Some mouths would eat forever and eat on

Childern are fond of sucking sugar-candy
And maids of sausages — larger the better
Shopmen are fond of good sigars and brandy
And I of blunt* - and if you change the letter
To C or K it would be quite as handy
And throw the next away — but I’m your debtor
For modesty - yet wishing nought between us
I’d hawl close to a she as Vulcan did to Venus

I really can’t tell what this poem will be
About - nor yet what trade I am to follow
I thought to buy old wigs - but that will kill me
With cold starvation - as they’re beaten hollow*
Long speeches in a famine will not fill me
And madhouse-traps still take me by the collar
So old wig bargains now must be forgotten
The oil that dressed them fine has made them rotten

I wish old wigs were done with ere they’re mouldy
I wish — but here’s the papers large and lusty
With speeches that full fifty times they’ve told ye
- Noble Lord John* to sweet Miss Fanny Fusty
Is wed — a lie good reader I ne’er sold ye
- Prince Albert goes to Germany and must he
Leave the Queen’s snuff-box where all fools are
strumming
From addled eggs no chickens can be coming

Whigs strum state fiddle-strings untill they snap
With cuckoo cuckold cuckoo year by year
The razor plays it on the barber’s strap
- The sissars grinder thinks it rather quere
That labour won’t afford him ‘one wee drap’
Of ale or gin or half and half or beer
- I wish Prince Albert and the noble dastards
Who wed the wives — would get the noble bastards

I wish Prince Albert on his German journey
I wish the Whigs were out of office and
Pickled in law books of some good atorney
For ways and speeches few can understand
They’ll bless ye when in power — in prison scorn ye
And make a man rent his own house and land —
I wish Prince Albert’s Queen was undefiled
— And every man could get his wife with child

I wish the devil luck with all my heart
As I would any other honest body
His bad name passes bye me like a f — t
Stinking of brimstone — then, like a whisky toddy,
We swallow sin which seems to warm the heart
- There’s no imputing any sin to God - he
Fills hell with work - and isn’t it a hard case
To leave old whigs and give to hell the carcass

Me-b — ne may throw his wig to little Vicky
And so resign* his humbug and his power
And she with the young princess* mount the dickey
On ass-milk diet for her German tour
Asses like ministers are rather tricky
I and the country proves it every hour
W-ll — gt-n and M-lb — ne in their station
Coblers to queens - are phisic to the nation

These batch of toadstools on this rotten tree
Shall be the cabinet of any queen
Though not such coblers as her servants be
They’re of Gods making — that is plainly seen
Nor red nor green nor orange — they are free
To thrive and flourish as the Whigs have been
But come tomorrow — like the Whigs forgotten
You’ll find them withered, stinking, dead and rotten

Death is an awfull thing, it is, by God
I’ve said so often and I think so now
‘Tis rather droll to see an old wig nod
Then doze and die the devil don’t know how
Odd things are wearisome and this is odd -
’Tis better work then kicking up a row
I’m weary of old Whigs and old whigs’ heirs
And long been sick of teazing God with prayers

I’ve never seen the cow turn to a bull
I’ve never seen a horse become an ass
I’ve never* seen an old brawn cloathed in wool
But I have seen full many a bonny lass
And wish I had one now beneath the cool
Of these high elms — Muse tell me where I was
O — talking of turning I’ve seen Whig and Tory
Turn imps of hell and all for England’s glory

I love good fellowship and wit and punning
I love ‘true love’ and, God my taste defend,
I hate most damnably all sorts of cunning -
I love the Moor and Marsh and Ponders End* -
I do not like the song of ’Cease your funning’*
I love a modest wife and trusty friend
— Bricklayers want lime as I want rhyme for fillups
- So here’s a health to sweet Eliza Phillips*

Song

Eliza now the summer tells
Of sports where love and beauty dwells
Come and spend a day with me
Underneath the forest tree
Where the restless water flushes
Over mosses, mounds and rushes
And where love and freedom dwells
With orchis flowers and foxglove bells
Come dear Eliza set me free
And o’er the forest roam with me

Here I see the morning sun
Among the beachtree’s shadows run
That into gold the short sward turns
Where each bright yellow blossom burns
With hues that would his beams outshine
Yet nought can match those smiles of thine
I try to find them all the day
But none are nigh when thou’rt away
Though flowers bloom now on every hill
Eliza is the fairest still

The sun wakes up the pleasant morn
And finds me lonely and forlorn
Then wears away to sunny noon
The flowers in bloom the birds in tune
While dull and dowie all the year
No smiles to see no voice to hear
I in this forest prison lie
With none to heed my silent sigh
And underneath this beachen tree
With none to sigh for Love but thee ...

There’s Doctor Bottle, * imp who deals in urine,
A keeper of state-prisons for the queen
As great a man as is the Doge of Turin
And save in London is but seldom seen
Yclep’d old A-11-n - mad-brained ladies curing
Some p-x-d like Flora and but seldom clean
The new road o’er the forest is the right one
To see red hell and, further on, the white one*

Earth hells or b-gg-r sh-ps or what you please
Where men close prisoners are and women ravished
I’ve often seen such dirty sights as these
I’ve often seen good money spent and lavished
To keep bad houses up for doctors’ fees
And I have known a b-gg-r’s tally travers’d
Till all his good intents began to falter
- When death brought in his bill and left the halter ...

Now this day is the eleventh of July
And being Sunday I will seek no flaw
In man or woman — but prepare to die.
In two days more I may that ticket draw
And so may thousands more as well as I
Today is here — the next who ever saw?
And In a madhouse I can find no mirth pay
- Next Tuesday* used to be Lord Byron’s birthday

‘Lord Byron? Poh, — the man wot rites the werses?’*
And is just what he is and nothing more?’
Who with his pen lies like the mist disperses
And makes all nothing as it was before
Who wed two wives* and oft the truth rehearses
And might have had some twenty thousand more
Who has been dead, so fools their lies are giving,
And still in Allen’s madhouse caged and living ...

I have two wives and I should like to see them
Both by my side before another hour
If both are honest I should like to be them
For both are fair and bonny as a flower
And one o Lord - now do bring in the tea, mem.
Were bards’ pens steamers, each often horse-power,
I could not bring her beautys fair to weather
So I’ve towed both in harbour blest together

Now i’n’t this canto worth a single pound
From anybody’s pocket? Who will buy?
As thieves are worth a halter I’ll be bound
Now honest reader take the book and try
And if as I have said it is not found
I’ll write a better canto bye and bye
So reader now the money-till, unlock it,
And buy the book* and help to fill my pocket

PRISON AMUSEMENTS, or CHILD HAROLD*

Many are poets* — though they use no pen
To show their labours to the shuffling age
Real poets must be truly honest men
Tied to no mongrel laws or flattery’s page
No zeal* have they for wrong or party rage
- The life of labour is a rural song
That hurts no cause - nor warfare tries to wage
Toil like the brook in music wears along -
Great little minds* claim right to act the wrong

Ballad

Summer morning is risen
And to even it wends
And still I’m in prison
Without any friends

I had joy’s assurance
Though in bondage I lie
- I am still left in durance
Unwilling to sigh

Still the forest is round me
Where the trees bloom in green
As if chains ne‘er had bound me
Or cares had ne’er been

Nature’s love is eternal
In forest and plain
Her course is diurnal
To blossom again

For homes and friends vanished
I have kindness not wrath
For in days care has banished
My heart possessed both

My hopes are all hopeless
My skys have no sun
Winter fell in youth’s Mayday
And still freezes on

But Love like the seed is
In the heart of a flower
It will blossom with truth
In a prosperous hour

True love is eternal
For God is the giver
And love like the soul will
Endure - and forever

And he who studies nature’s volume through
And reads it with a pure unselfish mind
Will find God’s power all round in every view
As one bright vision of the almighty mind
His eyes are open though the world is blind
No ill from him creation’s works deform
The high and lofty one is great and kind
Evil may cause the blight and crushing storm
His is the sunny glory and the calm

Song

The sun has gone down with a veil on her brow
While I in the forest sit museing alone
The maiden has been o’er the hills for her cow
While my heart’s affections are freezing to stone
Sweet Mary I wish that the day was my own
To live in a cottage with beauty and thee
The past I will not as a mourner bemoan
For abscence leaves Mary still dearer to me

How sweet are the glooms of the midsummer even
Dark night in the bushes seems going to rest
And the bosom of Mary with fancys is heaving
Where my sorrows and feelings for seasons were blest
Nor will I repine though in love we’re divided
She in the Lowlands* and I in the glen
Of these forest beeches — by nature we’re guided
And I shall find rest on her bosom again

How soft the dew falls on the leaves of the beeches
How fresh the wild flower seems to slumber below
How sweet are the lessons that nature still teaches
For truth is her tidings wherever I go
From schooldays of boyhood her image was cherished
In manhood sweet Mary was fairer then flowers
Nor yet has her name or her memory perished
Though absence like winter o’er happiness lowers

Though cares still will gather like clouds in my sky
Though hopes may grow hopeless and fetters recoil
While the sun of existance sheds light in my eye
I’ll be free in a prison and cling to the soil
I’ll cling to the spot where my first love was cherished
Where my heart nay my soul unto Mary I gave
And when my last hope and existance is perished
Her memory will shine like a sun on my grave

Mary thou ace of hearts thou muse of song
The pole-star of my being and decay
Earth’s coward-foes my shattered bark may wrong
Still thou‘rt the sunrise of my natal day
Born to misfortunes - where no sheltering bay
Keeps off the tempest* - wrecked where e’er I flee
I struggle with my fate — in trouble strong —
Mary thy name loved long still keeps me free
Till my lost life becomes a part of thee

Song

I’ve wandered * many a weary mile
Love in my heart was burning
To seek a home in Mary’s smile
But cold is love’s returning
The cold ground was a feather-bed
Truth never acts contrary
I had no home above my head
My home was love and Mary

I had no home in early youth
When my first love was thwarted
But if her heart still beats with truth
We’ll never more be parted
And changing as her love may be
My own shall never vary
Nor night nor day I’m never free
But sigh for abscent Mary

Nor night nor day nor sun nor shade
Week month nor rolling year
Repairs the breach wronged love hath made
There madness - misery here
Life’s lease was lengthened by her smiles
- Are truth and love contrary?
No ray of hope my life beguiles
I’ve lost love home and Mary

