck the luscious marjoram for their bosoms
The greensward’s smothered o‘er with buttercups
And whitethorns they are breaking down with
blossoms
’Tis nature’s livery for the bonny May
Who keeps her court and all have holiday

Princess of months - so nature’s choice ordains
And lady of the summer still she reigns
In spite of April’s youth who charms in tears
And rosey June who wins with blushing face
July sweet shepherdess who wreaths the shears
Of shepherds with her flowers of winning grace
And sun-tanned August with her swarthy charms
The beautiful and rich - and pastoral gay
September with her pomp of fields and farms
And wild November’s sybilline array
In spite of beauty’s calender the year
Garlands with beauty’s prize the bonny May
Where e’er she goes fair nature hath no peer
And months do loose their queen when she’s away

Up like a princess starts the merry morning
In draperies of many-coloured cloud
And sky larks, minstrels of the early dawning,
Pipe forth their hearty anthems long and loud
The bright enarmoured sunshine goes a-maying
And every flower his laughing eye beguiles
And on the milkmaid’s rosey face a-playing
Pays court to beauty in its softest smiles
For May’s divinity of joy begun
Adds life and lustre to the golden sun
And all of life beneath its glory straying
Is by May’s beauty into worship won
Till golden eve ennobles all the West
And day goes blushing like a bride to rest

CROWS IN SPRING

The crow will tumble up and down
At the first sight of spring
And in old trees around the town
Brush winter from its wing

No longer flapping far away
To naked fen they flye
Chill fare as on a winter’s day
But field and valleys nigh

Where swains are stirring out to plough
And woods are just at hand
They seek the upland’s sunny brow
And strut from land to land

And often flap their sooty wings
And sturt to neighboring tree
And seems to try all ways to sing
And almost speaks in glee

The ploughman hears and turns his head
Above to wonder why
And there a new nest nearly made
Proclaims the winter by

The schoolboy, free from winter’s frown,
That rests on every stile
In wonder sets his basket down
To start his happy toil

SPORT IN THE MEADOWS*

May time is to the meadows coming in
And cowslap peeps have gotten e‘er so big
And water blobs and all their golden kin
Crowd round the shallows by the striding brig
Daisys and buttercups and lady smocks
Are all abouten shining here and there
Nodding about their gold and yellow locks
Like morts of folken flocking at a fair
The sheep and cows are crowding for a share
And snatch the blossoms in such eager haste
That basket-bearing childern running there
Do think within their hearts they’ll get them all
And hoot and drive them from their graceless waste
As though there wan’t a cowslap peep to spare
For they want some for tea and some for wine
And some to maken up a cucka ball
To throw accross the garland’s silken line
That reaches o’er the street from wall to wall
Good gracious me how merrily they fare
One sees a fairer cowslap then the rest
And off they shout — the foremost bidding fair
To get the prize — and earnest half and jest
The next one pops her down — and from her hand
Her basket falls and out her cowslaps all
Tumble and litter there - the merry band
In laughing friendship round about her fall
To helpen gather up the littered flowers
That she no loss may mourn - and now the wind
In frolic mood among the merry hours
Wakens with sudden start and tosses off
Some untied bonnet on its dancing wings
Away they follow with a scream and laugh
And aye the youngest ever lags behind
Till on the deep lake’s very brink it hings
They shout and catch it and away they start
The chace for cowslaps merry as before
And each one seems so anxious at the heart
As they would even get them all and more
One climbs a molehill for a bunch of may
One stands on tiptoe for a linnet’s nest
And pricks her hand and throws her flowers away
And runs for plantain leaves to have it drest
So do they run abouten all the day
And teaze the grass-hid larks from getting rest
— Scarce give they time in their unruley haste
To tie a shoestring that the grass unties
And thus they run the meadow’s bloom to waste
Till even comes and dulls their phantasys
When one finds losses out to stifle smiles
Of silken bonnet strings - and others sigh
O’er garments rent in clambering over stiles
Yet in the morning fresh afield they hie
Bidding the last day’s troubles a goodbye
When red-pied cow again their coming hears
And ere they clap the gate she tosses up
Her head and hastens from the sport she fears
The old yoe calls her lamb nor cares to stoop
To crop a cowslap in their company
Thus merrily the little noisey troop
Along the grass as rude marauders hie
For ever noisey and forever gay
While keeping in the meadow holiday

WOOD PICTURES IN SPRING

The rich brown umber hue the oaks unfold
When spring’s young sunshine bathes their trunks in
gold
So rich so beautiful so past the power
Of words to paint - my heart aches for the dower
The pencil gives to soften and infuse
This brown luxuriance of unfolding hues
This living lusious tinting woodlands give
Into a landscape that might breathe and live
And this old gate that claps against the tree
The entrance of spring’s Paradise should be
Yet paint itself with living nature fails
- The sunshine threading through these broken rails
In mellow shades — no pencil e’er conveys
And mind alone feels, fancies and pourtrays

HOME PICTURES IN MAY

The sunshine bathes in clouds of many hues
And morning’s feet are gemmed with early dews
Warm daffodils about the garden beds
Peep through their pale slim leaves their golden heads
Sweet earthly suns of spring - the gosling broods
In coats of sunny green about the road
Waddle in extacy - and in rich moods
The old hen leads her flickering chicks abroad
Oft scuttling ‘neath her wings to see the kite
Hang wavering o’er them in the spring’s blue light
The sparrows round their new nests chirp with glee
And sweet the robin spring’s young luxury shares
Tuteling* its song in feathery gooseberry tree
While watching worms the gardener’s spade unbares

SUMMER HAPPINESS

The sun looks down in such a mellow light
I cannot help but ponder in delight
To see the meadows so divinely lye
Beneath the quiet of the evening sky
The flags and rush in lights and shades of green
Look far more rich than I have ever seen
And bunches of white clover bloom again
And plats of lambtoe still in flower remain
In the brown grass that summer scythes have shorn
In every meadow level as a lawn
While peace and quiet in that silent mood
Cheers my lone heart and doth my spirits good
The level grass the sun the mottled sky
Seems waiting round to welcome passers bye

Summer is prodigal of joy, the grass
Swarms with delighted insects as I pass
And crowds of grasshoppers at every stride
Jump out all ways with happiness their guide
And from my brushing feet moths flirt away
In safer places to pursue their play
In crowds they start. I marvel, well I may,
To see such worlds of insects in the way
And more to see each thing however small
Sharing joy’s bounty that belongs to all
And here I gather by the world forgot
Harvests of comfort from their happy mood
Feeling God’s blessing dwells in every spot
And nothing lives but ows him gratitude

HAYMAKING

‘Tis haytime and the red-complexioned sun
Was scarcely up ere blackbirds had begun
Along the meadow hedges here and there
To sing loud songs to the sweet-smelling air
Where breath of flowers and grass and happy cow
Fling o’er one’s senses streams of fragrance now
While in some pleasant nook the swain and maid
Lean o‘er their rakes and loiter in the shade
Or bend a minute o’er the bridge and throw
Crumbs in their leisure to the fish below
— Hark at that happy shout — and song between
’Tis pleasure’s birthday in her meadow scene.
What joy seems half so rich from pleasure won
As the loud laugh of maidens in the sun?

