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. That woodman at the gap
Hath put it from the hedge-’tis olive green
Well I declare it is the pettichap
Not bigger than the wren and seldom seen
I’ve often found their nests in chance’s way
When I in pathless woods did idly roam
But never did I dream untill today
A spot like this would be her chosen home

THE NIGHTINGALE’S NEST

Up this green woodland ride let’s softly rove
And list’ the nightingale - she dwelleth here
Hush, let the wood-gate softly clap - for fear
The noise might drive her from her home of love
For here I’ve heard her many a merry year
At morn and eve nay all the live-long day
As though she lived on song - this very spot
Just where that old man’s beard all wildly trails
Rude arbours o‘er the road and stops the way
And where that child its blue bell flowers hath got
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails
There have I hunted like a very boy
Creeping on hands and knees through matted
thorns
To find her nest and see her feed her young
And vainly did I many hours employ
All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn
And where these crimping fern-leaves ramp among
The hazel’s underboughs I’ve nestled down
And watched her while she sung and her renown
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
Should have no better dress then russet brown
Her wings would tremble in her extacy
And feathers stand on end as ’twere with joy
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out-sobbing songs - the happiest part
Of summer’s fame she shared - for so to me
Did happy fancies shapen her employ
But if I touched a bush or scarcely stirred
All in a moment stopt - I watched in vain
The timid bird had left the hazel bush
And at a distance hid to sing again
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves
Rich extacy would pour its luscious strain
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs
For cares with him for half the year remain
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast
While nightingales to summer’s life belongs
And naked trees and winter’s nipping wrongs
Are strangers to her music and her rest
Her joys are evergreen her world is wide
— Hark, there she is as usual let’s be hush
For in this blackthorn clump if rightly guest
Her curious house is hidden - part aside
These hazel branches in a gentle way
And stoop right cautious ’neath the rustling boughs
For we will have another search today
And hunt this fern-strown thorn-clump round and
round
And where this seeded woodgrass idly bows
We’ll wade right through. It is a likely nook
In such like spots and often on the ground
They’ll build where rude boys never think to look
Aye as I live her secret nest is here
Upon this whitethorn stulp — I’ve searched about
For hours in vain — there, put that bramble bye
Nay, trample on its branches and get near
— How subtle is the bird she started out
And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh
Ere we were past the brambles and now near
Her nest she sudden stops - as choaking fear
That might betray her home - so even now
We’ll leave it as we found it — safety’s guard
Of pathless solitudes shall keep it still
See there she’s sitting on the old oak bough
Mute in her fears - our presence doth retard
Her joys and doubt turns every rapture chill
Sing on sweet bird may no worse hap befall
Thy visions then the fear that now decieves
We will not plunder music of its dower
Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall
For melody seems hid in every flower
That blossoms near thy home - these harebells all
Seems bowing with the beautiful in song
And gaping cuckoo with its spotted leaves
Seems blushing of the singing it has heard
How curious is the nest no other bird
Uses such loose materials or weaves
Their dwellings in such spots - dead oaken leaves
Are placed without and velvet moss within
And little scraps of grass - and scant and spare
Of what seems scarce materials, down and hair
For from man’s haunts she seemeth nought to win
Yet nature is the builder and contrives
Homes for her childern’s comfort even here
Where solitude’s deciples spend their lives
Unseen save when a wanderer passes near
That loves such pleasant places — Deep adown
The nest is made an hermit’s mossy cell
Snug lies her curious eggs in number five
Of deadened green or rather olive brown
And the old prickly thorn bush guards them well
And here we’ll leave them still unknown to wrong
As the old woodland’s legacy of song

TO THE SNIPE

Lover of swamps
The quagmire overgrown
With hassock tufts of sedge — where fear encamps
Around thy home alone

The trembling grass
Quakes from the human foot
Nor bears the weight of man to let him pass
Where thou alone and mute

Sittest at rest
In safety ’neath the clump
Of hugh flag forrest that thy haunts invest
Or some old sallow stump

Thriving on seams*
That tiney islands swell
Just hilling from the mud and rancid streams
Suiting thy nature well

For here thy bill
Suited by wisdom good
Of rude unseemly length doth delve and drill
The gelid mass for food

And here mayhap
When summer suns hath drest
The moor’s rude desolate and spungy lap
May hide thy mystic nest

Mystic indeed
For isles that ocean make
Are scarcely more secure for birds to build
Then this flag-hidden lake

Boys thread the woods
To their remotest shades
But in these marshy flats these stagnant floods
Security pervades

From year to year
Places untrodden lie
Where man nor boy nor stock hath ventured near
- Nought gazed on but the sky

And fowl that dread
The very breath of man
Hiding in spots that never knew his tread
A wild and timid clan

Wigeon and teal
And wild duck - restless lot
That from man’s dreaded sight will ever steal
To the most dreary spot