Love is the main spring of existance-It
Becomes a soul wherebye I live to love
On all I see that dearest name is writ
Falsehood is here* - but truth has life above
Where every star that shines exists in love
Skys vary in their clouds — the seasons vary
From heat to cold - change cannot constant prove
The South is bright — but smiles can act contrary
My guide-star gilds the North — and shines with Mary

Song

Here’s where Mary loved to be
And here are flowers she planted
Here are books she loved to see
And here the kiss she granted

Here on the wall with smileing brow
Her picture used to cheer me
Both walls and rooms are naked now
No Mary’s nigh to hear me

The church-spire* still attracts my eye
And leaves me broken-hearted
Though grief hath worn their channels dry
I sigh o’er days departed

The churchyard where she used to play
My feet could wander hourly
My school-walks there was every day
Where she made winter flowery

But where is angel Mary now?
Love’s secrets, none disclose ’em
Her rosey cheeks and broken vow
Live in my aching bosom

My life hath been one love - no blot it out
My life hath been one chain of contradictions
Madhouses Prisons wh-re shops - never doubt
But that my life hath had some strong convictions
That such was wrong — religion makes restrictions
I would have followed - but life turned a bubble
And clumb the giant stile of maledictions
They took me from my wife and to save trouble
I wed again and made the error double

Yet abscence claims them both and keeps them too
And locks me in a shop in spite of law
Among a levy-lived set and dirty crew
Here let the Muse* oblivion’s curtain draw
And let man think - for God hath often saw
Things here too dirty for the light of day
For in a madhouse there exists no law -
Now stagnant grows my too refined clay
I envy birds their wings to flye away

How servile is the task to please alone
Though beauty woo and love inspire the song
Mere painted beauty* with her heart of stone
Thinks the world worships while she flaunts along
The flower of sunshine, butterflye of song
Give me the truth of heart in woman’s life
The love to cherish one - and do no wrong
To none — o peace of every care and strife
Is true love in an estimable wife

How beautifull this hill of fern swells on
So beautifull the chappel peeps between
The hornbeams - with its simple bell - alone
I wander here hid in a palace green
Mary is abscent — but the forest queen
Nature is with me — morning noon and gloaming
I write my poems in these paths unseen
And when among these brakes and beeches roaming
I sigh for truth and home and love and woman

I sigh for one and two — and still I sigh
For many are the whispers I have heard
From beauty’s lips - love’s soul in many an eye
Hath pierced my heart with such intense regard
I looked for joy and pain was the reward
I think of them I love, each girl and boy,
Babes of two mothers - on this velvet sward
And nature thinks - in her so sweet employ
While dews fall on each blossom weeping joy

Here is the chappel-yard enclosed with pales
And oak trees nearly top its little bell
Here is the little bridge with guiding rail
That leads me on to many a pleasant dell
The fernowl chitters like a startled knell
To nature — yet ’tis sweet at evening still —
A pleasant road curves round the gentle swell
Where nature seems to have her own sweet will
Planting her beech and thorn about the sweet fern-hill

I have had many loves - and seek no more -
These solitudes my last delights shall be
The leaf-hid forest-and the lonely shore
Seem to my mind like beings that are free
Yet would I had some eye to smile on me
Some heart where I could make a happy home in
Sweet Susan that was wont my love to be
And Bessey* of the glen — for I’ve been roaming
With both at morn and noon and dusky gloaming

Cares gather round I snap their chains in two
And smile in agony and laugh in tears
Like playing with a deadly serpent — who
Stings to the death - there is no room for fears
Where death would bring me happiness — his sheers
Kills cares that hiss to poison many a vein
The thought to be extinct my fate endears
Pale death the grand phisician cures all pain
The dead rest well — who lived for joys in vain

Written in a Thunderstorm*July 15th 1841

The heavens are wrath — the thunder’s rattling peal
Rolls like a vast volcano in the sky
Yet nothing starts the apathy I feel
Nor chills with fear eternal destiny

My soul is apathy - a ruin vast
Time cannot clear the ruined mass away
My life is hell — the hopeless die is cast
And manhood’s prime is premature decay

Roll on, ye wrath of thunders - peal on peal
Till worlds are ruins and myself alone
Melt heart and soul cased in obdurate steel
Till I can feel that nature is my throne

I live in love, sun of undying light,
And fathom my own heart for ways of good
In its pure atmosphere day without night
Smiles on the plains the forest and the flood

Smile on ye elements of earth and sky
Or frown in thunders as ye frown on me
Bid earth and its delusions pass away
But leave the mind as its creator free

This twilight seems a veil of gause and mist
Trees seem dark hills between the earth and sky
Winds sob awake and then a gusty hist
Fanns through the wheat like serpents gliding bye
I love to stretch my length ‘tween earth and sky
And see the inky foliage o’er me wave
Though shades are still my prison where I lie
Long use grows nature which I easy brave
And think how sweet cares rest within the grave

Remind me not of other years or tell
My broken hopes of joys they are to meet
While thy own falshood rings the loudest knell
To one fond heart that aches too cold to beat
Mary how oft* with fondness I repeat
That name alone to give my troubles rest
The very sound though bitter seemeth sweet -
In my love’s home and thy own faithless breast
Truth’s bonds are broke and every nerve distrest

Life is to me a dream that never wakes
Night finds me on this lengthening road alone
Love is to me a thought that ever aches
A frost-bound thought that freezes life to stone
Mary in truth and nature still my own
That warms the winter of my aching breast
Thy name is joy nor will I life bemoan —
Midnight when sleep takes charge of nature’s rest
Finds me awake and friendless - not distrest

Tie all my cares up in thy arms, O sleep,
And give my weary spirits peace and rest
I’m not an outlaw in this midnight deep
If prayers are offered from sweet woman’s breast
One and one only made my being blest
And fancy shapes her form in every dell
On that sweet bosom I’ve had hours of rest
Though now, through years of abscence doomed to dwell,
Day seems my night and night seems blackest hell

England my country though my setting sun
Sinks in the ocean-gloom and dregs of life
My muse can sing my Mary’s heart was won
And joy was heaven when I called her wife
The only harbour in my days of strife
Was Mary when the sea roiled mountains high
When joy was lost and every sorrow rife
To her sweet bosom I was wont to flye
To undecieve by truth life’s treacherous agony

Friend of the friendless from a host of snares
From lying varlets and from friendly foes
I sought thy quiet truth to ease my cares
And on the blight of reason found repose
But when the strife of nature ceased her throes
And other hearts would beat for my return
I trusted fate to ease my world of woes
Seeking love’s harbour - where I now sojourn
— But hell is heaven, could I cease to mourn

For her, for one whose very name is yet
My hell or heaven - and will ever be.
Falsehood is doubt — but I can ne’er forget
Oaths virtuous falsehood volunteered to me
To make my soul new bonds which God made free
God’s gift is love and do I wrong the giver
To place affections wrong from God’s decree?*
— No, when farewell upon my lips did quiver
And all seemed lost — I loved her more than ever

I loved her in all climes beneath the sun
Her name was like a jewel in my heart
‘Twas heaven’s own choice - and so God’s will be
done
Love-ties that keep unbroken cannot part
Nor can cold abscence sever or desert
That simple beauty blessed with matchless charms
Oceans have rolled between us — not to part
E’en Iceland’s snows true love’s delirium warms
For there I’ve dreamed - and Mary filled my arms

Song

O Mary sing thy songs to me
Of love and beauty’s melody
My sorrows sink beneath distress
My deepest griefs are sorrowless
So used to glooms and cares am I
My fearless troubles seem as joy
O Mary sing thy songs to me
Of love and beauty’s melody

‘To be beloved* is all I need
And them I love are loved indeed’
The soul of woman is my shrine
And Mary made my songs divine
O for that time that happy time
To hear thy sweet piano’s chime
In music so divine and clear
That woke my soul in heaven to hear

But heaven itself without thy face
To me would be no resting-place
And though the world was one delight
No joy would live but in thy sight
The soul of woman is my shrine
Then Mary make those songs divine
For music, love, and melody
Breathe all of thee and only thee

Song

Lovely Mary when we parted
I ne‘er felt so lonely-hearted
As I do now in field and glen
When hope says ‘we shall meet agen’
And by yon spire that points to heaven
Where my earliest vows was given
By each meadow field and fen
I’ll love thee till we meet agen

True as the needle to the pole
My life I love thee heart and soul
Wa‘n’t thy love in my heart enrolled
Though love was fire ’twould soon be cold
By thy eyes of heaven’s own blue
My heart for thine was ever true
By sun and moon, by sea and shore,
My life I love thee more and more

And by that hope that lingers last
For heaven when life’s hell is past
By time the present - past and gone
I’ve loved thee — and I love thee on
Thy beauty made youth’s life divine
Till my soul grew a part of thine
Mary I mourn no pleasures gone —
The past has made us both as one

Now melancholly autumn* comes anew
With showery clouds and fields of wheat tanned brown
Along the meadow banks I peace pursue
And see the wild flowers gleaming up and down
Like sun and light — the ragwort’s golden crown
Mirrors like sunshine when sunbeams retire
And silver yarrow — there’s the little town
And o’er the meadows gleams that slender spire
Reminding me of one — and waking fond desire

I love thee nature in my inmost heart
Go where I will thy truth seems from above
Go where I will thy landscape forms a part
Of heaven — e’en these fens where wood nor grove
Are seen — their very nakedness I love
For one dwells nigh that secret hopes prefer
Above the race of women — like the dove
I mourn her abscence - fate, that would deter
My hate for all things, strengthens love for her

Thus saith the great and high and lofty one
Whose name is holy — home, eternity:
‘In the high and holy place I dwell alone
And with them also that I wish to see
Of contrite humble spirits — from sin free —
Who trembles at my word - and good receive.’
— Thou high and lofty one — O give to me
Truth’s low estate and I will glad believe
If such I am not - such I’m feign to live

That form from boyhood loved and still loved on
That voice - that look - that face of one delight
Love’s register for years, months, weeks - time past and
gone
Her looks was ne’er forgot or out of sight
- Mary the muse of every song I write
Thy cherished memory never leaves my own
Though care’s chill winter doth my manhood blight
And freeze like Niobe* my thoughts to stone -
Our lives are two — our end and aim is one