WOOD PICTURES IN SUMMER

The one delicious green that now prevades
The woods and fields in endless lights and shades
And that deep softness of delicious hues
That overhead blends - softens - and subdues
The eye to extacy and fills the mind
With views and visions of enchanting kind
While on the velvet down beneath the swail
I sit on mossy stulp and broken rail
Or lean o’er crippled gate by hugh old tree
Broken by boys disporting there at swee
While sunshine spread from an exaustless sky
Gives all things extacy as well as I
And all wood-swaily places, even they
Are joy’s own tennants, keeping holiday

THE HAIL STORM IN JUNE 1831

Darkness came o’er like chaos — and the sun
As startled with the terror seemed to run
With quickened dread behind the beetling cloud
The old wood sung like nature in her shroud
And each old rifted oak-tree’s mossy arm
Seemed shrinking from the presence of the storm
And as it nearer came they shook beyond
Their former fears - as if to burst the bond
Of earth that bound them to that ancient place
Where danger seemed to threaten all their race
Who had withstood all tempests since their birth
Yet now seemed bowing to the very earth
Like reeds they bent like drunken men they reeled
Till man from shelter ran and sought the open field

THE SUMMER SHOWER

I love it well, o’ercanopied in leaves
Of crowding woods, to spend a quiet hour
And where the woodbine weaves
To list’ the summer shower

Brought by the South-west wind that balm and bland
Breathes luscious coolness loved and felt by all
While on the uplifted hand
The raindrops gently fall

Now quickening on and on the pattering woods
Recieves the coming shower birds trim their wings
And in a joyful mood
The little woodchat sings

And blackbird squatting in her mortared nest
Safe hid in ivy and the pathless wood
Pruneth her sooty breast
And warms her downy brood

And little Pettichap like hurrying mouse
Keeps nimbling near my arbour round and round
Aye there’s her oven house
Built nearly on the ground

Of woodbents withered straws and moss and leaves
And lined with downy feathers. Safety’s joy
Dwells with the home she weaves
Nor fears the pilfering boy

The busy falling rain increases now
And sopping leaves their dripping moisture pour
And from each loaded bough
Fast falls the double shower

Weed climbing hedges banks and meeds unmown
Where rushy fringed brooklet easy curls
Look joyous while the rain
Strings their green suit with pearls

While from the crouching corn the weeding troop
Run hastily and huddling in a ring
Where the old willows stoop
Their ancient ballads sing

And gabble over wonder’s ceaseless tale
Till from the South-west sky showers thicker come
Humming along the vale
And bids them hasten home

With laughing skip they stride the hasty brook
That mutters through the weeds untill it gains
A clear and quiet nook
To greet the dimpling rain

And on they drabble all in mirth not mute
Leaving their footmarks on the elting soil
Where print of sprawling foot
Stirs up a tittering smile

On beauty’s lips who slipping mid the crowd
Blushes to have her anckle seen so high
Yet inly feeleth proud
That none a fault can spy

Yet rudely followed by the meddling clown
Who passes vulgar gibes - the bashful maid
Lets go her folded gown
And pauses half afraid

To climb the stile before him till the dame,
To quarrel half-provoked, assails the knave
And laughs him into shame
And makes him well behave

Bird-nesting boys o’ertaken in the rain
Beneath the ivied maple bustling run
And wait in anxious pain
Impatient for the sun

And sigh for home yet at the pasture gate
The molehill-tossing bull with straining eye
Seemeth their steps to wait
Nor dare they pass him bye

Till wearied out high over hedge they scrawl
To shun the road and through the wet grass roam
Till wet and draggled all
They fear to venture home

The plough-team wet and dripping plashes home
And on the horse the ploughboy lolls along
Yet from the wet grounds come
The loud and merry song

Now ‘neath the leafy arch of dripping bough
That loaded trees form o’er the narrow lane
The horse released from plough
Naps the moist grass again

Around their blanket camps the gipseys still
Heedless of showers while blackthorns shelter round
Jump o’er the pasture hills
In many an idle bound

From dark green clumps among the dripping grain
The lark with sudden impulse starts and sings
And mid the smoaking rain
Quivers her russet wings

A joy-inspiring calmness all around
Breathes a refreshing sense of strengthening power
Like that which toil hath found
In Sunday’s leisure hour

When spirits all relaxed heartsick of toil
Seeks out the pleasant woods and shadowy dells
And where the fountain boils
Lye listening distant bells

Amid the yellow furze, the rabbit’s bed,
Labour hath hid his tools and o’er the heath
Hies to the milking shed
That stands the oak beneath

And there he wiles the pleasant shower away
Filling his mind with store of happy things
Rich crops of corn and hay
And all that plenty brings

The crampt horison now leans on the ground
Quiet and cool, and labour’s hard employ
Ceases while all around
Falls a refreshing joy

BEANS IN BLOSSOM

The South-west wind, how pleasant in the face
It breathes, while sauntering in a musing pace
I roam these new-ploughed fields and by the side
Of this old wood where happy birds abide
And the rich blackbird through his golden bill
Utters wild music when the rest are still
Now luscious comes the scent of blossomed beans
That o’er the path in rich disorder leans
Mid which the bees in busy songs and toils
Load home luxuriantly their yellow spoils
The herd cows toss the molehills in their play
And often stand the stranger’s steps at bay
Mid clover blossoms red and tawney white
Strong-scented with the summer’s warm delight

SUMMER MOODS

I love at eventide to walk alone
Down narrow lanes o‘erhung with dewy thorn
Where, from the long grass underneath, the snail
Jet-black creeps out and sprouts his timid horn
I love to muse o’er meadows newly mown
Where withering grass perfumes the sultry air
Where bees search round with sad and weary drone
In vain for flowers that bloomed but newly there
While in the juicey corn the hidden quail
Cries ‘wet my foot’ and, hid as thoughts unborn,
The fairy-like and seldom-seen land-rail
Utters ‘craik craik’ like voices underground
Right glad to meet the evening’s dewy veil
And see the light fade into glooms around

SUMMER IMAGES

Now swathy summer by rude health embrowned
Presedence takes of rosey-fingered spring
And laughing joy with wild flowers prankt and
crowned
A wild and giddy thing
With health robust from every care unbound
Comes on the zepher’s wing
And cheers the toiling clown

Happy as holiday-enjoying face
Loud-tongued and ‘merry as a marriage-bell’
Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place
And where the troubled dwell
Thy ’witching smiles weans them of half their cares
And from thy sunny spell
They greet joy unawares

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude
And mantle laced with gems of garish light
Come as of wont - for I would fain intrude
And in the world’s despite
Share the rude mirth that thine own heart beguiles
If haply so I might
Win pleasure from thy smiles

Me not the noise of brawling pleasures cheer
In nightly revels or in city streets
But joys which soothe and not distract mine ear
That one at leisure meets
In the green woods and meadows summer-shorn
Or fields where bee-fly greets
One’s ear with mellow horn

Where green-swathed grasshopper on treble pipe
Singeth and danceth in mad-hearted pranks
And bees go courting every flower that’s ripe
On baulks and sunny banks
And droning dragonflye on rude bassoon
Striveth to give God thanks
In no discordant tune

Where speckled thrush by self-delight embued
Singeth unto himself for joy’s amends
And drinks the honey dew of solitude
Where happiness attends
With inbred joy untill his heart oerflows
Of which the world’s rude friends
Nought heeding nothing knows

Where the gay river laughing as it goes
Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides
And to the calm of heart in calmness shows
What pleasure there abides
To trace its sedgy banks from trouble free
Spots solitude provides
To muse and happy be

Or ruminating ’neath some pleasant bush
On sweet silk grasses stretch me at mine ease
Where I can pillow on the yielding rush
And acting as I please
Drop into pleasant dreams or musing lye
Mark the wind-shaken trees
And cloud-betravelled sky

And think me how some barter joy for care
And waste life’s summer health in riot rude
Of nature nor of nature’s sweets aware
Where passions vain intrude
These by calm musings softened are and still
And the heart’s better mood
Feels sick of doing ill

Here I can live and at my leisure seek
Joys far from cold restraints — not fearing pride
Free as the winds that breathe upon my cheek
Rude health so long denied
Where poor integrity can sit at ease
And list’ self-satisfied
The song of honey bees

And green lane traverse heedless where it goes
Naught guessing till some sudden turn espies
Rude battered finger-post that stooping shows
Where the snug mystery lies
And then a mossy spire with ivy crown
Clears up the short supprise
And shows the peeping town

And see the wild flowers in their summer morn
Of beauty feeding on joy’s luscious hours
The gay convolvulus wreathing round the thorn
Agape for honey showers
And slender kingcup burnished with the dew
Of morning’s early hours
Like gold yminted new