Here tempests howl
Around each flaggy plot
Where they who dread man’s sight, the water fowl,
Hide and are frighted not

’Tis power divine
That heartens them to brave
The roughest tempest and at ease recline
On marshes or the wave

Yet instinct knows
Not safety’s bounds — to shun
The firmer ground where sculking fowler goes
With searching dogs and gun

By tepid springs
Scarcely one stride accross
Though brambles from its edge a shelter flings
Thy safety is at loss

And never chuse
The little sinky foss
Streaking the moores whence spa-red waters spews
From pudges fringed with moss

Free-booters there
Intent to kill and slay
Startle with cracking guns the trepid air
And dogs thy haunts betray

From danger’s reach
Here thou art safe to roam
Far as these washy flag-grown marshes stretch
A still and quiet home

In these thy haunts
I’ve gleaned habitual love
From the vague world where pride and folly taunts
I muse and look above

Thy solitudes
The unbounded heaven esteems
And here my heart warms into higher moods
And dignifying dreams

I see the sky
Smile on the meanest spot
Giving to all that creep or walk or flye
A calm and cordial lot

Thine teaches me
Right feelings to employ
That in the dreariest places peace will be
A dweller and a joy

WILD BEES

These childern of the sun which summer brings
As pastoral minstrels in her merry train
Pipe rustic ballads upon busy wings
And glad the cotter’s quiet toils again
The white-nosed bee that bores its little hole
In mortared walls and pipes its symphonies
And never-absent couzin black as cole
That Indian-like bepaints its little thighs
With white and red bedight for holiday
Right earlily a morn do pipe and play
And with their legs stroke slumber from their eyes
And aye so fond they of their singing seem
That in their holes abed at close of day
They still keep piping in their honey dreams
And larger ones that thrum on ruder pipe
Round the sweet-smelling closen and rich woods
Where tawney white and red-flushed clover buds
Shine bonnily and beanfields blossom ripe
Shed dainty perfumes and give honey food
To these sweet poets of the summer field
Me much delighting as I stroll along
The narrow path that hay-laid meadow yields
Catching the windings of their wandering song
The black and yellow bumble first on wing
To buzz among the sallow’s early flowers
Hiding its nest in holes from fickle spring
Who stints his rambles with her frequent showers
And one that may for wiser piper pass
In livery dress half sables and half red
Who laps a moss ball in the meadow grass
And hurds her stores when April showers have fled
And russet commoner who knows the face
Of every blossom that the meadow brings
Starting the traveller to a quicker pace
By threatening round his head in many rings
These sweeten summer in their happy glee
By giving for her honey melodie

INSECTS

Thou tiney loiterer on the barley’s beard
And happy unit of a numerous herd
Of playfellows the laughing summer brings
Mocking the sun’s face in their glittering wings
How merrily they creep and run and flye
No kin they bear to labour’s drudgery
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose
And where they flye for dinner no one knows
The dewdrops feed them not - they love the shine
Of noon whose sun may bring them golden wine
All day they’re playing in their Sunday dress
Till night goes sleep and they can do no less.
Then in the heath bell’s silken hood they flie
And like to princes in their slumber lie
From coming night and dropping dews and all
In silken beds and roomy painted hall
So happily they spend their summer day
Now in the corn fields now the new mown hay
One almost fancys that such happy things
In coloured moods and richly burnished wings
Are fairey folk in splendid masquerade
Disguised through fear of mortal folk affraid
Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill

FIELD-CRICKET

Sweet little minstrel of the sunny summer
Housed in the pleasant swells that front the sun
Neighbour to many a happy yearly comer
For joy’s glad tidings when the winter’s done
How doth thy music through the silk grass run
That cloaths the pleasant banks with herbage new
A chittering sound of healthy happiness
That bids the passer-bye be happy too
Who hearing thee feels full of pleasant moods
Picturing the cheerfulness that summer’s dress
Brings to the eye with all her leaves and grass
In freshness beautified and summer’s sounds
Brings to the ear in one continued flood
The luxury of joy that knows no bounds

I often pause to seek thee when I pass
Thy cottage in the sweet refreshing hue
Of sunny flowers and rich luxuriant grass
But thou wert ever hidden from the view
Brooding and piping o’er thy rural song
In all the happiness of solitude
Busy intruders do thy music wrong
And scare thy gladness dumb where they intrude
I’ve seen thy dwelling by the scythe laid bare
And thee in russet garb from bent to bent
Moping without a song in silence there
Till grass should bring anew thy home-content
And leave thee to thyself to sing and wear
The summer through without another care

SUMMER EVENING

The frog half-fearful jumps accross the path
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath
My rustling steps awhile their joys decieve
Till past — and then the cricket sings more strong
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with its fretting song
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare
Cheat of its chosen bed — and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank
And drops again when no more noise it hears
Thus nature’s human link and endless thrall:
Proud man still seems the enemy of all