Ballad

Sweet days while God your blessings send
I call your joys my own
- And if I have an only friend
I am not left alone

She sees the fields the trees the spires
Which I can daily see
And if true love her heart inspires
Life still has joys for me

She sees the wild flower in the dells
That in my rambles shine
The sky that o’er her homestead dwells
Looks sunny over mine

The cloud that passes where she dwells
In less then half an hour
Darkens around these orchard dells
Or melts a sudden shower

The wind that leaves the sunny South
And fans the orchard tree
Might steal the kisses from her mouth
And waft her voice to me

O when will autumn bring the news
Now harvest browns the fen
That Mary as my vagrant muse
And I shall meet again

‘Tis pleasant now day’s hours begin to pass
To dewy eve — To walk down narrow close
And feel one’s feet among refreshing grass
And hear the insects in their homes discourse
And startled blackbird flye from covert close
Of whitethorn hedge with wild fear’s fluttering wings
And see the spire and hear the clock toll hoarse
And whisper names - and think o’er many things
That love hurds up in truth’s imaginings

Fame blazed upon me like a comet’s glare
Fame waned and left me like a fallen star
Because I told the evil what they are
And truth and falsehood never wished to mar
My Life hath been a wreck - and I’ve gone far
For peace and truth - and hope - for home and rest
- Like Eden’s gates - fate throws a constant bar -
Thoughts may o’ertake the sunset in the West
- Man meets no home within a woman’s breast

Though they are blazoned in the poet’s song
As all the comforts which our lives* contain
I read and sought such joys my whole life long
And found the best of poets sung in vain
But still I read and sighed and sued again
And lost no purpose where I had the will
I almost worshiped when my toils grew vain
Finding no antidote my pains to kill
I sigh a poet and a lover still

Song

Dying gales of sweet even
How can you sigh so
Though the sweet day is leaving
And the sun sinketh low
How can you sigh so
For the wild flower is gay
And her dew-gems all glow
For the abscence of day

Dying gales of sweet even
Breathe music from toil
Dusky eve is love’s heaven
And meets beauty’s smile
Love leans on the stile
Where the rustic brooks flow
Dying gales all the while
How can you sigh so

Dying gales round a prison
To fancy may sigh
But day here hath risen
Over prospects of joy
Here Mary would toy
When the sun it got low
Even gales whisper joy
And never sigh so

Labour lets man his brother
Retire to his rest
The babe meets its mother
And sleeps on her breast —
The sun in the West
Has gone down in the ocean
Dying gales gently sweep
O’er the heart’s ruffled motion
And sing it to sleep

Song

The spring may forget that he reigns in the sky
And winter again hide her flowers in the snow
The summer may thirst when her fountains are dry
But I’ll think of Mary wherever I go
The bird may forget that her nest is begun
When the snow settles white on the new-budding tree
And nature in tempests forget the bright sun
But I’ll ne’er forget her - that was plighted to me

How could I - how should I - that loved her so early
Forget - when I’ve sung of her beauty in song
How could I forget — what I’ve worshiped so dearly
From boyhood to manhood - and all my life long -
As leaves to the branches in summer comes duly
And blossoms will bloom on the stalk and the tree
To her beauty I’ll cling — and I’ll love her as truly
And think of sweet Mary wherever I be

Song

No single hour can stand for nought
No moment-hand* can move
But calenders an aching thought
Of my first lonely love

Where silence doth the loudest call
My secrets to betray
As moonlight holds the night in thrall
As suns reveal the day

I hide it in the silent shades
Till silence finds a tongue
I make its grave where time invades
Till time becomes a song

I bid my foolish heart be still
But hopes will not be chid
My heart will beat — and burn — and chill
First love will not be hid

When summer ceases to be green
And winter bare and blea —
Death may forget what I have been
But I must cease to be

When words refuse before the crowd
My Mary’s name to give
The muse in silence sings aloud
And there my love will live

Now harvest smiles embrowning all the plain
The sun of heaven o‘er its ripeness shines
‘Peace-plenty’* has been sung nor sung in vain
As all bring forth the maker’s grand designs
— Like gold that brightens in some hidden mines
His nature is the wealth that brings increase
To all the world — his sun forever shines
— He hides his face and troubles they increase
He smiles - the sun looks out in wealth and peace

This life* is made of lying and grimace
This world is filled with whoring and decieving
Hypocrisy ne’er masks an honest face
Stories are told - but seeing is believing
And I’ve seen much from which there’s no retrieving
I’ve seen deception take the place of truth
I’ve seen knaves nourish — and the country grieving
Lies was the current gospel in my youth
And now a man — I’m further off from truth

Song

They ne’er read the heart
Who would read it in mine
That love can desert
The first truth on his shrine
Though in Lethe I steep it
And sorrows prefer
In my heart’s core I keep it
And keep it for her

For her and her only
Through months and through years
I’ve wandered thus lonely
In sorrow and fears
My sorrows I smother
Though troubles anoy
In this world and no other
I cannot meet joy

No peace nor yet pleasure
Without her will stay
Life looses its treasure
When Mary’s away
Though the nightingale often
In sorrow may sing
- Can the blast of the winter
Meet blooms of the spring

Thou first, best, and dearest
Though dwelling apart
To my heart still the nearest
Forever thou art
And thou wilt be the dearest
Though our joys may be o’er
And to me thou art nearest
Though I meet thee no more

Song

Did I know where to meet thee
Thou dearest in life
How soon would I greet thee
My true love and wife
How soon would I meet thee
At close of the day
Though cares would still cheat me
If Mary would meet me
I’d kiss her sweet beauty and love them away

And when evening discovers
The sun in the West
I long like true lovers
To lean on thy breast
To meet thee my dearest
— Thy eyes beaming blue
Abscent pains the severest
Feel Mary’s the dearest
And if Mary’s abscent — how can I be true?

How dull the glooms cover
This meadow and fen
Where I as a lover
Seek Mary agen
But silence is teazing
Wherever I stray
There’s nothing seems pleasing
Or aching thoughts easing
Though Mary lives near me - she seems far away

O would these gales murmur
My love in her ear
Or a bird’s note inform her
While I linger here
But nature, contrary,
Turns night into day
No bird — gale — or fairy
Can whisper to Mary
To tell her who seeks her - while Mary’s away

Dull must that being live who sees unmoved
The scenes and objects that his childhood knew
The school-yard and the maid he early loved
The sunny wall where long the old Elms grew
The grass that e’en till noon retains the dew
Beneath the wallnut shade I see them still
Though not such fancys do I now pursue
Yet still the picture turns my bosom chill
And leaves a void — nor love nor hope may fill

After long abscence how the mind recalls
Pleasing associations of the past
Haunts of his youth — thorn-hedges and old walls
And hollow trees that sheltered from the blast
And all that map of boyhood overcast
With glooms and wrongs and sorrows not his own
That o’er his brow like the scathed lightening passed
That turned his spring to winter and alone
Wrecked name and fame and all — to solitude unknown

So on he lives in glooms and living death
A shade like night forgetting and forgot
Insects that kindle in the spring’s young breath
Take hold of life and share a brighter lot
Then he the tennant* of the hall and Cot
The princely palace too hath been his home
And Gipsey’s camp when friends would know him not
In midst of wealth a beggar still to roam
Parted from one whose heart was once his home

And yet not parted — still love’s hope illumes
And like the rainbow brightest in the storm
It looks for joy beyond the wreck of tombs
And in life’s winter keeps love’s embers warm
The ocean’s roughest tempest meets a calm
Care’s thickest cloud shall break in sunny joy
O’er the parched waste, showers yet shall fall like balm
And she the soul of life for whom I sigh
Like flowers shall cheer me when the storm is bye

Song

O Mary dear, three springs* have been
Three summers too have blossomed here
Three blasting winters crept between
Though abscence is the most severe
Another summer blooms in green
But Mary never once was seen

I’ve sought her in the fields and flowers
I’ve sought her in the forest groves
In avanues and shaded bowers
And every scene that Mary loves
E’en round her home I seek her there*
But Mary’s abscent everywhere

’Tis autumn and the rustling corn
Goes loaded on the creaking wain
I seek her in the early morn
But cannot meet her face again
Sweet Mary she is abscent still
And much I fear she ever will

The autumn morn looks mellow as the fruit
And ripe as harvest - every field and farm
Is full of health and toil — yet never mute
With rustic mirth and peace the day is warm
The village maid with gleans upon her arm
Brown as the hazel-nut from field to field
Goes cheerily - the valley’s native charm -
I seek tor charms that autumn best can yield
In mellowing wood and time ybleaching field

Song

’Tis autumn now and nature’s scenes
The pleachy fields and yellowing trees
Looses their blooming hues and greens
But nature finds no change in me
The fading woods the russet grange
The hues of nature may desert
But nought in me shall find a change
To wrong the angel of my heart
For Mary is my angel still
Through every month and every ill

The leaves they loosen from the branch
And fall upon the gusty wind
But my heart’s silent love is staunch
And nought can tear her from my mind
The flowers are gone from dell and bower
Though crowds from summer’s lap was given
But love is an eternal flower
Like purple amaranths in heaven
To Mary first my heart did bow
And if she’s true she keeps it now

Just as the summer keeps the flower
Which spring conscealed in hoods of gold
Or unripe harvest met the shower
And made earth’s blessings manifold
Just so my Mary lives for me
A silent thought for months and years
The world may live in revellry
Her name my lonely quiet cheers
And cheer it will what e’er may be
While Mary lives to think of me

Sweet comes the misty mornings in September
Among the dewy paths how sweet to stray
Greensward or stubbles, as I well remember
I once have done - the mist curls thick and grey
As cottage smoke — like net-work on the spray
Or seeded grass the cobweb draperies run
Beaded with pearls of dew at early day
And o’er the pleachy stubbles peeps the sun
The lamp of day when that of night is done

What mellowness these harvest days unfold
In the strong glances of the midday sun
The homestead’s very grass seems changed to gold
The light in golden shadows seems to run
And tinges every spray it rests upon
With that rich harvest hue of sunny joy
Nature life’s sweet companion cheers alone -
The hare starts up before the shepherd-boy
And partridge coveys wir on russet wings of joy

The meadow flags now rustle bleached and dank
And misted o’er with down as fine as dew
The sloe and dewberry shine along the bank
Where weeds in bloom’s luxuriance lately grew
Red rose the sun and up the morehen flew
From bank to bank* the meadow-arches stride
Where foamy floods in winter tumbles through
And spread a restless ocean foaming wide
Where now the cowboys sleep nor fear the coming tide