And mark by rustic bridge o’er shallow stream
Cow-tending boy to toil unreconsiled
Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream
And now in gestures wild
Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall
Feeling self-gratified
Nor fearing human thhrall

Then thread the sunny valley laced with streams
Or forests rude and the o’ershadowed brims
Of simple ponds where idle shepherd dreams
And streaks his listless limbs
Or trace hay-scented meadow smooth and long
Wherejoy’s wild impulse swims
In one continued song

I love at early morn from new-mown swath
To see the startled frog his rout pursue*
And mark while leaping o’er the dripping path
His bright sides scatter dew
And early lark that from its bustle flyes -
To hail his mattin new
And watch him to the skyes

And note on hedgerow-baulks in moisture sprent
The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn
In earnest heed and tremulous intent
Frail brother of the morn
That from the tiney bents and misted leaves
Withdraws his timid horn
And fearful vision weaves

And swallows heed* on smoke-tanned chimney-top
As wont be first unsealing morning’s eye
Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop
Of honey on his thigh
And see him seek morn’s airy couch to sing
Untill the golden sky
Besprents his russet wing

And sawning boy by tanning corn espy
With clapping noise to startle birds away
And hear him bawl to every passer-bye
To know the hour of day
And see the uncradled breeze refreshed and strong
With waking blossoms play
And breathe Eolian song

I love the South-west wind or low or loud
And not the less when sudden drops of rain
Moistens my glowing cheek from ebon cloud
Threatening soft showers again
That over lands new-ploughed and meadow-grounds
Summer’s sweet breath unchains
And wakes harmonious sounds

Rich music breathes in summer’s every sound
And in her harmony of varied greens
Woods meadows hedgrows cornfields all around
Much beauty intervenes
Filling with harmony the ear and eye
While o’er the mingling scenes
Far spreads the laughing sky

And wind-enarmourd aspin* — mark the leaves
Turn up their silver lining to the sun
And list the brustling noise that oft decieves
And make the sheep-boy run
The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers
He thinks the rain begun
And hastes to sheltering bowers

And mark the evening curdle dank and grey
Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed
And moping owl to close the lids of day
On drowsy wing proceed
While chickering cricket tremulous and long
Light’s farewell inly heeds
And gives it parting song

While pranking bat its flighty circlet makes
And gloworm burnisheth its lamp anew
O’er meadows dew-besprent - and beetle wakes
Enquiries ever new
Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain
As wonting* to pursue
His homeward path again

And catch the melody of distant bells
That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds
By fitful starts - then musically swells
O’er the dim stilly grounds
While on the meadow-bridge the pausing boy
Listens the mellow sounds
And hums in vacant joy

And now the homebound hedger bundles round
His evening faggot and with every stride
His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound
Till silly sheep beside
His path start tremulous and once again
Look back dissatisfied
And scan the dewy plain

And greet the soothing calm that smoothly stills
O’er the heart’s every sense its opiate dews
In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills
That softens and subdues
With gentle quiet’s bland and sober train
Which dreamy eve renews
In many a mellow strain

I love to walk the fields they are to me
A legacy no evil can destroy
They like a spell set every rapture free
That cheered me when a boy
Play, pastime — all time’s blotting pen conseals —
Come like a new-born joy
To greet me in the fields

For nature’s objects ever harmonize
With emulous taste that vulgar deed anoys
It loves in quiet moods to sympathise
And meet vibrating joys
O’er nature’s pleasant things - nor slighting deems
Pastimes the muse employs
As vain obtrusive themes

THE SUMMER GONE

The summer she is gone her book is shut
That did my idle leisure so engage
Her pictures were so many — some I put
On memory’s scroll - Of some I turned the page
Adown for pleasure’s after-heritage
But I have stayed too long — and she is gone.
Decay her stormy strife begins to wage
Scenes flit and change and new scenes hurry on
Till winter’s hungry maw shall gorge them every one

The cleanly maiden down the village streets
In pattens clicks o’er causways never dry
While eves drop on her cap - and oft she meets
The laughing urchin with mischevious eye
Who tryes to plash her as she hurrys bye
The swains afield right early seek their ploughs
And to the maids right vulgar speech applies
Yet gentler shepherd pleads and she alows
His proffered aid to help her over sloughs

The hedger soaked with the dull weather chops
On at his toils which scarcely keep him warm
At every stroke he takes, large swarms of drops
Patter about him like an April storm
The sticking dame with cloak upon her arm
To guard against the storm walks the wet leas
Of willow groves or hedges round the farms
Picking up aught her splashy wandering sees
E’en withered kecks - and sticks winds shake from off
the trees

Boys often clamber up a sweeing tree
To see the scarlet hunter hurry bye
And fain would in their merry uproar be
But sullen labour hath its tethering tie
Crows swop around and some on bushes nigh
Watch for a chance whene’er he turns away
To settle down their hunger to supply
From morn to eve bird-scaring claims his stay
Save now and then an hour which leisure steals for play

Gaunt greyhounds now the coursers’ sports impart
With long legs stretched on tiptoe for the chace
And short loose ear and eye upon the start
Swift as the winds their motions they unlace
When bobs the hare up from her hiding place
Who in its furry coat of fallow stain
Squats on the lands or with a dodging pace
Trys its old coverts of wood grass to gain
And oft by cunning ways makes all their speed in vain

The pigeon with its breast of many hues
That spangles to the sun — turns round and round
About his timid paramour and coos
Upon the cottage ridge - while o‘er them wews
The puddock and below the clocking hen
Calls loud her chickens out of danger’s way
That skulk and scuttle ’neath her wings again
Nor peeps again till danger’s far away
And one bye one they peep and hardly dare to stray

So summer went and so the autumn goes
Hedge orchard wood to red and yellow turn
The lark-becrowding field a desert grows
The brooks that sung do nothing else but mourn
For company - there long-necked cranes sojourn
Unstartled by the groups that summer gave
When reapers shepherds all with thirst did burn
And thronged its stream - aye life need little crave
For such will winter be in the unnoticed grave

AUTUMN MORNING

The autumn morning waked by many a gun
Throws o‘er the fields her many-coloured light
Wood wildly touched close-tanned and stubbles dun
A motley paradise for earth’s delight
Clouds ripple as the darkness breaks to light
And clover fields are hid with silver mist
One shower of cobwebs o’er the surface spread
And threads of silk in strange disorder twist
Round every leaf and blossom’s bottly head
Hares in the drowning herbage scarcely steal
But on the battered pathway squats abed
And by the cart-rut nips her morning meal
Look where we may the scene is strange and new
And every object wears a changing hue

NUTTERS

The rural occupations of the year
Are each a fitting theme for pastoral song
And pleasing in our autumn paths appear
The groups of nutters as they chat along
The woodland-rides in strangest dissabille
Maids jacketed grotesque in garments ill
Hiding their elegance of shape - her ways
Her voice of music makes her woman still
Aught else the error of a careless gaze
Might fancy uncooth rustics noising bye
With laugh and chat and scraps of morning news
Till met the hazel shades and in they hie
Garbed suiting to the toil - the morning dews
Among the underwood are hardly dry
Yet down with crack and rustle branches come
And springing up like bow unloosed when free
Of their ripe clustering bunches brown - while some
Are split and broken under many a tree
Up springs the blundering pheasant with the noise
Loud brawls the maiden to her friends scared sore
And loud with mimic voice mischevous boys
Ape stranger voices to affright her more
Eccho long silent answers many a call
Straggling about the wildwood’s guessing way
Till by the woodside waiting one and all
They gather homeward at the close of day
While maids with hastier step from sheperds’ brawl
Speed on half-shamed of their strange dissaray

NUTTING

The sun had stooped his westward clouds to win
Like weary traveller seeking for an Inn
When from the hazelly wood we glad descried
The ivied gateway by the pasture side
Long had we sought for nutts amid the shade
Where silence fled the rustle that we made
When torn by briars and brushed by sedges rank
We left the wood and on the velvet bank
Of short-sward pasture-ground we sat us down
To shell our nutts before we reached the town
The near-hand stubble-field with mellow glower
Showed the dimmed blaze of poppys still in flower
And sweet the molehills smelt we sat upon
And now the thyme’s in bloom, but where is pleasure
gone?*