HARES AT PLAY

The birds are gone to bed the cows are still
And sheep lie panting on each old molehill
And underneath the willow’s grey-green bough
Like toil a-resting lies the fallow plough
The timid hares throw daylight fears away
On the lane road to dust and dance and play
Then dabble in the grain by nought deterred
To lick the dew-fall from the barley’s beard
Then out they sturt again and round the hill
Like happy thoughts — dance — squat — and loiter still
Till milking maidens in the early morn
Gingle their yokes and sturt them in the corn
Through well-known beaten paths each nimbling hare
Sturts quick as fear — and seeks its hidden lair

THE MARTIN

The martin-cat long-shagged of courage good
Of weazle shape a dweller in the wood
With badger hair long-shagged and darting eyes
And lower then the common cat in size
Small head and running on the stoop
Snuffing the ground and hind-parts shouldered up
He keeps one track and hides in lonely shade
Where print of human foot is scarcely made
Save when the woods are cut. The beaten track
The woodman’s dog will snuff, cock-tailed and black
Red-legged and spotted over either eye,
Snuffs barks and scrats the lice and passes bye
The great brown horned owl looks down below
And sees the shaggy martin come and go

The martin hurrys through the woodland gaps
And poachers shoot and make his skin for caps
When any woodman come and pass the place
He looks at dogs and scarcely mends his pace
And gipseys often and birdnesting boys
Look in the hole and hear a hissing noise
They climb the tree such noise they never heard
And think the great owl is a foreign bird
When the grey owl her young ones cloathed in down
Seizes the boldest boy and drives him down
They try agen and pelt to start the fray
The grey owl comes and drives them all away
And leaves the martin twisting round his den
Left free from boys and dogs and noise and men

THE HEDGEHOG

The hedgehog hides beneath the rotten hedge
And makes a great round nest of grass and sedge
Or in a bush or in a hollow tree
And many often stoops and say they see
Him roll and fill his prickles full of crabs
And creep away and where the magpie dabs
His wing at muddy dyke in aged root
He makes a nest and fills it full of fruit
On the hedge-bottom hunts for crabs and sloes
And whistles like a cricket as he goes
It rolls up like a ball or shapeless hog
When gipseys hunt it with their noisey dogs
I’ve seen it in their camps they call it sweet
Though black and bitter and unsavoury meat

But they who hunt the field* for rotten meat
And wash in muddy dyke and call it sweet
And eat what dogs refuse where e‘er they dwell
Care little either for the taste or smell
They say they milk the cows and when they lye
Nibble their fleshy teats and make them dry
But they who’ve seen the small head like a hog
Rolled up to meet the savage of a dog
With mouth scarce big enough to hold a straw
Will ne’er believe what no one ever saw
But still they hunt the hedges all about
And shepherd dogs are trained to hunt them out
They hurl with savage force the stick and stone
And no one cares and still the strife goes on

THE FOX

The shepherd on his journey heard when nigh
His dog among the bushes barking high
The ploughman ran and gave a hearty shout
He found a weary fox and beat him out
The ploughman laughed and would have ploughed him
in
But the old shepherd took him for the skin
He lay upon the furrow stretched and dead
The old dog lay and licked the wounds that bled
The ploughman beat him till his ribs would crack
And then the shepherd slung him at his back
And when he rested, to his dog’s supprise
The old fox started from his dead disguise
And while the dog lay panting in the sedge
He up and snapt and bolted through the hedge

He scampered to the bushes far away
The shepherd called the ploughman to the fray
The ploughman wished he had a gun to shoot
The old dog barked and followed the pursuit
The shepherd threw* his hook and tottered past
The ploughman ran but none could go so fast
The woodman threw his faggot from the way
And ceased to chop and wondered at the fray
But when he saw the dog and heard the cry
He threw his hatchet but the fox was bye
The shepherd broke his hook and lost the skin
He found a badger hole and bolted in
They tryed to dig but safe from danger’s way
He lived to chase the hounds another day

THE BADGER*

The badger grunting on his woodland track
With shaggy hide and sharp nose scrowed with black
Roots in the bushes and the woods and makes
A great hugh burrow in the ferns and brakes
With nose on ground he runs an awkard pace
And anything will beat him in the race
The shepherd’s dog will run him to his den
Followed and hooted by the dogs and men
The woodman when the hunting comes about
Go round at night to stop the foxes out
And hurrying through the bushes ferns and brakes
Nor sees the many holes the badger makes
And often through the bushes to the chin
Breaks the old holes and tumbles headlong in

Some keep a baited badger tame as hog
And tame him till he follows like the dog
They urge him on like dogs and show fair play
He beats and scarcely wounded goes away
Lapt up as if asleep he scorns to fly
And siezes any dog that ventures nigh
Clapt like a dog he never bites the men
But worrys dogs and hurrys to his den
They let him out and turn a harrow down
And there he fights the host of all the town
He licks the patting hand and trys to play
And never trys to bite or run away
And runs away from noise in hollow trees
Burnt by the boys to get a swarm of bees