About the meadows now I love to sit
On banks, bridge-walls, and rails, as when a boy
To see old trees bend o’er the flaggy pit
With hugh roots bare that time does not destroy
Where sits the angler at his day’s employ
And there the ivy* leaves the bank to climb
The tree - and now how sweet to weary joy
- Aye nothing seems so happy and sublime
As sabbath-bells and their delightfull chime

Sweet solitude thou partner of my life
Thou balm of hope and every pressing care
Thou soothing silence o’er the noise of strife
These meadow-flats and trees — the autumn air
Mellows my heart to harmony — I bear
Life’s burthen happily - these fenny dells
Seem Eden in this sabbath rest from care
My heart with love’s first early memory swells
To hear the music of those village bells

For in that hamlet lives my rising sun
Whose beams hath cheered me all my lorn life long
My heart to nature there was early won
For she was nature’s self — and still my song
Is her through sun and shade through right and wrong
On her my memory forever dwells
The flower of Eden — evergreen of song
Truth in my heart the same love-story tells
— I love the music of those village bells

Song

Here’s a health* unto thee bonny lassie O
Leave the thorns o’ care wi’ me
And whatever I may be
Here’s happiness to thee
Bonny lassie O

Here’s joy unto thee bonny lassie O
Though we never meet again
I well can bear the pain
If happiness is thine
Bonny lassie O

Here is true love unto thee bonny lassie O
Though abscence cold is ours
The spring will come wi’ flowers
And love will wait for thee
Bonny lassie O

So here’s love unto thee bonny lassie O
Aye wherever I may be
Here’s a double health to thee
Till life shall cease to love
Bonny lassie O

The blackbird startles from the homestead-hedge
Raindrops and leaves fall yellow as he springs
Such images are nature’s sweetest pledge
To me there’s music in his rustling wings
‘Prink prink’ he cries and loud the robin sings
The small hawk like a shot drops from the sky
Close to my feet for mice and creeping things
Then swift as thought again he suthers bye
And hides among the clouds from the pursueing eye

Song

Her cheeks are like roses
Her eyes they are blue
And her beauty is mine
If her heart it is true

Her cheeks are like roses -
And though she’s away
I shall see her sweet beauty
On some other day

Ere the flowers of the spring
Deck the meadow and plain
If there’s truth in her bosom
I shall see her again.

I will love her as long
As the brooks they shall flow
For Mary is mine
Wheresoever I go

Honesty and good intentions are
So mowed and hampered in with evil lies
She hath not room to stir a single foot
Or even strength to break a spider’s web
- So lies keep climbing round love’s sacred stem
Blighting fair truth whose leaf is evergreen
Whose roots are the heart’s fibres and whose sun
The soul that cheers and smiles it into bloom
Till heaven proclaims that truth can never die

The lightening’s vivid flashes rend the cloud
That rides like castled crags along the sky
And splinters them to fragments — while aloud
The thunders, heaven’s artillery, vollies bye
Trees crash, earth trembles - beasts prepare to flye
Almighty, what a crash — yet man is free
And walks unhurt while danger seems so nigh —
Heaven’s archway now the rainbow seems to be
That spans the eternal round of earth and sky and sea
A shock, a moment, in the wrath of God

Is long as hell’s eternity to all
His thunderbolts leave life but as the clod
Cold and inanimate - their temples fall
Beneath his frown to ashes — the eternal pall
Of wrath sleeps o’er the ruins where they fell
And nought of memory may their creeds recall
The sin of Sodom was a moment’s yell
Fire’s death-bed theirs, their first grave the last hell

The towering willow with its pliant boughs
Sweeps its grey foliage to the autumn wind
The level grounds where oft a group of cows
Huddled together close - or propped behind
An hedge or hovel ruminate and find
The peace — as walks and health and I pursue
For nature’s every place is still resigned
To happiness — new life’s in every view
And here I comfort seek and early joys renew

The lake that held a mirror to the sun
Now curves with wrinkles in the stillest place
The autumn wind sounds hollow as a gun
And water stands in every swampy place
Yet in these fens peace, harmony, and grace,
The attributes of nature, are allied
The barge with naked mast in sheltered place
Beside the brig, close to the bank, is tied
While small waves plashes by its bulky side

Song

The floods come o’er the meadow leas
The dykes are full and brimming
Field-furrows reach the horses’ knees
Where wild ducks oft are swimming
The skyes are black the fields are bare
The trees their coats are loosing
The leaves are dancing in the air
The sun its warmth refusing

Brown are the flags and fadeing sedge
And tanned the meadow plains
Bright yellow is the osier hedge
Beside the brimming drains
The crows sit on the willow tree
The lake is full below
But still the dullest thing I see
Is self that wanders slow

The dullest scenes are not so dull
As thoughts I cannot tell
The brimming dykes are not so full
As my heart’s silent swell
I leave my troubles to the winds
With none to share a part
The only joy my feeling finds
Hides in an aching heart

Absence in love is worse then any fate
Summer is winter’s desert and the spring
Is like a ruined city desolate
Joy dies and hope retires on feeble wing
Nature sinks heedless, birds unheeded sing
’Tis solitude in citys, *crowds all move
Like living death though all to life still cling
The strongest bitterest thing that life can prove
Is woman’s undisguise of hate and love

Song

I think of thee at early day
And wonder where my love can be
And when the evening shadow’s grey
O how I think of thee

Along the meadow banks I rove
And down the flaggy fen
And hope, my first and early love,
To meet thee once again

I think of thee at dewy morn
And at the sunny noon
And walks with thee - now left forlorn
Beneath the silent moon

I think of thee I think of all
How blest we both have been -
The sun looks pale upon the wall
And autumn shuts the scene

I can’t expect to meet thee now
The winter floods begin
The wind sighs through the naked bough
Sad as my heart within

I think of thee the seasons through
In spring when flowers I see
In winter’s lorn and naked view
I think of only thee

While life breathes on this earthly ball
What e’er my lot may be
Whether in freedom or in thrall
Mary I think of thee

‘Tis winter and the fields are bare and waste
The air one mass of ‘vapour clouds and storms’
The sun’s broad beams are buried and o’ercast
And chilly glooms the midday light deforms
Yet comfort now the social bosom warms
Friendship of nature which I hourly prove
Even in this winter scene of frost and storms
Bare fields, the frozen lake, and leafless grove
Are nature’s grand religion and true love

Song

Thou’rt dearest to my bosom
As thou wilt ever be
While the meadows wear a blossom
Or a leaf is on the tree
I can forget thee never
While the meadow grass is green
While the flood rolls down the river
Thou art still my bonny queen

While the winter swells the fountain
While the spring awakes the bee
While the chamois loves the mountain
Thou‘lt be ever dear to me
Dear as summer to the sun
As spring is to the bee
Thy love was soon as won
And so ’twill ever be

Thou‘rt love’s eternal summer
The dearest maid I prove
With bosom white as ivory
And warm as virgin love
No falsehood gets between us
There’s nought the tie can sever
As Cupid dwells with Venus
Thou’rt my own love forever

Song

In this cold world without a home
Disconsolate I go
The summer looks as cold to me
As winter’s frost and snow
Though winter’s scenes are dull and drear
A colder lot I prove
No home had I through all the year
But Mary’s honest love

But Love inconstant as the wind
Soon shifts another way
No other home my heart can find
Life wasting day by day
I sigh and sit and sit and sigh
For better days to come
For Mary was my hope and joy
Her truth and heart my home

Her truth and heart was once my home
And May was all the year
But now through seasons as I roam
‘Tis winter everywhere
Hopeless I go through care and toil
No friend I e’er possest
To reccompence for Mary’s smile
And the love within her breast

My love was ne’er so blest as when
It mingled with her own
Told often to be told agen
And every feeling known
But now love’s hopes are all bereft
A lonely man I roam
And abscent Mary long hath left
My heart without a home

The Paigles Bloom* In Showers In Grassy Close
How Sweet To Be Among Their Blossoms Led
And Hear Sweet Nature To Herself Discourse
While Pale The Moon Is Bering Over Head
And Hear The Grazeing Cattle Softly Tread
Cropping The Hedgerow’s Newly Leafing Thorn
Sounds Soft As Visions Murmured O‘er In Bed
At Dusky Eve or Sober Silent Morn
For Such Delights ’Twere Happy Man Was Born

Green bushes and green trees where fancy feeds
On the retireing solitudes of May
Where the sweet foliage like a volume reads
And weeds are gifts too choice to throw away
How sweet the evening now succeeds the day
The velvet hillock forms a happy seat
The whitethorn bushes bend with snowey may
Dwarf furze in golden blooms and violets sweet
Make this wild scene a pleasure-ground’s retreat

Where are my friends and childern where are they
The childern of two mothers born in joy
One roof has held them — all have been at play
Beneath the pleasures of a mother’s eye
— And are my late hopes blighted — need I sigh?
Hath care commenced his long perpetual reign?
The spring and summer hath with me gone bye
Hope views the bud a flower and not in vain
Long is the night that brings no morn again

Now Come The Balm And Breezes Of The Spring
Not With The Pleasures Of My Early Days
When Nature Seemed One Endless Song To Sing
A Joyous Melody And Happy Praise
Ah Would They Come Agen - But Life Betrays
Quicksands and Gulphs And Storms That Howl And
Sting
All Quiet Into Madness And Delays
Care Hides The Sunshine With Its Raven Wing
And Hell Glooms Sadness O’er The Songs Of Spring

Like Satan’s Warcry First In Paradise
When Love Lay Sleeping On The Flowery Slope
Like Virtue Wakeing In The Arms Of Vice
Or Death’s Sea Bursting In The Midst Of Hope
Sorrows Will Stay - And Pleasures Will Elope
In The Uncertain Certainty Of Care
Joy’s Bounds Are Narrow But A Wider Scope
Is Left For Trouble Which Our Life Must Bear
Of Which All Human Life Is More Or Less The Heir

My Mind Is Dark And Fathomless And Wears
The Hues Of Hopeless Agony And Hell
No Plummet Ever Sounds The Soul’s Affairs
There Death Eternal Never Sounds The Knell
There Love Imprisoned Sighs The Long Farewell
And Still May Sigh In Thoughts No Heart Hath Penned
Alone In Loneliness Where Sorrows Dwell
And Hopeless Hope Hopes On And Meets No End
Wastes Without Springs And Homes Without A Friend