SIGNS OF WINTER

‘Tis winter plain the images around
Protentious tell us of the closing year
Short grows the stupid day the moping fowl
Go roost at noon-upon the mossy barn
The thatcher hangs and lays the frequent yaum
Nudged close to stop the rain that drizzling falls
With scarce one interval of sunny sky
For weeks still leaking on that sulky gloom
Muggy and close a doubt ’twixt night and day
The sparrow rarely chirps the thresher pale
Twanks with sharp measured raps the weary flail
Thump after thump right tiresome to the ear
The hedger lonesome brustles at his toil
And shepherds trudge the fields without a song

The cat runs races with her tail- the dog
Leaps o’er the orchard hedge and knarls the grass
The swine run round and grunt and play with straw
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack
Sudden upon the elm-tree tops the crows
Unceremonious visit pays and croaks
Then swops away-from mossy barn the owl
Bobs hasty out - wheels round and scared as soon
As hastily retires — the ducks grow wild
And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel
A circle round the village and soon tired
Plunge in the pond again - the maids in haste
Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizled cloaths
And laughing hurry in to keep them dry

WOOD PICTURES IN WINTER

The woodland swamps with mosses varified
And bullrush forrests bowing by the side
Of shagroot sallows that snug shelter make
For the coy morehen in her bushy lake
Into whose tide a little runnel weaves
Such charms for silence through the choaking leaves
And whimpling melodies that but intrude
As lullabys to ancient solitude
— The wood-grass plats which last year left behind
Weaving their feathery lightness to the wind
Look now as picturesque amid the scene
As when the summer glossed their stems in green
While hasty hare* brunts through the creepy gap
Seeks their soft beds and squats in safety’s lap

EMMONSAILS HEATH*IN WINTER

I love to see the old heath’s withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow and flaps his melancholly wing
And oddling crow in idle motion swing
On the half-rotten ash-tree’s topmost twig
Beside whose trunk the gipsey makes his bed
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread
The fieldfare chatter in the whistling thorn
And for the awe round fields and closen rove
And coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
And hang on little twigs and start again

THE FLOOD

On Lolham Brigs* in wild and lonely mood
I’ve seen the winter floods their gambols play
Through each old arch that trembled while I stood
Bent o‘er its wall to watch the dashing spray
As their old stations would be washed away
Crash came the ice against the jambs and then
A shudder jarred the arches - yet once more
It breasted raving waves and stood agen
To wait the shock as stubborn as before
— White foam brown-crested with the russet soil
As washed from new-ploughd lands would dart beneath
Then round and round a thousand eddies boil
On ’tother side - then pause as if for breath
One minute — and ingulphed — like life in death

Whose wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift then shadows in a stormy day
Straws trail and turn and steady - all in vain
The engulphing arches shoot them quickly through.
The feather dances flutters and again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat
Seeming as faireys whisked it from the view
And danced it o’er the waves as pleasure’s boat
Light-hearted as a merry thought in May —
Trays — uptorn bushes — fence demolished rails
Loaded with weeds in sluggish motions stray
Like water-monsters lost, each winds and trails
Till near the arches - then as in affright
It plunges - reels - and shudders out of sight

Waves trough - rebound - and fury boil again
Like plunging monsters rising underneath
Who at the top curl up a shaggy main
A moment catching at a surer breath
Then plunging headlong down and down — and on
Each following boil the shadow of the last
And other monsters rise when those are gone
Crest their fringed waves - plunge onward and are past
— The chill air comes around me ocean-blea
From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread
Strange birds like snow spots o’er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled
On roars the flood — all restless to be free
Like trouble wandering to eternity

SNOW STORM

Winter is come in earnest and the snow
In dazzling splendour crumping underfoot
Spreads a white world all calm and where we go
By hedge or wood, trees shine from top to root
In feathered foliage flashing light and shade
Of strangest contrast — fancy’s pliant eye
Delighted sees a vast romance displayed
And fairy halls descended from the sky
The smallest twig its snowy burthen bears
And woods o’erhead the dullest eyes engage
To shape strange things - where arch and pillar bears
A roof of grains fantastic arched and high
A little shed beside the spinney wears
The grotesque zemblance of an hermitage
One almost sees the hermit from the wood
Come bending with his sticks beneath his arm
And then the smoke curl up its dusky flood
From the white little roof his peace to warm
One shapes his books his quiet and his joys
And in romance’s world-forgetting mood
The scene so strange so fancy’s mind employs
It seems heart-aching for his solitude
Domestic spots near home and trod so oft
Seem daily - known for years - by the strange wand
Of winter’s humour changed - the little croft
Left green at night when morn’s loth look obtrudes
Trees bushes grass to one wild garb subdued
Are gone and left us in another land

WINTER

Old January clad in crispy rime
Comes hirpling on and often makes a stand
The hasty snowstorm ne‘er disturbs his time
He mends no pace but beats his dithering hand
And Febuery like a timid maid
Smiling and sorrowing follows in his train
Huddled in cloak, of mirey roads affraid,
She hastens on to greet her home again
Then March the prophetess by storms inspired
Gazes in rapture on the troubled sky
And then in headlong fury madly fired
She bids the hail-storm boil and hurry bye
Yet ’neath the blackest cloud a sunbeam flings
Its cheering promise of returning spring

LANDSCAPES WITH FIGURES

Clare’s landscape was not at all a conventionally pretty one: curious visitors who came to see the ‘peasant poet’ were astonished that so rich a poetry could have been inspired by so grudging a landscape, for it yielded satisfactions only to those with an unhurried and intimate knowledge.

For Clare, the landscape of his childhood was to remain throughout his life an emblem of Paradise, of Eden, and the poetry of his early and middle years-up to about 1835 — displays a clarity and acuity of observation, rooted in a preternaturally intense bond of love and an unusually vivid sense of belonging, of affinity, of sympathy and - one must add - dependency. It is as if his relationship with particular trees, streams, prospects was a very close friendship, or a love-affair.

When people figure in his landscape, they offer the possibility of an intimate social meaning: the scene need no longer offer merely picturesque spectacle but may become socially significant, encompassing a distinctive culture waiting to be interpreted. As his independence of spirit grew, such figures change from being simply appropriate human elements within a composition, and come to represent some of the strains and contradictions of English society. Clare’s allegiances evolve quite clearly: he is more attuned to the company of the ‘vulgar’ - shepherd boys and gypsies - than to the squirearchy or the parsonage. In his mature poetry, the hierarchical conventions of taste, rooted in traditions of cultural subordination, are quietly subverted, so that ‘common’ is endowed with positive force, and the term ‘vulgar’ is applied not to the rural poor-his own social class-but to those who would use the land simply for economic gain.

His own status was paradoxical: he was both of the common people and also detached from them by his vocation: the term bestowed on him by the polite literary world — ‘peasant poet’ — expresses this contradiction. In freeing himself from this categorization he became what some few wise spirits recognized — the ‘green man’; and evolved a descriptive language perfectly attuned to his own landscapes, a language that achieved a delicate marriage of ‘literature’ and of folk poetry - a green language, in which the term ‘poetry’ speaks of two sides of the same coin — both the natural world and the text committed to a loving mediation of that world. In the elegies of his middle years he discovered a world that could fail him, in which he felt adrift, alienated, even lost; what more characteristic than that of such a place he should use the adjective ‘vague’?