When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den
And put a sack within the hole and lye
Till the old grunting badger passes bye
He comes and hears they let the strongest loose
The old fox hears the noise and drops the goose
The poacher shoots and hurrys from the cry
And the old hare half-wounded buzzes bye
They get a forked stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and bear him to the town
And bait him all the day with many dogs
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs
He runs along and bites at all he meets
They shout and hollo down the noisey streets

He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very doors
The frequent stone is hurled where e’er they go
When badgers fight and every one’s a foe
The dogs are clapt and urged to join the fray
The badger turns and drives them all away
Though scarcly half as big, dimute and small,
He fights with dogs for hours and beats them all
The heavy mastiff savage in the fray
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away
The bull-dog knows his match and waxes cold
The badger grins and never leaves his hold
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through. The drunkard swears and reels,

The frighted women takes the boys away
The blackguard laughs and hurrys on the fray:
He tries to reach the woods, an awkard race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chace
He turns agen and drives the noisey crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud
He drives away and beats them every one
And then they loose them all and set them on
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd agen
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and cackles groans and dies

LOVES

When, in December 1841, Clare was committed to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum by Dr Fenwick Skrimshire and Dr William Page, the certificate of insanity attributed his disorder of mind to heredity. In his poem, ‘First Love’, written at Northampton, Clare himself confesses that when he met Mary Joyce

My face turned pale a deadly pale
My legs refused to walk away
And when she looked what could I ail
My life and all seemed turned to clay

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noon day
I could not see a single thing
Words from my eyes did start
They spoke as chords do from the string
And blood burnt round my heart

The benign arrow of Mary Joyce’s power to excite love found a peculiarly vulnerable target in John Clare, and much of his poetry is an obsessive and pertinacious effort, sustained for forty years, to find a language that was adequate to the power of such a mixed blessing as a love that neither wearied nor degenerated into mere domestic coexistence but also tantalized and haunted him, life long, as what-might-have-been.

Nothing in Clare’s poetry is more remarkable than the sheer output and intensity of his love-poems; and most of them were inspired by one woman, Mary Joyce. He married Martha ‘Patty’ Turner, but his true love — one might even say his only love — was Mary Joyce. The key to the intensity and persistence of this may well lie in the fact that this love was vernal and unfulfilled: the relationship ended around 1816, and she died, unmarried, in 1838, at the age of forty-one.

The consummation of Clare’s love for Mary, then, was entirely vicarious: and its persisting intensity was clearly a source of deep conflict and difficulty. Married to Patty, he wrote hundreds of love poems to Mary: in order to live under the same roof as his wife, he first concealed Mary’s identity by using asterisks. Over the years, she was also transformed into the divine, transcendent source of his own creative power: she became his muse.

VALENTINE TO MARY

This visionary theme is thine
From one who loves thee still
’Tis writ to thee a Valentine
But call it what you will
No more as wont thy beaming eye
To violets I compare*
Nor talk about the lily’s dye
To tell thee thou art fair

The time is past when hope’s sweet will
First linked thy name with mine
And the fond muse with simple skill
Chose thee its Valentine
Though some may yet their powers employ
To wreath with flowers thy brow
With me thy love’s a withered joy
With hope thou’rt nothing now

The all that youth’s fond spring esteems
Its blossoms pluckt in May
Are gone like flowers in summer dreams
And thoughts of yesterday
The heavenly dreams of early love
Youth’s spell has broken there
And left the aching heart to prove
That earth owns nought so fair

Spring flowers were fitting hope’s young songs
To grace love’s earliest vow
But withered ones that autumn wrongs
Are emblems meetest now
Their perished blooms that once were green
Hope’s faded tale can tell
Of shadows where a sun hath been
And suits its memory well

Then why should I on such a day
Address a song to thee
When withered hope hath died away
And love no more can be
When blinded fate that still destroys
Hath rendered all as vain
And parted from the bosom joys
’Twill never meet again

The substance of our joys hath been
Their flowers have faded long
But memory keeps the shadow green
And wakes this idle song
Then let esteem a welcome prove
That can’t its place resign
And friendship take the place of love
To send a Valentine