Song

Say What Is Love — To Live In Vain
To Live And Die And Live Again

Say What Is Love- Is It To Be
In Prison Still And Still Be Free

Or Seem As Free - Alone And Prove
The Hopeless Hopes Of Real Love

Does Real Love On Earth Exist
’Tis Like A Sunbeam On The Mist

That Fades And No Where Will Remain
And Nowhere Is O’ertook Again

Say What Is Love — A Blooming Name
A Rose Leaf On The Page Of Fame

That Blooms Then Fades - To Cheat No More
And Is What Nothing Was Before

Say What Is Love — What E’er It be
It Centers Mary Still With Thee

What is the Orphan Child Without A Friend
That Knows No Father’s Care Or Mother’s Love
No Leading Hand His Infant Steps Defend
And None To Notice But His God Above
No Joys Are Seen His Little Heart To Move
Care Turns All Joys to Dross And Nought To Gold
And He In Fancy’s Time May Still Disprove
Growing To Cares And Sorrows Menifold
Bird Of The Waste A Lamb Without A Fold

No Mother’s Love or Father’s Care Have They
Left To The Storms Of Fate Like Creatures Wild
They Live Like Blossoms In The Winter’s Day
E’en Nature Frowns Upon The Orphan Child
On Whose Young Face A Mother Never Smiled
Foolhardy Care Increasing With His Years
From Friends And Joys Of Every Kind Exiled
Even Old In Care The Infant Babe Appears
And Many A Mother Meets Its Face In Tears

The Dog Can Find A Friend And Seeks His Side
The Ass Can Know Its Owner And Is Fed
But None Are Known To Be The Orphan’s Guide
Toil Breaks His Sleep And Sorrow Makes His Bed
No Mother’s Hand Holds Out The Sugared Bread
To Fill His Little Hand - He Hears No Song
To Please His Pouting Humours - Love Is Dead
With Him And Will Be All His Whole Life Long
Lone Child Of Sorrow And Perpetual Wrong

But Providence That Grand Eternal Calm
Is With Him Like The Sunshine In The Sky
Nature Our Kindest Mother Void Of Harm
Watches The Orphan’s Lonely Infancy
Strengthening The Man When Childhood’s Cares Are
Bye
She Nurses Still Young Unreproached Distress
And Hears The Lonely Infant’s Every Sigh
Who Finds At Length To Make Its Sorrows Less
Mid Earth’s Cold Curses There Is One To Bless

Sweet Rural Maids Made Beautifull By Health
Brought Up Where Nature’s Calm Encircles All
Where Simple Love Remains As Sterling Wealth
Where Simple Habits Early Joys Recall
Of Youthfull Feelings Which No Wiles Enthrall
The Happy Milk Maid* In Her Mean Array
Fresh As The New-Blown Rose Outblooms Them All
E’en Queens Might Sigh To Be As Blest As They
While Milkmaids Laugh And Sing Their Cares Away

How Doth Those Scenes Which Rural Mirth Endears
Revise Old Feelings That My Youth Hath Known
And Paint The Faded Bloom Of Earlier Years
And Soften Feelings Petrefied To Stone
Joy Fled And Care Proclaimed Itself My Own
Farewells I Took OfJoys In Earliest Years
And Found The Greatest Bliss To Be Alone
My Manhood Was Eclipsed But Not In Fears
- Hell Came In Curses And She Laugh’d At Tears

But Memory Left Sweet Traces Of Her Smiles
Which I Remember Still And Still Endure
The Shadows Of First Loves My Heart Beguiles
Time Brought Both Pain and Pleasure But No Cure
Sweet Bessey Maid Of Health And Fancys Pure
How Did I Woo Thee Once - Still Unforgot
But Promises In Love Are Never Sure
And Where We Met How Dear Is Every Spot
And Though We Parted Still I Murmur Not

For Loves However Dear Must Meet With Clouds
And Ties Made Tight Get Loose And May Be Parted
Spring’s First Young Flowers The Winter Often
Shrouds
And Love’s First Hopes Are Very Often Thwarted
E‘en Mine Beat High And Then Fell Broken-Hearted
And Sorrow Mourned In Verse to Reconscile
My Feelings To My Fate Though Lone And Parted
Love’s Enemies Are Like The Scorpion Vile
That O’er Its Ruined Hopes Will Hiss And Smile

Ballad

The Blackbird Has Built In The Pasture Agen

And The Thorn O’er The Pond Shows A Delicate Green

Where I Strolled With Patty Adown In The Glen

And Spent Summer Evenings And Sundays Unseen

How Sweet The Hill Brow

And The Low Of The Cow

And The Sunshine That Gilded The Bushes So Green

When Evening Brought Dews Nature’s Thirst To Allay

And Clouds Seemed To Nestle Round Hamlets And Farms

While In The Green Bushes We Spent The Sweet Day

And Patty Sweet Patty Was Still in My Arms

The Love Bloom That Redded Upon Her Sweet Lips

The Love Light That Glistened Within Her Sweet Eye

The Singing Bees There That The Wild Honey Sips

From Wild Blossoms Seemed Not So Happy As I

How Sweet Her Smile Seemed

While The Summer Sun Gleamed

And The Laugh Of The Spring Shadowed Joys From On High

While The Birds Sung About Us And Cattle Grazed Round

And Beauty Was Blooming On Hamlets and Farms

How Sweet Steamed The Inscence Of Dew From The Ground

While Patty Sweet Patty Sat Locked In My Arms

Yet Love Lives On In Every Kind Of Weather

In Heat And Cold In Sunshine And In Gloom

Winter May Blight And Stormy Clouds May Gather

Nature Invigorates And Love Will Bloom

It Fears No Sorrow In A Life To Come

But Lives Within Itself From Year To Year

As Doth The Wild Flower In Its Own Perfume

As In The Lapland Snows Spring’s Blooms Appear

So True Love Blooms And Blossoms Every Where

Ballad

The Rose Of The World Was Dear Mary To Me
In The Days Of My Boyhood And Youth
I Told Her In Songs Where My Heart Wished To Be
And My Songs Were The Language Of Truth

I Told Her In Looks When I Gazed In Her Eyes
That Mary Was Dearest To Me
I Told Her In Words And The Language Of Sighs
Where My Whole Heart’s Affections Would Be

I Told her in love that all nature was true
I convinced her that nature was kind
But love in his trials had labour to do
Mary would be in the mind*

Mary met me in spring where the speedwell-knots grew
And the kingcups were shining like flame
I chose her all colours red yellow and blue
But my love was one hue and the same

Spring summer and winter and all the year through
In the sunshine the shower and the blast
I told the same tale and she knows it all true
And Mary’s my blossom at last

Love is of heaven still the first akin
’Twas born in Paradise and left its home
For desert lands stray hearts to nurse and win
Though pains like plagues pursue them where they
roam
Its joys are evergreen and blooms at home
The sailor rocking on the giddy mast
The soldier when the cannons cease to boom
And every heart its doubts or dangers past
Beats on its way for love and home at last

Nature thou truth of heaven if heaven be true
Falsehood may tell her ever changeing lie
But nature’s truth looks green in every view
And love in every Landscape glads the eye
How beautiful these slopeing thickets lie
Woods on the hills and plains all smooth and even
Through which we see the ribboned evening sky
Though Winter here in floods and snows was driven
Spring came like God and turned it all to heaven

There Is A Tale For Every Day To Hear
For Every Heart To Feel And Tongue To Tell
The Daughter’s Anxious Dread The Lover’s Fear
Pains That In Cots And Palaces May Dwell
Not Short And Passing Like The Friend’s Farewell
Where Tears May Fall And Leave A Smile Beneath
Eternal Grief Rings In The Passing-Bell
’Tis Not The Sobs of Momentary Breath
Ties Part Forever In The Tale Of Death

The Dew falls on the weed and on the flower
The rose and thistle bathe their heads in dew
The lowliest heart may have its prospering hour
The saddest bosom meet its wishes true
E’en I may joy, love, happiness renew
Though not the sweets of my first early days
When one sweet face was all the loves I knew
And my soul trembled on her eyes to gaze
Whose very censure seemed intended praise

A soul within the heart that loves the more
Giving to pains and fears eternal life
Burning the flesh till it consumes the core
So Love is still the eternal calm of strife
Thou soul within a soul thou life of life
Thou Essence of my hopes and fears and joys
M — y my dear first love and early wife
And still the flower my inmost soul enjoys
Thy love’s the bloom no canker-worm destroys

Flow on my verse though barren thou mayest be
Of thought - Yet sing and let thy fancys roll
In Early days thou swept a mighty sea
All calm in troublous deeps and spurned controul
Thou fire and iceberg to an aching soul
And still an angel in my gloomy way
Far better opiate than the draining bowl
Still sing my muse to drive care’s fiends away
Nor heed what loitering listener hears the lay

My themes be artless cots and happy plains
Though far from man my wayward fancies flee
Of fields and woods rehearse in willing strains
And I mayhap may feed on joys with thee
These cowslip-fields, this sward, my pillow be
So I may sleep the sun into the West
My cot this awthorn hedge, this spreading tree
— Mary and Martha* once my daily guests
And still as mine both wedded, loved, and blest

I rest my wearied life in these sweet fields
Reflecting every smile in nature’s face
And much ofjoy this grass, these hedges yields
Not found in citys where crowds daily trace.
Heart-pleasures there hath no abideing place
The star-gemmed early morn, the silent even
Hath pleasures that our broken hopes deface
To love too well leaves nought to be forgiven
The Gates of Eden is the bounds of heaven

The apathy that fickle love wears through
The doubts and certaintys are still akin
Its every joy has sorrow in the view
Its holy truth like Eve’s beguileing sin
Seems to be losses even while we win
Tormenting joys and cheating into wrong
And still we love - and fall into the gin
My sun of love was short - and clouded long
And now its shadow fills a feeble song

Song

I saw her in my spring’s young choice
Ere love’s hopes looked upon the crowd
Ere love’s first secrets found a voice
Or dared to speak the name aloud

I saw her in my boyish hours
A Girl as fair as heaven above
When all the world seemed strewn with flowers
And every pulse and look was love