PLEASANT PLACES

Old stone pits with veined ivy overhung
Wild crooked brooks o‘er which was rudely flung
A rail and plank that bends beneath the tread
Old narrow lanes where trees meet overhead
Path stiles on which a steeple we espy
Peeping and stretching in the distant sky
And heaths o’erspread with furze blooms’ sunny shine
Where wonder pauses to exclaim ‘divine’
Old ponds dim-shadowed with a broken tree -
These are the picturesque of taste to me
While painting winds to make compleat the scene
In rich confusion mingles every green
Waving the sketching pencil* in their hands
Shading the living scenes to fairey lands

PLEASANT SPOTS

There is a wild and beautiful neglect
About the fields that so delights and cheers
Where nature her own feelings to effect
Is left at her own silent work for years
The simplest thing thrown in our way delights
From the wild careless feature that it wears
The very road that wanders out of sight
Crooked and free is pleasant to behold
And such the very weeds left free to flower
Corn poppys red and carlock gleaming gold
That makes the cornfields shine in summer’s hour
Like painted skys - and fancy’s distant eye
May well imagine armys marching bye
In all the grand array of pomp and power

THE HOLLOW TREE

How oft a summer shower hath started me
To seek for shelter in a hollow tree
Old hugh ash-dotterel wasted to a shell
Whose vigorous head still grew and flourished well
Where ten might sit upon the battered floor
And still look round discovering room for more
And he who chose a hermit life to share
Might have a door and make a cabin there
They seemed so like a house that our desires
Would call them so and make our gipsey fires
And eat field dinners of the juicey peas
Till we were wet and drabbled to the knees
But in our old tree-house rain as it might
Not one drop fell although it rained till night

THE CRAB TREE

Spring comes anew and brings each little pledge
That still as wont my childish heart decieves
I stoop again for violets in the hedge
Among the ivy and old withered leaves
And often mark amid the clumps of sedge
The pooty shells I gathered when a boy
But cares have claimed me many an evil day
And chilled the relish which I had for joy
Yet when crab-blossoms blush among the may
As wont in years gone bye I scramble now
Up mid the bramble for my old esteems
Filling my hands with many a blooming bough
Till the heart-stirring past as present seems
Save the bright sunshine of those fairy dreams

SWORDY WELL

I’ve loved thee Swordy Well and love thee still
Long was I with thee tending sheep and cow
In boyhood ramping up each steepy hill
To play at ‘roly poly’ down - and now
A man I trifle o’er thee cares to kill
Haunting thy mossy steeps to botanize
And hunt the orchis tribes where nature’s skill
Doth like my thoughts run into phantasys
Spider and Bee all mimicking at will
Displaying powers that fools the proudly wise
Showing the wonders of great nature’s plan
In trifles insignificant and small
Puzzling the power of that great trifle man
Who finds no reason to be proud at all*

STRAY WALKS*

How pleasant are the fields to roam and think
Whole sabbaths through, unnoticed and alone
Beside the little molehill-skirted brink
Of the small brook that skips o‘er many a stone
Or green woodside where many a squatting oak
Far o’er grass screeds their white-stained branches hing
Forming in pleasant close a happy seat
To nestle in while small birds chirp and sing
And the loud blackbird will its mate provoke
More louder yet its chorus to repeat
How pleasant is it thus to think and roam
The many paths, scarce knowing which to chuse
All full of pleasant scenes - then wander home
And o‘er the beautys we have met to muse
’Tis Sunday and the little paths that wind
Through closen green by hedges and wood sides
And like a brook corn-crowded slope divides
Of pleasant fields - their frequent passers find
From early morn to mellow close of day
On different errands climbing many stiles
O’erhung with awthorn tempting haste to stay
And cool some moments of the road away
When hot and high the uncheckt summer smiles
Some journeying to the little hamlet hid
In dark surrounding trees to see their friends
While some sweet leisure’s aimless road pursue
Wherever fancy’s musing pleasure wends
To woods or lakes or church that’s never out of view

EMMONSALES HEATH

In thy wild garb of other times
I find thee lingering still
Furze o’er each lazy summit climbs
At nature’s easy will

Grasses that never knew a scythe
Waves all the summer long
And wild weed blossoms waken blythe
That ploughshares never wrong

Stern industry with stubborn toil
And wants unsatisfied
Still leaves untouched thy maiden soil
In its unsullied pride

The birds still find their summer shade
To build their nests again
And the poor hare its rushy glade
To hide from savage men

Nature its family protects
In thy security
And blooms that love what man neglects
Find peaceful homes in thee

The wild rose scents thy summer air
And woodbines weave in bowers
To glad the swain sojourning there
And maidens gathering flowers

Creation’s steps one’s wandering meets
Untouched by those of man
Things seem the same in such retreats
As when the world began

Furze ling and brake all mingling free
And grass forever green
All seem the same old things to be
As they have ever been

The brook o’er such neglected ground
One’s weariness to soothe
Still wildly threads its lawless bounds
And chafes the pebble smooth

Crooked and rude as when at first
Its waters learned to stray
And from their mossy fountain burst
It washed itself a way

O who can pass such lovely spots
Without a wish to stray
And leave life’s cares a while forgot
To muse an hour away

I’ve often met with places rude
Nor failed their sweet to share
But passed an hour with solitude
And left my blessing there

He that can meet the morning wind
And o’er such places roam
Nor leave a lingering wish behind
To make their peace his home -

His heart is dead to quiet hours
No love his mind employs
Poesy with him ne’er shares its flowers
Nor solitude its joys

O there are spots amid thy bowers
Which nature loves to find
Where spring drops round her earliest flowers
Uncheckt by winter’s wind

Where cowslips wake the child’s supprise
Sweet peeping ere their time
Ere April spreads her dappled skyes
Mid morning’s powdered rime

I’ve stretched my boyish walks to thee
When Mayday’s paths were dry
When leaves had nearly hid each tree
And grass greened ancle-high

And mused the sunny hours away
And thought of little things
That children mutter o’er their play
When fancy trys its wings

Joy nursed me in her happy moods
And all life’s little crowd
That haunt the waters fields and woods
Would sing their joys aloud

I thought how kind that mighty power
Must in his splendour be
Who spread around my boyish hour
Such gleams of harmony

Who did with joyous rapture fill
The low as well as high
And make the pismires round the hill
Seem full as blest as I

Hope’s sun is seen of every eye
The halo that it gives
In nature’s wide and common sky
Cheers every thing that lives

WOOD RIDES

Who hath not felt the influence that so calms
The weary mind in summer’s sultry hours
When wandering thickest woods beneath the arms
Of ancient oaks and brushing nameless flowers
That verge the little ride? Who hath not made
A minute’s waste of time and sat him down
Upon a pleasant swell to gaze awhile
On crowding ferns bluebells and hazel leaves
And showers of lady smocks so called by toil
When boys sprote-gathering sit on stulps and weave
Garlands while barkmen pill the fallen tree
- Then mid the green variety to start?
Who hath not met that mood from turmoil free
And felt a placid joy refreshed at heart?

STEPPING-STONES

The stepping-stones that stride the meadow streams
Look picturesque amid spring’s golden gleams
Where steps the traveller with a wary pace
And boy with laughing leisure in his face
Sits on the midmost stone in very whim
To catch the struttles that beneath him swim
While those accross the hollow lakes are bare
And winter floods no more rave dangers there
But mid the scum left where it roared and fell
The schoolboy hunts to find the pooty shell
Yet there the boisterous geese with golden broods
Hiss fierce and daring in their summer moods
The boys pull off their hats while passing bye
In vain to fright - themselves being forced to fly

WINTER FIELDS

O for a pleasant book to cheat the sway
Of winter — where rich mirth with hearty laugh
Listens and rubs his legs on corner seat
For fields are mire and sludge — and badly off
Are those who on their pudgy paths delay
There striding shepherd seeking driest way
Fearing night’s wetshod feet and hacking cough
That keeps him waken till the peep of day
Goes shouldering onward and with ready hook
Progs oft to ford the sloughs that nearly meet
Accross the lands - croodling and thin to view
His loath dog follows - stops and quakes and looks
For better roads - till whistled to pursue
Then on with frequent jump he hirkles through

SNOW STORM

What a night the wind howls hisses and but stops
To howl more loud while the snow volly keeps
Insessant batter at the window pane
Making our comfort feel as sweet again
And in the morning when the tempest drops
At every cottage-door mountainious heaps
Of snow lies drifted that all entrance stops
Untill the beesom and the shovel gains
The path - and leaves a wall on either side -
The shepherd rambling valleys white and wide
With new sensations his old memorys fills
When hedges left at night, no more descried,
Are turned to one white sweep of curving hills
And trees, turned bushes, half their bodys hide