DEDICATION TO MARY*

O Mary thou that once made all
What youthful dreams coud pleasure call
That once did love to walk with me
And own thy taste for scenery
That sat for hours by wood and brook
And stopt thy curious flowers to look
Where all that met thy artless gaze
Enjoyd thy smiles and won thy praise
O thou that did sincerely love
The cuckoo’s note and cooing dove
And stood in raptures oft to hear
The blackbird’s music wild and clear
That chasd sleep from thy lovely eyes
To see the morning lark arise
And made thy evening rambles long
To list’ the cricket’s chittering song
Thou that on sabbath noons sought bowers
To read away the sultry hours
Where roseys hung the cool to share
With thee a blossom full as fair
Oft withering from noon’s scorching look
And fluttering dropping on thy book
Whispering morals as they fell
What thou ere this hath provd too well
Picturing stories sad and true
Beneath thy bright eyes beaming blue
How youth and beauty fades and dyes
The sweetest has the least to prize
How blissfull pleasures fade away
That have the shortest time to stay
As suns that blest thy eyes and mine
Are but alowd a day to shine
And fairest days without a cloud
A gloomy evening waits to shroud
So spoke the fading dropping flowers
That perishd in thy musing hours
I know not whether thou descryd
But I coud hear them by thy side
But thy warm heart tho’ easy wrung
Woud not be mellancholy long:
If such was felt, the cheering day
Woud quickly chase their glooms away
For thou sought fancys sweet to look
In every hour and every nook
To thee earth swarmd with lovely things
The butterflye with spangld wings
And dragonflye and humble bee
Hummd dreams of Paradise to thee
And o thou fairest dearest still
If nature’s wild mysterious skill
Beams that same rapture in thine eye
And left a love that cannot dye
If that fond taste was born to last
Nor vanishd with the summers past
If seasons as they usd to be
Still meet a favourd smile with thee
Then thou accept for memory’s sake
All I can give or thou canst take
A parted record known to thee
Of what has been, no more to be
The pleasant past, the future sorrow
The blest today and sad tomorrow —
Descriptions wild of summer walks
By hedges lanes and trackless balks
And many an old familiar scene
Where thou has oft my partner been
Where thou, enrapt in wild delight,
Hast lingerd morning noon and night
And where to fancy’s rapturd thrill
Thy lovely memory lingers still
Thy flowers still bloom and look the while
As tho’ they witnessd Mary’s smile
The birds still sing thy favourd lays
As tho’ they sung for Mary’s praise
And bees hum glad and fearless by
As tho’ their tender friend was nigh
O if with thee those raptures live
Accept the trifle which I give
Tho’ lost to pleasures witnessd then
Tho’ parted ne‘er to meet agen
My aching heart is surely free
To dedicate its thoughts to thee
Then thou accept and if a smile
Lights on the page thou reads the while
If aught bespeaks those banishd hours
Of beauty in thy favourd flowers
Or scenes recall of happy days
That claims as wont thy ready praise
Tho’ I so long have lost the claim
To joys which wear thy gentle name
Tho’ thy sweet face so long unseen
Seems types of charms that ne’er hath been
Thy voice so long in silence bound
To me that I forget the sound
And tho’ thy presence warms my theme
Like beauty floating in a dream
Yet I will think that such may be
Tho’ buried secrets all to me
And if it be as hopes portray
Then will thy smiles like dews of heaven
Cheer my lone walks my toils repay
And all I ask be given

FIRST LOVE’S RECOLLECTIONS

First love will with the heart remain
When all its hopes are bye
As frail rose blossoms still retain
Their fragrance till they die
And joy’s first dreams will haunt the mind
With shades from whence they sprung
As summer leaves the stems behind
On which spring’s blossoms hung

Mary I dare not call thee dear
I’ve lost that right so long
Yet once again I vex thine ear
With memory’s idle song
Had time and change not blotted out
The love of former days
Thou wert the last that I should doubt
Of pleasing with my praise

When honied tokens from each tongue
Told with what truth we loved
How rapturous to thy lips I clung
Whilst nought but smiles reproved
But now methinks if one kind word
Were whispered in thine ear
Thou’dst startle like an untamed bird
And blush with wilder fear

How loath to part how fond to meet
Had we two used to be
At sunset with what eager feet
I hastened on to thee
Scarce nine days passed us ere we met*
In spring nay wintry weather
Now nine years’ suns* have risen and set
Nor found us once together

Thy face was so familiar grown
Thyself so often bye
A moment’s memory when alone
Would bring thee to mine eye
But now my very dreams forget
That witching look to trace.
Though there thy beauty lingers yet
It wears a stranger face

I felt a pride to name thy name
But now that pride hath flown
My words e’en seem to blush for shame
That own I love thee on
I felt I then thy heart did share
Nor urged a binding vow
But much I doubt if thou couldst spare
One word of kindness now

And what is now my name to thee
Though once nought seemed so dear
Perhaps a jest in hours of glee
To please some idle ear
And yet like counterfeits with me
Impressions linger on
Though all the gilded finery
That passed for truth is gone

Ere the world smiled upon my lays
A sweeter meed was mine
Thy blushing look of ready praise
Was raised at every line
But now methinks thy fervent love
Is changed to scorn severe
And songs that other hearts approve
Seem discord to thine ear

When last thy gentle cheek I prest
And heard thee feign adieu
I little thought that seeming jest
Would prove a word so true
A fate like this hath oft befell
E‘en loftier hopes than ours
Spring bids full many buds to swell
That ne’er can grow to flowers