I saw her when her heart was young
I saw her when my heart was true
When truth was all the themes I sung
And Love the only muse I knew

Ere infancy had left her brow
I seemed to love her from her birth
And thought her then as I do now
The dearest angel upon earth

O she was more then fair - divinely fair
Can language paint the soul in those blue eyes?
Can fancy read the feelings painted there
- Those hills of snow that on her bosom lies,
Or beauty speak for all those sweet replies
That through love’s visions like the sun is breaking,
Wakeing new hopes and fears and stifled sighs?
From first love’s dreams my love is scarcely waking
The wounds might heal but still the heart is aching

Her looks was like the spring, her very voice
Was spring’s own music more then song to me
Choice of my boyhood, nay, my soul’s first choice
From her sweet thralldom I am never free
Yet here my prison is a spring to me
Past memories bloom like flowers where e’er I rove
My very bondage, though in snares, is free
I love to stretch me in this shadey grove
And muse upon the memories of love

Hail, Solitude, still Peace, and Lonely good
Thou spirit of all joys to be alone
My best of friends these glades and this green wood
Where nature is herself and loves her own
The heart’s hid anguish here I make it known
And tell my troubles to the gentle wind
Friends’ cold neglects have froze my heart to stone
And wrecked the voyage of a quiet mind
With wives and friends and every hope disjoined

Wrecked of all hopes save one to be alone
Where Solitude becomes my wedded mate
Sweet Forest with rich beauties overgrown
Where solitude is queen and riegns in state
Hid in green trees I hear the clapping gate*
And voices calling to the rambling cows
I Laugh at Love and all its idle fate
The present hour is all my lot alows
An age of sorrow springs from lovers’ vows

Sweet is the song of Birds for that restores
The soul to harmony the mind to love
Tis nature’s song of freedom out of doors
Forests beneath, free winds and clouds above
The Thrush and Nightingale and timid dove
Breathe music round me where the gipseys dwell -
Pierced hearts left burning in the doubts of love
Are desolate where crowds and citys dwell —
The splendid palace seems the gates of hell

Lord hear my prayer when trouble glooms
Let sorrow find a way
And when the day of trouble comes
Turn not thy face away
My bones like hearth-stones burn away
My life like vapoury smoke decays

My heart is smitten like the grass
That withered lies and dead
And I so lost to what I was
Forget to eat my bread
My voice is groaning all the day
My bones prick through this skin of clay

The wilderness’s pelican
The desert’s lonely owl
I am their like, a desert man*
In ways as lone and foul
As sparrows on the cottage top
I wait till I with faintness drop

I bear my enemies’ reproach
All silently I mourn
They on my private peace encroach
Against me they are sworn
Ashes as bread my trouble shares
And mix my food with weeping cares

Yet not for them is sorrow’s toil
I fear no mortal’s frown
But thou hast held me up awhile
And thou hast cast me down
My days like shadows waste from view
I mourn like withered grass in dew

But thou Lord shalt endure forever
All generations through
Thou shalt to Zion be the giver
Of joy and mercey too
Her very stones are in their trust
Thy servants reverence her dust

Heathens shall hear and fear thy name
All kings of earth thy glory know
When thou shalt build up Zion’s fame
And live in glory there below
He’ll not despise their prayers though mute
But still regard the destitute

’Tis Martinmass* from rig to rig
Ploughed fields and meadow lands are blea
In hedge and field each restless twig
Is dancing on the naked tree
Flags in the dykes are bleached and brown
Docks by its sides are dry and dead
All but the ivy-boughs are brown
Upon each leaning dotterel’s head

Crimsoned with awes the awthorns bend
O‘er meadow-dykes and rising floods
The wild geese seek the reedy fen
And dark the storm comes o’er the woods
The crowds of lapwings load the air
With buzes of a thousand wings
There flocks of starnels too repair
When morning o‘er the valley springs

‘THE ENGLISH BASTILLE’*

I have nothing to write about for I see Nothing and
hear nothing

Letter to his son, Charles, 8July1850

I have written a good lot and as I should think nearly sufficient.

Letter to W. F. Knight, 11 April 1851

8 March 1860

Dear Sir

I am in a Madhouse and quite forget your Name or who you are. You must excuse me for I have nothing to communicate or tell of and why I am shut up I don’t know. I have nothing to say so I conclude

Yours respectfully

John Clare

For five months — July to December 1841 — Clare lived with his wife and children in Northborough, by now convinced that he was married to two women — his ‘first’ wife, Mary, and his second wife, Martha. The biblical resonances of their names were not lost on him, as he continued to work on his ‘Prison Amusements’ (‘Child Harold’), and continued to deny that Mary was in fact dead.

The tensions soon proved too much for his family and friends, and on 28 December, Dr Page and Dr Skrimshire certified that Clare was ‘in a state of Lunacy’: to the question, ‘Was it preceded by any severe or long continued mental emotion or exertion?’ the answer given was: ‘after years addicted to Poetical prossing’ (sic).

Clare was taken to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum the following day, and remained there for twenty-three years, until his death. His shifts of identity - his changes of persona - proliferated: some days he was Nelson (a friend of Clare’s former patron, Admiral Lord Radstock): on others, Randall or Ben Caunt (pugilists); Shakespeare; or, above all, Robert Burns: in the manuscript in which he wrote his continuation of ‘Prison Amusements,’ he noted:

Anecdotes of Burns Poems the ‘On the daisey’
and ’The Mouse’
On turning up a mouse with the plough
This poem was written on the west wide of Royce
Wood while driving Plough for my brother Jem
occasioned by turning one up with a Plough

Robt Burns

On the daisey on burying one under the furrow was written in the same field at Royce wood end which had been part of the green or Cowpasture

Robt Burns

Tam O’Shanter was written in a part of the same field called Tenters Nook* while at work in a garden of his master a Publican of the Bluebell Public house

Robt Burns (MS 19, p. 119)

Internal evidence suggests that Clare was writing this sequence from the spring of 1844 to the early summer of 1845, clearly envisaging it as a continuation of the 1841 sequence; the Byronic persona was still available, but was mingled with that of Burns: as a result, the songs that occur in the continuation of ‘Prison Amusements’ were mostly written in the Scots English of Burns, often with unfelicitous results. For this reason, I have included only a selection of them in this edition.

Clare’s conduct in this sequence is exactly as it had been in the earlier one, and he interweaves within a wavering, restless, fluid and fleeting natural scene a variety of paradoxical speculations involving sexuality, love, fidelity, infidelity, integrity and social deceit. Once or twice he deviates into a voice more reminiscent of ‘Old Wigs and Sundries’, but otherwise the poem is entirely consistent with his earlier use of the reflective/elegiac nine-line stanza.

In April 1845, W. F. Knight was appointed House Steward at the asylum; he encouraged Clare and began to transcribe his poems; Knight left in February 1850, and the work of transcription passed to others. The bulk of Clare’s own manuscripts for this period have disappeared, so that the reader is dependent on texts that derive from transcripts. Unfortunately, for all his magnanimity, Knight tended to punctuate Clare’s texts in a very maladroit fashion. In this edition, I have chosen to modify Knight’s punctuation in the direction of a plainer text.

In Clare’s end was his beginning, as he demonstrates so poignantly in the last poem in this selection, where he reverts to the simple syntax of his early poetry and to the fantastic delights of the chapman’s store of traditional tales: ‘Jack the jiant-killer’s high renown’ — Clare had valiantly fought with his ‘giants’: all those negative pressures of disenchantment, despair, neglect, poverty and exile; and finally, at the age of sixty-seven, came poignantly full circle.

On 13June 1989, a memorial to Clare was unveiled in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey: better late than never ...

GRAVES OF INFANTS

Infants’ graves are steps of angels where
Earth’s brightest gems of innocence repose,
God is their parent, they need no tear,
He takes them to his bosom from earth’s woes;
A bud their life-time and a flower their close
Their spirits are an iris of the skies
Needing no prayers - a sunset’s happy close.
Gone are the bright rays of their soft blue eyes,
Dews on flowers mourn them and the gale that sighs.

Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower
Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye
Their death were dew-drops on heaven’s amaranthine
bower*
’Twas told on flowers as summer gales went by.
They bowed and trembled yet they left no sigh
And the sun smiled to show their end was well.
Infants have nought to weep for ere they die.
All prayers are needless — beads they need not tell,
White flowers their mourners are, nature their passing
bell.

June 1844. *

LOVE

Love is a secret
Like a bird in a shell
Like a rose ere it blossom
All unseen will it dwell.

’Tis the kernel of fruits
The germ of all flowers
The blaze of the diamond
The moment of hours.

’Tis the star in night’s darkness
The sky in the river
The soul in man’s bosom
That wears it for ever.

’Tis a word, and the dearest
Each language has shown
’Tis a thought the sincerest
Any tongue has made known.

‘Tis a flower in a basket
All bloom and perfuming
’Tis the gem of the casket
Love, beauty, and woman.

SONG

O wert thou in the storm*
How I would shield thee:
To keep thee dry and warm
A camp I would build thee.

Though the clouds pour’d again
Not a drop should harm thee,
The music of wind and rain
Rather should charm thee.

O wert thou in the storm
A shed I would build thee;
To keep thee dry and warm,
How I would shield thee.

The rain should not wet thee,
Nor thunder-clap harm thee.
By thy side I would sit me,
To comfort and warm thee.

I would sit by thy side love,
While the dread storm was over
And the wings of an angel
My charmer would cover.

July 25th 1844

EVENING

’Tis evening, the black snail has got on his track,
And gone to its nest is the wren;
And the packman-snail too, with his home on his back,
Clings on the bowed bents like a wen.

The shepherd has made a rude mark with his foot
Where his shaddow reached when he first came;
And it just touched the tree where his secret love cut
Two letters that stand for love’s name

The evening comes in with the wishes of love
And the shepherd he looks on the flowers
And thinks who would praise the soft song of the dove,
And meet joy in these dewfalling hours

For nature is love, and the wishes of love,
When nothing can hear or intrude;
It hides from the eagle, and joins with the dove
In beautiful green solitude.

A VISION*

I lost the love of heaven above
I spurned the lust of earth below
I felt the sweets of fancied love*
And hell itself my only foe.

I lost earth’s joys but felt the glow
Of heaven’s flame abound in me
Till loveliness and I did grow
The bard of immortality.