The boy that goes to fodder with supprise
Walks o‘er the gate he opened yesternight
The hedges all have vanished from his eyes
E’en some tree tops the sheep could reach to bite
The novel scene emboldens new delight
And though with cautious steps his sports begin
He bolder shuffles the hugh hills of snow
Till down he drops and plunges to the chin
And struggles much and oft escape to win
Then turns and laughs but dare not further go
For deep the grass and bushes lie below
Where little birds that soon at eve went in
With heads tucked in their wings now pine for day
And little feel boys o’er their heads can stray

EVENING SCHOOLBOYS

Harken that happy shout — the school-house door
Is open thrown and out the younkers teem
Some run to leapfrog on the rushy moor
And others dabble in the shallow stream
Catching young fish and turning pebbles o‘er
For mussel clams - Look in that mellow gleam
Where the retiring sun that rests the while
Streams through the broken hedge - How happy seem
Those schoolboy friendships leaning o’er the stile
Both reading in one book — anon a dream
Rich with new joys doth their young hearts beguile
And the book’s pocketed most hastily
Ah happy boys well may ye turn and smile
When joys are yours that never cost a sigh

THE FODDERING BOY

The foddering boy along the crumping snows
With strawband-belted legs and folded arm
Hastens and on the blast that keenly blows
Oft turns for breath and beats his fingers warm
And shakes the lodging snows from off his cloaths
Buttoning his doublet closer from the storm
And slouching his brown beaver o’er his nose
Then faces it agen - and seeks the stack
Within its circling fence — where hungry lows
Expecting cattle making many a track
About the snows - impatient for the sound
When in hugh forkfulls trailing at his back
He litters the sweet hay about the ground
And brawls to call the staring cattle round

THE SHEPHERD BOY

Pleased in his loneliness he often lies
Telling glad stories to his dog — and e‘en
His very shadow that the loss supplies
Of living company. Full oft he’ll lean
By pebbled brooks and dream with happy eyes
Upon the fairey pictures spread below
Thinking the shadowed prospect real skies
And happy heavens where his kindred go
Oft we may track his haunts where he hath been
To spend the leisure which his toils bestow
By ’nine peg morris’ nicked upon the green
Or flower-stuck gardens never meant to grow
Or figures cut on trees his skill to show
Where he a prisoner from a shower hath been

THE VILLAGE BOY

Free from the cottage corner see how wild
The village boy along the pastures hies
With every smell and sound and sight beguiled
That round the prospect meets his wondering eyes
Now stooping eager for the cowslip peeps
As though he’d get them all - now tired of these
Accross the flaggy brook he eager leaps
For some new flower his happy rapture sees
Now tearing mid the bushes on his knees
Or woodland banks for bluebell flowers he creeps
And now while looking up among the trees
He spies a nest and down he throws his flowers
And up he climbs with new-fed extacies
The happiest object in the summer hours

THE WOODMAN

Now evening comes and from the new-laid hedge
The woodman rustles in his leathern guise
Hiding in dyke, ylined with brustling sedge,
His bill and mattock from theft’s meddling eyes
And in his wallets storing many a pledge
Of flowers and boughs from early-sprouting trees
And painted pootys from the ivied hedge
About its mossy roots, his boys to please,
Who wait with merry joy his coming home
Anticipating presents such as these
Gained far afield where they nor night nor morn
Find no school leisure long enough to go
Where flowers but rarely from their stalks are torn
And birds scarce loose a nest the season through

THE SHEPHERD’S FIRE

On the rude heath yclad in furze and ling
And oddling thorns that thick and prickly grows
Shielding the shepherd when the rude wind blows
And boys that sit right merry in a ring
Round fires upon a molehill toasting sloes
And crabs that froth and frizzle on the coals
Loud is the gabble and the laughter loud
The rabbits scarce dare peep from out their holes
Unwont to mix with such a noisey crowd
Some run to eke the fire — while many a cloud
Of smoke curls up, some on their haunches squat
With mouth for bellows puffing till it flares
Or if that fail one fans his napless hat
And when the feast is done they squabble for their
shares

THE SHEPHERD’S HUT

The shepherd’s hut propt by the double ash
Hugh in its bulk and old in mossy age
Shadowing the dammed-up brook where plash and
plash
The little mills did younkers’ ears engage
Delightful hut rude as romances old
Where hugh old stones make each an easy chair
And brakes and ferns for luxurys manifold
And flint and steel, the all want needeth there
— The light was struck and then the happy ring
Crouched round the blaze - O these were happy times
Some telling tales and others urged to sing
Themes of old things in rude yet feeling rhymes
That raised the laugh or stirred the stifled sigh
Till pity listened in each vacant eye

Those rude old tales — man’s memory augurs ill
Thus to forget the fragments of old days
Those long old songs — their sweetness haunts me still
Nor did they perish for my lack of praise
But old desciples of the pasture sward
Rude chroniclers of ancient minstrelsy
The shepherds vanished all, and disregard
Left their old music like a vagrant bee
For summer’s breeze to murmur o‘er and die
And in these ancient spots mind ear and eye
Turn listeners - till the very wind prolongs
The theme as wishing in its depths of joy
To reccolect the music of old songs
And meet the hut that blessed me when a boy