BALLAD*

Where is the heart thou once hast won
Can cease to care about thee?
Where is the eye thou’st smiled upon
Can look for joy without thee?
Lorn is the lot one heart hath met
That’s lost to thy caressing
Cold is the hope that loves thee yet
Now thou art past possessing
Fare thee well

We met, we loved, we’ve met the last
The farewell word is spoken
O Mary canst thou feel the past
And keep thy heart unbroken
To think how warm we loved and how
Those hopes should blossom never
To think how we are parted now
And parted oh for ever
Fare thee well

Thou wert the first my heart to win
Thou art the last to wear it
And though another claims akin
Thou must be one to share it
Oh had we known when hopes were sweet
That hopes would once be thwarted
That we should part no more to meet
How sadly we had parted
Fare thee well

THE MILKING HOUR

The sun had grown on lessening day
A table large and round
And in the distant vapours grey
Seemed leaning on the ground
When Mary like a lingering flower
Did tenderly agree
To stay beyond her milking hour
And talk awhile with me

We wandered till the distant town
Had silenced nearly dumb
And lessened on the quiet ear
Small as a beetle’s hum
She turned her buckets upside-down
And made us each a seat
And there we talked the evening brown
Beneath the rustling wheat

And while she milked her breathing cows
I sat beside the streams
In musing o‘er our evening joys
Like one in pleasant dreams
The bats and owls to meet the night
From hollow trees had gone
And e’en the flowers had shut for sleep
And still she lingered on

We mused in rapture side by side
Our wishes seemed as one
We talked of time’s retreating tide
And sighed to find it gone
And we had sighed more deeply still
O’er all our pleasures past
If we had known what now we know
That we had met the last

I’ve ran the furlongs to thy door
And thought the way as miles
With doubts that I should see thee not
And scarcely staid for stiles
Lest thou should think me past the time
And change thy mind to go
Some other where to pass the time
The quickest speed was slow

But when thy cottage came in sight
And showed thee at the gate
The very scene was one delight
And though we parted late
Joy scarcely seemed a minute long
When hours their flight had ta‘en
And parting welcomed from thy tongue
‘Be sure and come again’

For thou wert young and beautiful
A flower but seldom found
That many hands were fain to pull
Who wouldn’t care to wound
But there was no delight to meet
Where crowds and folly be
The fields found thee companion meet
And kept love’s heart for me

To folly’s ear ’twas little known
A secret in a crowd
And only in the fields alone
I spoke thy name aloud
And if to cheer my walk along
A pleasant book was mine
Then beauty’s name in every song
Seemed nobody’s but thine

Far far from all the world I found
Thy pleasant home and thee
Heaths woods a stretching circle round
Hid thee from all but me
And o so green those ways when I
On Sundays used to seek
Thy company they gave me joy
That cheered me all the week

And when we parted with the pledge
Right quickly to return
How lone the wind sighed through the hedge
Birds singing seemed to mourn
My old home was a stranger place
If told the story plain
My home was in thy happy face
That saw me soon again

THE ENTHUSIAST: A DAYDREAM IN SUMMER*

‘Daydreams ofsummersgone’