I loved but woman fell away
I hid me from her faded fame
I snatched the sun’s eternal ray
And wrote till earth was but a name.

In every language upon earth
On every shore, o’er every sea,
I gave my name immortal birth,
And kept my spirit with the free.

August 2nd 1844

MARY

It is the evening hour,
How silent all doth lie,
The horned moon she shews her face
In the river with the sky;
Just by the path on which we pass
The flaggy lake lies still as glass.

Spirit of her I love,
Whispering to me
Stories of sweet visions as I rove,
Here stop and crop with me
Sweet flowers that in the still hour grew,
We’ll take them home nor shake off the bright dew.

Mary, or sweet spirit of thee,
As the bright sun shines tomorrow,
Thy dark eyes these flowers shall see
Gathered by me in sorrow
In the still hour when my mind was free
To walk alone — yet wish I walk’d with thee.

TO MARY

I sleep with thee and wake with thee
And yet thou art not there:
I fill my arms with thoughts of thee
And press the common air.
Thy eyes are gazing upon mine
When thou art out of sight;
My lips are always touching thine
At morning noon and night.

I think and speak of other things
To keep my mind at rest
But still to thee my memory clings
Like love in woman’s breast;
I hide it from the world’s wide eye
And think and speak contrary
But soft the wind comes from the sky
And whispers tales of Mary.

The night wind whispers in my ear
The moon shines in my face,
A burden still of chilling fear
I find in every place.
The breeze is whispering in the bush
And the dew fall from the tree
All sighing on and will not hush
Some pleasant tales of thee.

STANZAS*

Black absence hides upon the past
I quite forget thy face
And memory like the angry blast
Will love’s last smile erase
I try to think of what has been
But all is blank to me
And other faces pass between
My early love and thee

I try to trace thy memory now
And only find thy name
Those inky lashes on thy brow
Black hair and eyes the same
Thy round pale face of snowy dyes
There’s nothing paints thee there
A darkness comes before my eyes
For nothing seems so fair

I knew thy name so sweet and young
’Twas music to my ears
A silent word upon my tongue
A hidden thought for years
Dark hair and lashes swarthy too
Arched on thy forehead pale
All else is vanished from my view
Like voices on the gale

SONNET

Poets love nature and themselves are love,
The scorn of fools and mock of idle pride
The vile in nature worthless deeds approve
They court the vile and spurn all good beside
Poets love nature like the calm of heaven
Her gifts like heaven’s love spread far and wide
In all her works there are no signs of leaven
Sorrow abashes from her simple pride
Her flowers like pleasures have their season’s birth
And bloom through regions here below
They are her very scriptures upon earth
And teach us simple mirth where e’er we go
Even in prison they can solace me
For where they bloom God is, and I am free.

SONG

I seek her in the shady grove,
And by the silent stream
I seek her where my fancies rove
In many a happy dream
I seek her where I find her not
In spring and summer weather
My thoughts paint many a happy spot
But we ne’er meet together.

The trees and bushes speak my choice
And in the summer shower
I often hear her pleasant voice
In many a silent hour
I see her in the summer brook
In blossoms sweet and fair
In every pleasant place I look
My fancy paints her there.

The wind blows through the forest tree
And cheers the pleasant day
There her sweet voice is sure to be
To lull my cares away
The very hedges find a voice
So does the gurgling rill:
But still the object of my choice
Is lost and abscent still.

SONNET

The flag-top quivers in the breeze
That sighs among the willow trees
In gentle waves the river heaves
That sways like boats the lily-leaves
The bent-grass trembles as with cold
And crow-flowers nod their cups of gold
Till every dew-drop in them found
Is gently shook upon the ground.
Each wild weed by the river-side
In different motions dignified
Bows to the wind, quakes to the breeze,
And charms sweet summer’s harmonies
The very nettle quakes away
To glad the summer’s happy day

MORNING

The morning comes — the drops of dew
Hang on the grass and bushes too
The sheep more eager bite the grass
Whose moisture gleams like drops of glass
The hiefer licks in grass and dew
That makes her drink and fodder too
The little bird his morn-song gives
His breast wet with the dripping leaves
Then stops abruptly just to fly
And catch the wakened butterfly
That goes to sleep behind the flowers
Or backs of leaves from dews and showers
The yellowhammer haply blest
Sits by the dyke upon her nest
The long grass hides her from the day
The water keeps the boys away
The morning sun is round and red
As crimson curtains round a bed
The dewdrops hang on barley horns
As beads the necklace thread adorns
The dewdrops hang wheat ears upon
Like golden drops against the sun
Hedge-sparrows in the bush cry ‘tweet’
O’er nests larks winnow in the wheat
’Till the sun turns gold and gets more high
And paths are clean, and grass gets dry
And longest shadows pass away
And brightness is the blaze of day

THE DYING CHILD

He could not die when trees were green
For he loved the time too well
His little hands when flowers were seen
Was held for the blue-bell
As he was carried o’er the green

His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee
He knew those children of the spring
When he was well and on the lea
He held one in his hands to sing
Which filled his little heart with glee

Infants the children of the spring
How can an infant die
When butterflies are on the wing
Green grass and such a sky
How can an infant die at spring

He held his hand for daiseys white
And then for violets blue
And took them all to bed at night
That in the green fields grew
As childhood’s sweet delight

And then he shut his little eyes
And flowers would notice not
Birds’ nests and eggs made no surprise
Nor any blossoms got
They met with plaintive sighs

When winter came and blasts did sigh
And bare was plain and tree
As he for ease in bed did lie
His soul seemed with the free
He died so quietly

THE INVITATION*

Let us go in the fields love and see the green tree
Let’s go in the meadows and hear the wild bee
There’s plenty of pleasure for you love and me
In the mirths and the music of nature
We can stand in the path love and hear the birds sing
And see the woodpigeons snap loud on the wing
While you stand beside me a beautiful thing
Health and beauty in every feature

We can stand by the brig-foot and see the bright things
On the sun-shining water that merrily springs
Like sparkles of fire in their mazes and rings
While the insects are glancing and twitters
You see naught in shape but hear a deep song
That lasts through the sunshine the whole summer long
That pierces the ear as the heat gathers strong
And the lake like a burning fire glitters

We can stand in the fields love and gaze o’er the corn
See the lark from her wing shake the dews of the morn
Through the dew-bearded woodbine the gale is just
born
And there we can wander my dearie
We can walk by the wood where the rabbits pop in
Where the bushes are few and the hedge gapped and thin
There’s a wild-rosy bower and a place to rest in
So we can walk in and rest when we’re weary

The skylark, my love, from the barley is singing
The hare from her seat of wet clover is springing
The crow to its nest on the tall elm swinging
Bears a mouthful of worms for its young
We’ll down the green meadow and up the lone glen
And down the woodside far away from all men
And there we’ll talk over our love tales again
Where last year the nightingale sung

Part of PRISON AMUSEMENTS,* or CHILD HAROLD, continued

And in the maple bush there hides the style
And then the gate the awthorn stands before
Till close upon it you cannot see’t the while
‘Tis like to Ivy creeping o’er a door
All green as spring nor gap is seen before
And still the path leads on - till ’neath your hand
The gate waits to be opened and then claps* — the sower
Scatters the seeds of spring beneath his hand
And then the footpath tracks the elting land ...

Infants are but cradles for the grave
And death the nurse as soon as life begins
Time keeps accounts books for him and they save
Expences for his funeral out of sins
The stone is not put down — but when death wins
Churchyards are chronicles where all sleep well
The gravestones there as afterlives live in
Go search the Scriptures they will plainly tell
That God made heaven - Man himself the hell

There is a chasm in the heart of man
That nothing fathoms like a gulph at sea
A depth of darkness lines may never span
A shade unsunned in dark eternity
Thoughts without shadows - that eye can’t see
Or thought imagine ‘tis unknown to fame
Like day at midnight such its youth to me
At ten years old it boyhood’s secret* came
Now manhood’s forty past ’tis just the same ...

Temple of Minerva

The ruin of a ruin — man of mirth
Pause o‘er the past and meditate decay
The very stones are perishing to earth
Foundations though all’s left will waste away
Time’s chissel on what’s left still writes ‘Decay’
Which every season wrecks and wears away

A shadow it was present — but ’tis past
Time sickened and life’s nature met decay
Convulsive winds seemed sobbing out their last
When ruin’s piecemeal Temple passed away
The very stones like clay dissolving lye
And solitude half-fearing learns to sigh

See‘st thou the steps of yesterday
The night before the last
See’st thou when darkness went away
And daylight winnowed past
The present is - and shadows are
What was so very bright and fair

Spring meadow-flowers was suns and joy
Of present happiness
But when the summer filled the sky
All was another dress
They changed to seed among the hay
And dyed when summer went away

Now evening rosey streaks - a ribbond sky
Spreads in the golden light of the far West
And mighty rocks are pillowed dark and high
The image and the prototype of rest
The heavens’ prophecy where peace is blest
A stillness soft as fall of silent dews
Is felt around - the very dusk looks blest
As is the maiden while her heart pursues
Her evening walk o’er fields in silent dews

Ave Maria, * ‘tis the hour of love
When sighs and pains and tears on beauty’s breast
Are whispered into blessings from above
Ave Maria, ’tis the hour of rest
For man and woman and the weary beast
And parents love the minature delights
That blesses all with sleep and quiet rest
Ave Maria, ’tis the hour of night
Like to an Indian Maiden dressed in white

The winter-time is over love
Whitethorns begin to bud
And brown and green of freshness love
Enlivens all the wood

There’s white clouds got agen the sun
One daisey open on the green
The primrose shows its sulphur bud
Just where the hazel stulps are seen

And ere the April time is out
Along the riding’s gravel walk
The bedlam’s primrose blooms about
Wi’ twenty blossoms on a stalk

How happy seems the drop of dew
That nestles in the daisey’s eye
How blest the cloud seems in the blue
That near the sun appears to lie

How happy does thy shadows seem
That stretches o’er the morning grass
They seems to walk as in a dream
I know their shadows as they pass ...