A SUNDAY WITH SHEPHERDS AND HERDBOYS*

The shepherds and the herding swains
Keep their sabbath on the plains
They know no difference in its cares
Save that all toil has ceasd but theirs
For them the church bells vainly call
Fields are their church and house and all
Till night returns their homeward track
When soon morn’s suns recall them back
Yet still they love the day’s repose
And feel its peace as sweet as those
That have their freedom — and maid and clown
To walk the meadows or the town
They’ll lye and catch the humming sound
That comes from steeples shining round
Enjoying in the service-time
The happy bells’ delightfull chime
And oft they sit on rising ground
To view the landscap spreading round
Swimming from the following eye
In greens and stems of every dye
O‘er wood and vale and fen’s smooth lap
Like a richly colourd map
Square platts of clover red and white
Scented wi’ summer’s warm delight
And sinkfoil of a fresher stain
And different greens of varied grain
Wheat spindles bursted into ear
And browning faintly — grasses sere
In swathy seed-pods dryd by heat
Rustling when brushd by passing feet
And beans and peas of deadening green
And corn lands ribbon stripes between
And checkering villages that lye
Like light spots in a deeper sky
And woods’ black greens that crowding spots
The lanscape in leaf-bearing grots
Where mingling hid lapt up to lare
The panting fox lyes cooly there
And willow grove that idly sweas
And checkering shines mid other trees
As if the morning’s misty vail
Yet lingerd in their shadows pale
While from the village foliage pops
The popples tapering to their tops
That in the blue sky thinly wires
Like so many leafy spires
Thus the shepherd as he lyes
Where the heath’s furze-swellings rise
Dreams o’er the scene in visions sweet
Stretching from his hawthorn seat
And passes many an hour away
Thus musing on the sabbath day
And from the fields they’ll often steal
The green peas for a Sunday meal
When ne‘er a farmer’s on the lurch
Safe nodding o’er their books a-church
Or on their benches by the door
Telling their market profits o‘er
And in snug nooks their huts beside
The gipsey blazes they provide
Braking the rotten from the trees
While some sit round to shell the peas
Or pick from hedges pilferd wood
To boil on props their stolen food
Sitting on stones or heaps of brakes
Each of the wild repast partakes
Telling to pass the hours along
Tales that to fitter days belong
While one within his scrip contains
A shatterd Bible’s thumbd remains
On whose blank leaf wi’ pious care
A host of names is scribbld there
Names by whom ’twas once possest
Or those in kindred bonds carresst
Childern for generations back
That doubtful memory should not lack
Their dates -‘tis there wi’ care applyd
When they were born and when they dyd
From sire to son link after link
All scribbld wi’ unsparing ink
This he will oft pull out and read
That takes of Sunday better heed
Then they who laugh at tale and jest
And oft he’ll read it to the rest
Whose ignorance in weary mood
Pays more regard to Robin Hood
And Giant Blue Beard and such tales
That live like flowers in rural vales
Natural as last year’s faded blooms
Anew wi’ the fresh season comes
So these old tales from old to young
Take root and blossom where they sprung
Till age and winter bids them wane
Then fond youth takes them up again
The herdboys anxious after play
Find sports to pass the time away
Fishing for struttles in the brooks
Wi’ thread for lines and pins for hooks
And stripping ’neath the willow shade
In warm and muddy ponds to bathe
And pelting wi’ unerring eye
The heedless swallows starting bye
Oft breaking boughs from trees to kill
The nest of whasps beside a hill
Till one gets stung then they resort
And follow to less dangerous sport
Leaving to chance their sheep and cows
To thread the brakes and forest boughs
And scare the squirrel’s lively joys
Wi’ stones and sticks and shouting noise
That sat wi’ in its secret place
Upon its tail to clean its face
When found they shout wi’ joy to see
It hurly burly round a tree
And as they turn in sight again
It peeps and squats behind a grain
And oft they’ll cut up sticks to trye
The holes where badgers darkly lye
Looking for footmark-prints about
The fresh moulds not long rooted out
And peep in burrows newly done
Where rabbits from their noses run
Where oft in terror’s wild affright
They spy and startle at the sight
Rolld like a whip-thong round and round
Asleep upon the sunny ground
A snake that wakens at their play
And starts as full of fear as they
And knewt-shapd swifts that nimbly pass
And rustle in the brown heath-grass
From these in terror’s fears they haste
And seek agen the scrubby waste
Where grass is pincered short by sheep
And venom creatures rarely creep
Playing at taw in sheep-beat tracks
Or leap frog o‘er each other’s backs
Or hump o’er hills wi’ thime o‘ergrown
Or mere mark’s ancient mossey stone
Or run down hollows in the plain
Where steps are cut to climb again
Stone-pits that years have clothd in green
And slopd in narrow vales between
Or history’s uncrowded ground
A Cromwell-trench* or Roman mound
Thus will the boys wi’ makeshift joy
Their toil-taskd sabbath hours employ
And feed on fancys sweet as they
That in the town at freedom play
And pinder too is peeping round
To find a tennant for his pound
Heedless of rest or parson’s prayers
He seldom to the church repairs
But thinks religion hath its due
In paying yearly for his pew
Soon as the morn puts night away
And hastening on her mantle grey
Before one sunbeam o’er the ground
Spindles its light and shadow round
He’s o’er the fields as soon as morn
To see what stock are in the corn
And find what chances sheep may win
Thro’ gaps the gipseys pilfer thin
Or if they’ve found a restless way
By rubbing at a loosend tray
Or neighing colt that trys to catch
A gate at night left off the latch
By traveller seeking home in haste
Or the clown by fancys chasd
That lasting while he made a stand
Opens each gate wi’ fearful hand
Fearing a minute to remain
And put it on the latch again
And cows who often wi’ their horns
Toss from the gaps the stuffing thorns
These like a fox upon the watch
He in the morning tryes to catch
And drives them to the pound for pay
Careless about the sabbath day

BIRDS AND BEASTS

Birds bees trees flowers all talked to me incessantly louder than the busy hum of men.

Clare, 1848

Some of the most distinctive qualities of Clare’s sensibility are most clearly evident in his poetry on birds and animals. It is not surprising that this should be so, for he discovered a perfectly unforced affinity between his own songs and those of the birds; and was acutely aware of the darker side of rural folk-life, in playing its cruel games with wild animals, delighting in savage killing.

As his own social identity became more and more problematic, increasingly he discovered a sense of a common condition, seeing an affinity between his own solitariness and the hermit-like lives of the shyer, quieter birds. He had a deep respect, even a reverence, for other forms of life, delighting in their integrity, and troubled by the spread of cultivation that ravaged their hitherto neglected territories; in exploring the territory of the more remote and private birds, he himself confessed to a sense of being an intruder, breaking into their ‘secret’ lives.

It is entirely inappropriate-or inadequate-to speak of Clare’s poems on birds and animals as ‘nature-poetry’: the term fails to recognize that such poems as appear in this section are shot through not only with the delight of perception and the satisfaction of representation, but also with feelings and beliefs, perceptions and convictions that are inescapably ethical, social and political. They therefore raise in an entirely unforced manner most serious questions about the human use of the non-human natural world.

BIRDS’ NESTS

How fresh the air, the birds how busy now
In every walk if I but peep I find
Nests newly made or finished all and lined
With hair and thistledown and in the bough
Of little awthorn huddled up in green
The leaves still thickening as the spring gets age
The pink’s quite round and snug and closely laid
And linnet’s of materials loose and rough
And still hedge-sparrow moping in the shade
Near the hedge-bottom weaves of homely stuff
Dead grass and mosses green, an hermitage
For secresy and shelter rightly made
And beautiful it is to walk beside
The lanes and hedges where their homes abide

SAND MARTIN

Thou hermit haunter of the lonely glen
And common wild and heath - the desolate face
Of rude waste landscapes far away from men
Where frequent quarrys give thee dwelling place
With strangest taste and labour undeterred
Drilling small holes along the quarry’s side
More like the haunts of vermin than a bird
And seldom by the nesting boy descried
I’ve seen thee far away from all thy tribe
Flirting about the unfrequented sky
And felt a feeling that I can’t describe
Of lone seclusion and a hermit joy
To see thee circle round nor go beyond
That lone heath and its melancholly pond

THE FERN OWL’S NEST

The weary woodman rocking home beneath
His tightly banded faggot wonders oft
While crossing over the furze-crowded heath
To hear the fern owl’s cry that whews aloft
In circling whirls and often by his head
Wizzes as quick as thought and ill at rest
As through the rustling ling with heavy tread
He goes nor heeds he tramples near its nest
That underneath the furze or squatting thorn
Lies hidden on the ground and teazing round
That lonely spot she wakes her jarring noise
To the unheeding waste till mottled morn
Fills the red East with daylight’s coming sounds
And the heath’s echoes mocks the herding boys

THE WRYNECK’S NEST

That summer bird its oft-repeated note
Chirps from the dotterel ash and in the hole
The green woodpecker made in years remote
It makes its nest — where peeping idlers strole
In anxious plundering moods - and bye and bye
The wryneck’s curious eggs as white as snow
While squinting in the hollow tree they spy
The sitting bird looks up with jetty eye
And waves her head in terror to and fro
Speckled and veined in various shades of brown
And then a hissing noise assails the clown
And quick with hasty terror in his breast
From the tree’s knotty trunk he sluthers down
And thinks the strange bird guards a serpent’s nest

HEDGE-SPARROW

The tame hedge-sparrow in its russet dress
Is half a robin for its gentle ways
And the bird-loving dame can do no less
Then throw it out a crumble on cold days
In early March it into gardens strays
And in the snug clipt box-tree green and round
It makes a nest of moss and hair and lays
When e’en the snow is lurking on the ground
Its eggs in number five of greenish blue
Bright beautiful and glossy shining shells
Much like the firetail’s but of brighter hue
Yet in her garden-home much danger dwells
Where skulking cat with mischief in its breast
Catches their young before they leave the nest

THE WOODPIGEON’S NEST

Roaming the little path ’neath dotterel trees
Of some old hedge or spinney side I’ve oft
Been startled pleasantly from musing ways
By frighted dove that suddenly aloft
Sprung through the many boughs with cluttering noise
Till free from such restraints above the head
They smacked their clapping wings for very joys
And in a curious mood I’ve oft been led
To climb the twig-surrounded trunk and there
On some few bits of sticks two white eggs lie
As left by accident - all lorn and bare
Almost without a nest yet bye and bye
Two birds in golden down will leave the shells
And hiss and snap at wind-blown leaves that shake
Around their home where green seclusion dwells
Till fledged, and then the young adventurers take
The old ones’ timid flights from oak to oak
Listening the pleasant sutherings of the shade
Nor startled by the woodman’s hollow stroke
Till autumn’s pleasant visions pine and fade
Then they in bolder crowds will sweep and flye
And brave the desert of a winter sky