White*

Wearied with his lonely walk
Hermit-like with none to talk
And cloyed with often seen delight
His spirits sickened at the sight
Of life’s realitys, and things
That spread around his wanderings
Of wood and heath in brambles clad
That seemed like him in silence sad
The lone enthusiast weary worn
Sought shelter from the heats of morn
And in a cool nook by the stream
Beside the bridge-wall dreamed a dream
And instant from his half-closed eye
Reality seemed fading bye
Dull fields and woods that round him lay
Like curtains to his dreaming play
All slided by and on his sight
New scenes appeared in fairy light
The skys lit up a fairer sun
The birds a cheery song begun
And flowers bloomed fair and wildly round
As ever grew on dreaming ground
And mid the sweet enchanting view
Created every minute new
He swooned at once from care and strife
Into the poesy of life
A stranger to the thoughts of men
He felt his boyish limbs again
Revelling in all the glee
Of life’s first fairy infancy
Chasing by the rippling spring
Dragonflyes of purple wing
Or setting mushroom-tops afloat
Mimmicing the sailing boat
Or vainly trying by supprise
To catch the settling butterflyes
And oft with rapture driving on
Where many partner-boys had gone
Wading through the rustling wheat
Red and purple flowers to meet
To weave and trim a wild cockade
And play the soldier’s gay parade
Then searched the ivy-haunted dell
To seek the pooty’s painted shell
And scaled the trees with burning breast
Mid scolding crows to rob their nest
Heart bursting with unshackled joys
The only heritage of boys
That from the haunts of manhood flye
Like songbirds from a winter sky
And now tore through the clinging thorns
Seeking kecks for bugle horns
Thus with the schoolboy’s heart again
He chased and halooed o‘er the plain
Till the old church clock counted one
And told us freedom’s hour was gone.
In its dull humming drowsy way
It called us from our sports and play
How different did the sound appear
To that which brought the evening near
That lovely humming happy strain
That brought them liberty again
— The desk the books were all the same
Marked with each well-known little name
And many a cover blotched and blurred
With shapeless forms of beast and bird
And the old master white with years
Sat there to waken boyish fears
While the tough scepter of his sway
That awed to silence all the day
The peeled wand acting to his will
Hung o’er the smoak-stained chimney still
- The church yard still its trees possest
And jackdaws sought their ancient nest
In whose old trunks they did acquire
Homes safe as in the mossy spire
The school they shadowed as before
With its white dial o‘er the door
And bees hummed round in summer’s pride
In its time-crevised walls to hide
The gravestones childhood eager reads
Peeped o’er the rudely clambering weeds
Where cherubs gilt that represent
The slumbers of the innoscent
Smiled glittering to the slanting sun
As if death’s peace with heaven was won
All, all was blest, and peace and plays
Brought back the enthusiast’s fairy days
And leaving childhood unpercieved
Scenes sweeter still his dream relieved
Life’s calmest spot that lingers green
Manhood and infancy between
When youth’s warm feelings have their birth
Creating angels upon earth
And fancying woman born for joy
With nought to wither and destroy
That picture of past youth’s delight
Was swimming now before his sight
And love’s soft thrills of pleasant pain
Was whispering its deciets again
And Mary, pride of pleasures gone,
Was at his side to lead him on
And on they went through field and lane
Haunts of their loves to trace again
Clung to his arm she skipt along
With the same music on her tongue
The self-same voice as soft and dear
As that which met his youthful ear
The sunny look the witching grace
Still blushed upon her angel face
As though one moment’s harmless stay
Had never stole a charm away
That self-same bloom and in her eye
That blue of thirteen summers bye*
She took his hand to climb the stiles
And looked as wont her winning smiles
And as he met her looks divine
More tender did their blushes shine
Her small hand peeped within his own
Thrilled pleasures life hath never known
His heart beat as it once had done
And felt as love had just begun
As they’d ne‘er told their minds before
Or parted long to meet no more
The pleasant spots where they had met
All shone as nought had faded yet
The sun was setting o’er the hill
The thorn bush it was blooming still
As it was blooming on the day
When last he reached her boughs of may
And pleased he clumb the thorny grain
To crop its firstling buds again
And claimed in eager extacys
Love’s favours as he reached the prize
Marking her heart’s uneasy rest
The while he placed them on her breast
And felt warm love’s o‘erbounding thrill
That it could beat so tender still
And all her artless winning ways
Were with her as of other days
Her fears such fondness to reveal
Her wishes struggling to consceal
Her cheeks love’s same warm blushes burned
And smiled when he its warmth returned
O he did feel as he had done
When Mary’s bosom first was won
And gazed upon her eyes of blue
And blest her tenderly and true
As she sat by his side to rest
Feeling as then that he was blest
The talk, the whisper, met his ears
The same sweet tales of other years
That as they sat or mused along
Melted like music from her tongue
Objects of summer all the same
Were nigh her gentle praise to claim
The lark was rising from his nest
To sing the setting sun to rest
And her fair hand was o’er her eyes
To see her favourite in the skies
And oft his look was turned to see
If love still felt that melody
And blooming flowers were at her feet
Her bending lovely looks to meet
The blooms of spring and summer days
Lingering as to wait her praise
And though she showed him weeds the while
He praised and loved them for a smile
The cuckoo sung in soft delight
Its ditty to departing light
And murmuring childern far away
Mockt the music in their play
And in the ivied tree the dove
Breathed its soothing song to love
And as her praise she did renew
He smiled and hoped her heart as true
She blushed away in maiden pride
Then nestled closer to his side
He loved to watch her wistful look
Following white moths down the brook
And thrilled to mark her beaming eyes
Brightening in pleasure and supprise
To meet the wild mysterious things
That evening’s soothing presence brings
And stepping on with gentle feet
She strove to shun the lark’s retreat
And as he near the bushes prest
And scared the linnet from its nest
Fond chidings from her bosom fell
Then blessed the bird and wished it well
His heart was into rapture stirred
His very soul was with the bird
He felt that blessing by her side
As only to himself applied
‘Tis woman’s love makes earth divine
And life its rudest cares resign
And in his rapture’s gushing whim
He told her it was meant for him
She ne’er denied but looked the will
To own as though she blest him still
Yet he had fearful thoughts in view
Joy seemed too happy to be true
He doubted if‘twas Mary by
Yet could not feel the reason why
He loitered by her as in pain
And longed to hear her voice again
And called her by her witching name
She answered — ’twas the very same
And looked as if she knew his fears
Smiling to cheer him through her tears
And whispering in a tender sigh
“Tis youth and Mary standing by’
His heart revived yet in its mirth
Felt fears that they were not of earth
That all were shadows of the mind
Picturing the joys it wished to find
Yet he did feel as like a child
And sighed in fondness till she smiled
Vowing they ne‘er would part no more
And act so foolish as before
She nestled closer by his side
And vowed ‘We never will’ and sighed
He grasped her hand, it seemed to thrill,
And whispered ‘No, we never will’
And thought in rapture’s mad extream
To hold her though it proved a dream
And instant as that thought begun
Her presence seemed his love to shun
And deaf to all he had to say
Quick turned her tender face away
When her small waist he strove to clasp
She shrunk like water from his grasp.
He woke - all lonely as before
He sat beside the rilling streams
And felt that aching joy once more
Akin to thought and pleasant dreams