THE RAVEN’S NEST

Upon the collar of a hugh old oak
Year after year boys mark a curious nest
Of twigs made up a faggot near in size
And boys to reach it try all sorts of schemes
But not a twig to reach with hand or foot
Sprouts from the pillared trunk and as to try
To swarm the massy bulk -‘tis all in vain
They scarce one effort make to hitch them up
But down they sluther soon as e’er they try
So long hath been their dwelling there — old men
When passing by will laugh and tell the ways
They had when boys to climb that very tree
And as it so would seem that very nest
That ne’er was missing from that selfsame spot
A single year in all their memorys
And they will say that the two birds are now
The very birds that owned the dwelling then
Some think it strange yet certainty’s at loss
And cannot contradict it so they pass
As old birds living the wood’s patriarchs
Old as the oldest men so famed and known
That even men will thirst into the fame
Of boys and get at schemes that now and then
May captivate a young one from the tree
With iron clamms and bands adventuring up
The mealy trunk or else by waggon ropes
Slung over the hugh grains and so drawn up
By those at bottom, one assends secure
With foot rope-stirruped- still a perrilous way
So perrilous that one and only one
In memorys of the oldest men was known
To wear his boldness to intention’s end
And reach the raven’s nest - and thence acchieved
A theme that wonder treasured for supprise
By every cottage-hearth the village through
Nor yet forgot though other darers come
With daring-times that scale the steeple’s top
And tye their kerchiefs to the weather-cock
As trophys that the dangerous deed was done
Yet even now in these adventureous days
Not one is bold enough to dare the way
Up the old monstrous oak where every spring
Finds the two ancient birds at their old task
Repairing the hugh nest - where still they live
Through changes winds and storms and are secure
And like a landmark in the chronicles
Of village memorys treasured up yet lives
The hugh old oak that wears the raven’s nest

THE SKY LARK

The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road and spreading far and wide
Above the russet clods the corn is seen
Sprouting its spirey points of tender green
Where squats the hare to terrors wide awake
Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break
While ‘neath the warm hedge boys stray far from home
To crop the early blossoms as they come
Where buttercups will make them eager run
Opening their golden caskets to the sun
To see who shall be first to pluck the prize
And from their hurry up the skylark flies
And o’er her half-formed nest with happy wings
Winnows the air — till in the clouds she sings
Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies
And drops and drops till in her nest she lies
Where boys unheeding passed, *ne’er dreaming then
That birds which flew so high would drop again
To nests upon the ground where any thing
May come at to destroy. Had they the wing
Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud
And build on nothing but a passing cloud
As free from danger as the heavens are free
From pain and toil - there would they build and be
And sail about the world to scenes unheard
Of and unseen - O were they but a bird -
So think they while they listen to its song
And smile and fancy and so pass along
While its low nest moist with the dews of morn
Lye safely with the leveret in the corn

THE YELLOWHAMMER’S NEST

Just by the wooden brig a bird flew up
Frit by the cowboy as he scrambled down
To reach the misty dewberry — let us stoop
And seek its nest — the brook we need not dread
‘Tis scarcely deep enough a bee to drown
So it sings harmless o’er its pebbly bed
- Aye here it is, stuck close beside the bank
Beneath the bunch of grass that spindles rank
Its husk-seeds tall and high-‘tis rudely planned
Of bleached stubbles and the withered fare
That last year’s harvest left upon the land
Lined thinly with the horse’s sable hair
- Five eggs pen-scribbled over lilac shells
Resembling writing, scrawls which fancy reads
As nature’s poesy and pastoral spells
They are the yellowhammer’s and she dwells
A poet like — where brooks and flowery weeds
As sweet as Castaly to fancy seems
And that old molehill like as Parnass hill
On which her partner haply sits and dreams
O’er all his joy of song - so leave it still
A happy home of sunshine flowers and streams
Yet in the sweetest places cometh ill
A noisome weed that burthens every soil
For snakes are known with chill and deadly coil
To watch such nests and seize the helpless young
And like as though the plague became a guest
Leaving a houseless home a ruined nest
And mournful hath the little warblers sung
When such like woes hath rent its little breast

THE WREN

Why is the cuckoo’s melody preferred
And nightingale’s rich song so fondly praised
In poets’ rhymes? Is there no other bird
Of nature’s minstrelsy that oft hath raised
One’s heart to extacy and mirth as well?
I judge not how another’s taste is caught:
With mine, there’s other birds that bear the bell
Whose song hath crowds of happy memories brought.
Such the wood-robin singing in the dell
And little wren that many a time hath sought
Shelter from showers in huts where I did dwell
In early spring the tennant of the plain
Tenting my sheep and still they come to tell
The happy stories of the past again

THE PEWIT’S NEST

Accross the fallow clods at early morn
I took a random track, where scant and spare
The grass and nibbled leaves all closely shorn
Leaves a burnt flat all bleaching brown and bare
Where hungry sheep in freedom range forlorn
And ‘neath the leaning willow and odd thorn
And molehill large that vagrant shade supplies
They batter round to shun the teazing flies
Trampling smooth places hard as cottage floors
Where the time-killing lonely shepherd boys
Whose summer homes are ever out of doors
Their chockholes form and chalk their marble ring
And make their clay taws at the bubbling spring
And in their rangling sport and gambling joys
They straine their clocklike shadows - when it cloys
To guess the hour that slowly runs away
And shorten sultry turmoil with their play
Here did I roam while veering overhead
The Pewet whirred in many whewing rings
And ‘chewsit’ screamed and clapped her flapping wings.
To hunt her nest my rambling steps was led
O‘er the broad baulk beset with little hills
By moles long-formed and pismires tennanted
As likely spots - but still I searched in vain
When all at once the noisey birds were still
And on the lands a furrowed ridge between
Chance found four eggs of dingy dirty green
Deep-blotched with plashy spots of jockolate stain
Their small ends inward turned as ever found
As though some curious hand had laid them round
Yet lying on the ground with nought at all
Of soft grass withered twitch and bleached weed
To keep them from the rain storms’ frequent fall
And here she broods on her unsavory bed
When bye and bye with little care and heed
Her young with each a shell upon its head
Run after their wild parents’ restless cry
And from their own fears’ tiney shadows run
’Neath clods and stones to cringe and snugly lie
Hid from all sight but the all-seeing sun
Till never-ceasing danger seemeth bye

THE PETTICHAP’S NEST

Well, in my many walks I rarely found
A place less likely for a bird to form
Its nest close by the rut-gulled waggon road
And on the almost bare foot-trodden ground
With scarce a clump of grass to keep it warm
And not a thistle spreads its spears abroad
Or prickly bush to shield it from harm’s way
And yet so snugly made that none may spy
It out, save accident — and you and I
Had surely passed it on our walk today
Had chance not led us by it - nay e‘en now
Had not the old bird heard us trampling by
And fluttered out - we had not seen it lie
Brown as the roadway side — small bits of hay
Pluckt from the old propt-haystack’s pleachy brow
And withered leaves make up its outward walls
That from the snub-oak dotterel yearly falls
And in the old hedge bottom rot away
Built like an oven with a little hole
Hard to discover - that snug entrance wins
Scarcely admitting e’en two fingers in
And lined with feathers warm as silken stole
And soft as seats of down for painless ease
And full of eggs scarce bigger e‘en then peas
Here’s one most delicate with spots as small
As dust — and of a faint and pinky red
- We’ll let them be and safety guard them well
For fear’s rude paths around are thickly spread
And they are left to many dangers’ ways
When green grasshopper’s jump might break the shells
While lowing oxen pass them morn and night
And restless sheep around them hourly stray
And no grass springs but hungry horses bite
That trample past them twenty times a day
Yet like a miracle in safety’s lap
They still abide unhurt and out of sight
- Stop, here’s the bird.