BALLAD

Fair maiden when my love began
Ere thou thy beauty knew
I fearless owned my passion then
Nor met reproof from you

But now perfection wakes thy charms
And strangers turn to praise
Thy pride my faint-grown heart alarms
And I scarce dare to gaze

Those lips to which mine own did grow
In love’s glad infancy
With ruby ripeness now doth glow
As gems too rich for me

The full-blown rose thy cheeks doth wear
Those lilys on thy brow
Forget whose kiss their buds did wear
And bloom above me now

Those eyes whose first sweet timid light
Did my young hopes inspire
Like midday suns in splendour bright
Now burn me with their fire

Nor can I weep what I bemoan
As great as are my fears
Too burning is my passion grown
To e’er be quenched by tears

BALLAD

O sigh no more, love, sigh no more
Nor pine for earthly treasure
Who fears a shipwreck on the shore
Or meets despair with pleasure

Let not our wants our troubles prove
Although ’tis winter weather
Nor singly strive with what our love
Can better brave together

Thy love is proved thy worth is such
It cannot fail to bless me
If I loose thee I can’t be rich
Nor poor if I possess thee

BALLAD*

The spring returns, the pewet screams
Loud welcomes to the dawning
Though harsh and ill as now it seems
’Twas music last May morning
The grass so green — the daisy gay
Wakes no joy in my bosom
Although the garland last Mayday
Wore not a finer blossom

For by this bridge my Mary sat
And praised the screaming plover
As first to hail the day — when I
Confessed myself her lover
And at that moment stooping down
I pluckt a daisy blossom
Which smilingly she called her own
May-garland for her bosom

And in her heart she hid it there
As true love’s happy omen
Gold had not claimed a safer care
I thought love’s name was woman
I claimed a kiss, she laughed away
I sweetly sold the blossom
I thought myself a king that day
My throne was beauty’s bosom

And little thought an evil hour
Was bringing clouds around me
And least of all that little flower
Would turn a thorn to wound me —
She showed me after many days
Though withered - how she prized it
And then she leaned to wealthy praise
And my poor love - despised it

Aloud the whirring pewet screams
The daisy blooms as gaily
But where is Mary? Absence seems
To ask that question daily
Nowhere on earth where joy can be
To glad me with her pleasure
Another name she owns - to me
She is as stolen treasure

When lovers part — the longest mile
Leaves hope of some returning
Though mine’s close bye - no hope the while
Within my heart is burning
One hour would bring me to her door
Yet sad and lonely-hearted
If seas between us both should roar
We were not further parted

Though I could reach her with my hand
Ere sun* the earth goes under,
Her heart from mine — the sea and land
Are not more far asunder
The wind and clouds, now here, now there,
Hold not such strange dominion
As woman’s cold perverted will
And soon-estranged opinion

CHANGES AND CONTRADICTIONS

If the satisfactions of Clare’s earlier poetry derives from a richly sensuous registration of his perceptions of a stable world, his maturity, from as early as 1821, and increasingly through the 1820s and early 1830s, incorporated or absorbed this achievement within a more complex reflectiveness: the syntax slowly veers from simple to elaborate as it comes to interweave many complex and contradictory discoveries: discoveries derived not so much from sheer observation as from sustained painful reflection, centred on his experience of changes and contradictions.

He came to explore the social, political and aesthetic meanings of economic changes and agricultural innovations — matters that changed fundamentally the relationships between the members of his own society and their environment. So he evolved a sense of a heritage, of being heir to natural blessings that were not merely a matter of sensory gratification or of physical well-being but, rather, of moral and spiritual import: fundamentally a matter of a wise love between the individual and his environment. Against such ‘natural’ virtue, Clare sets the cant and greed, the mania for improvement and the insensitivity of those for whose interests such a document as the following was framed:

And be it further Enacted, That no Horses, Beasts, Asses, Sheep, Lambs, or other Cattle, shall at any Time within the first Ten Years after the said Allotments shall be directed to be entered upon by the respective Proprietors thereof, be kept in any of the public Carriage Roads or Ways to be set out and fenced off on both Sides, or Laned out in pursuance of this Act. From: An Act for Inclosing Lands in the Parishes of Maxey...and Helpstone,inthe County of Northampton, 49 Geo. III.