Song

I wish I was where I would be
Alone with beauty and the free
I wish I was where I have been
A lover on the village green
Where old pits swell’d and mosses grew
Along with one who loved so true
Hath time made no change* and then love is the same
Through calm and through danger dishonour and fame
Whate‘er I encounter whate’er I pursue
Human love may be frail — but man’s honour is true

Canst thou feel what I breathed on thy bosom that eve
If thy love was a woman’s thou‘lt ne’er disbelieve
But walk in thy fancys through meadow and glen
Aye walk and be happy and think it again
There’s the hills in thy fancy the Park in thy eye
And in midnight so guiltless that beautiful sky
And the stars looked upon us so lovely and warm
And thy own native star shed its beauty so calm
That said in bright colours love never should part
When I lay on thy bosom the man of thy heart

The prude may rail on love and falsehood declaim
Mock love is their liscence and falshood their fame
In abscence they scandalize wrong and decieve
And laugh at their fondness when women believe
But man never wronged them and Eden I see
Where man ever loved and a woman is free
Then leave me still free with thy love to be blest
On the bosom of woman thy wishes are blest
O’er the hills and the hollows on that happy eve
True love was the welcome that cannot decieve

Spring

The sweet spring now is coming
In beautifull sunshine
Thorns buds and wild flowers blooming
Daisey and Celadine
Somthing so sweet there is about the spring
Silence is music ere the birds will sing

And there’s the hedgerow pootys
Blackbirds from mossy cells
Pick them where the last year’s shoot is
Hedge-bottoms and wood-dells
Striped, spotted, yellow, red, to spring so true
For which the schoolboy looks with pleasures new

On gates the yellowhammer
As bright as Celadine
Sits - green linnets learn to stammer
And Robins sing divine
On brown land-furrows stalks the crow
And magpies on the moor below

In small-hedged closes lambkins stand
Its cud the heifer chews
Like snow-clumps upon fallow land
They shine among the ewes
Or sheets of water by moonlight
The lambkins shine so very white

The lane the narrow lane
With daisy beds beneath
You scarce can see the light again
Untill you reach the heath
Thorn hedges grow and meet above
For half a mile a green alcove

The nettles by garden walls
Stand angrily and dun
Summer on them like prison falls
And all their blossoms shun
The abby’s haunted heaps of stone
Is by their treachery overgrown

There’s verdure in the stony street
Decieving earnest eyes
The bare rock has its blossoms sweet
The microscope espies
Flowers leaves and foliage everywhere
That cloaths the animated year

Fields meadows woods and pastures
There’s spring in every place
From winter’s wild disasters
All wear her happy face
Beasts on their feet and birds upon the wing
The very clouds upon the sky look spring

Sunshine presses by the hedge
And there’s the pileworts sure to come
The primrose by the rustling sedge
And largest cowslips first in bloom
All show that spring is everywhere
The flowery herald of the year ...

Last Day

There is a day a dreadfull day
Still following the past
When sun and moon are passed away
And mingle with the blast
There is a vision in my eye
A vacuum o’er my mind
Sometimes as on the sea I lye
Mid roaring waves and wind

When valleys rise to mountain-waves
And mountains sink to seas
When towns and cities temples graves
All vanish like a breeze
The skys that was are past and o’er
That almanack of days
Year-chronicles are kept no more
Oblivion’s ruin pays

Pays in destruction, *shades, and hell
Sin goes in darkness down
And therein sulphur’s shadows dwell
Worth wins and wears the crown
The very shore, if shore I see,
All shrivelled to a scroll
The Heavens rend away from me
And thunder’s sulphurs roll

Black as the deadly thunder-cloud
The stars shall turn to dun
And heaven by that darkness bowed
Shall make day’s light be done
When stars and skys shall all decay
And earth no more shall be
When heaven itself shall pass away
Then thou’lt remember me

The red-bagged bee on never-weary wing
Pipes his small trumpet round the early flowers
And the white nettles by the hedge in spring
Hears his low music all the sunny hours
Till clouds come on and leaves the falling showers
Herald of spring and music of wild blooms
It seems the minstrel of spring’s early flowers
On banks where the red nettle flowers, it comes
And there all the long sunny morning hums

When reason and religion goes a-benting
Christianity grows lean as specters - and
Pines off to somthing else - none seem repenting
But each get notions none else understand
Wives from their husbands pare off unrelenting
And like pined pigeons mope about the land
Couples awake go silently and dreaming
And love and faith and madness are but seeming

Summer is on the earth and in the sky
The days all sunny and the fields all green
The woods spread o’er her hills a canopy
Of beauty’s harmony in every scene
Like to a map the fields and valleys lie
Winds dash in wildest motions the woods green
And every wave of leaves and every billow
Lies in the sun like Beauty on a pillow

There is a freshness in the leafy sprays
That dashes o‘er the forest from the wind
The wild sublimity of windy days
Like the rich thinkings of a master-mind
Or dashes on the canvass none can find
In works inferior - when the woods all blaze
With a wild sunset and the winds unbind
Their foliage to the heavens’ wild amaze
Field, meadow, wood, rolling o’er stormy days

The roaring of the woods is like a sea
All thunder and comotion to the shore
The old oaks toss their branches to be free
And urge the fury of the storm the more
Louder then thunder is the sobbing roar
Of leafy billows to their shore, the sky,
Round which the bloodshot clouds like fields of gore
In angry silence did at anchor lie
As if the battle’s roar was not yet bye

Anon the wind has ceased the woods are still
The winds are sobbed to sleep and all is rest
The clouds like solid rocks too jagged for hills
Lie quietly ashore upon the West
The cottage ceases rocking — each tired guest
Sleeps sounder for the heavy storm’s uproar
- How calm the sunset blazes in the West
As if the waking storms would burst no more
And this still even seems more calmer than before

Bluebells how beautifull and bright they look
Bowed o’er green moss and pearled in morning dew
Shedding a shower of pearls as soon as shook
In every wood hedgegap they’re shineing through
Smelling of spring and beautifully blue
- Childhood and Spring how beautifully dwells
Their memories in the woods we now walk through
O balmy days of spring in whitethorn dells
How beautifull are woods and their bluebells

Song

‘Tis spring my love ’tis spring
And the birds begin to sing
If’twas winter left alone with you
Your happy form and face
Would make a sunny place
And prove a finer flower then ever grew

‘Tis spring my love ’tis spring
On the hazels catkins hing
And the snowdrop wi’ blebs o’ dew
Is not more white within
Then your bosom’s hidden skin
The sweetest bonny flower that ever grew

The sun’s arose from bed
All strewn with roses red
But the brightest crimson place
Is nought so fresh and fair
Or so lovely to compare
As thy blushing bonny face

I love spring’s early flowers
And their bloom in her first hours
They never half so bright or lovely seem
They are like the happy grace
Of young woman’s blushing face
And the green happiness of love’s young dream

The sinking sun sheds through the window-glass
A roseiate light upon the painted walls
Green looks the trees, cornfields, and meadow grass
As golden on the road the low sun falls
Loud at their play the city’s childern calls
And happy minds seek green spots in the fields
Ere yet the heavy dew of evening falls
While the lone partridge to their ramble calls ...

Song

The Lark’s in the sky love
The flower’s on the lea
The whitethorn’s in bloom love
To please thee and me
’Neath its shade we can rest love
And sit on the hill
And as we met last love
Enjoy the spring still

The spring is for lovers
The spring is for joy
O’er the moor where the plovers
Wir hover and cry
We’ll seek the whitethorn love
And sit on the hill
On some sunny morn love
And be lovers still

Where the partridge is craiking
From morning to e’en
In the wheatlands awaking
That sprouts young and green
Where the brook dribbles past love
Down the willowy glen
And as we met last love
Be lovers agen

The lark’s in the grass love
Abuilding her nest
And the brook runs like glass love
’Neath the carrion crow’s nest
There the wild woodbines twine love
And till the day’s gone
Sun sets and stars shine love
I’ll call thee my own

Song

There’s pleasure on the pasture lea
And peace within the cottage
But there’s na peace at a’ for me
While love is in its dotage

I never have a thought o’ gude
But worser thoughts will soil it
When heaven is man’s happiest mood
The de’il is sure to spoil it

Man’s sweetest choice is woman yet
Scenes where her kiss was granted
The choicest place where first they met
Mid flowers by nature planted

And there they dwell in fancy’s flights
In valley field and glen
In pleasant dreams and heart delights
Till neist they meet agen

Song*

The bird cherry’s white in the dews o’ the morning
The wildings are blushing along the hedgeside
The gold-blossomed furze the wild heaths are adorning
And the brook in the hollow runs light by my side
But where is the charmer the voice of the maiden
Whose presence once charmed me the whole summer’s
day
The bushes wi’ gold and wi’ silver o’erlaiden
Looks cold i’ the morning when Phebe’s away

The sun rises bright o’er the oaks in the spinney
Bringing gold unto gold on the winbushes there
Blossoming bright as a new-minted guinea
And moist wi’ the mist of the morn’s dewy air
The flower is bowed down and I let the tired Bee be
All wet wi’ night-dew and unable to flye
Such a kindness in me would be pleasure to Phebe
A poor trampled insect would cause her to sigh

The whitethorn is coming wi’ bunches of blossoms
The broad sheets of daiseys spread out on the lea
The bunches of cowslips spread out their gold bosoms
While the oak-balls appear on the old spinney tree
Come forward my Phebe wi’ dews of the morning
By the old crooked brook let thy early walk be
Where the bramble’s arched stalks - glossy leaves are
adorning
And bits o’ woo’ hang on the bark o’ the tree

Come forward my Phebe by times in the morning
Come forward my Phebe in blebs o’ the dew
They bead the young cowslip like pearls i’ the dawning
And we’ll mark the young shower where the green
linnet flew
I’ll court thee and woo thee from morning to e‘ening
Where the primrose looks bright in the ivy’s dark green
And the oak o’er the brook in its white bark is leaning
There let me and Phebe wi’ morning be seen

Tall grows the nettle by the hedgeway side
And bye the old barn-end they shade the wall
In sunshine nodding to the angry tide
Of winds that winnows bye - these one and all
Makes up the harmony of Spring - and all
That passes feel a sudden love for flowers
They look so green - and when the soft showers fall
They grow so fast - Dock, Burdocks, Henbane - all:
Who loves not wild flowers by the old stone wall? ... *

To Sorrow

‘Sorrow is my joy’

Beautiful Sorrow in thy silence thou
Art more then beautiful - not charms of youth
A rosey skin or lily-painted brow
Can match thy looks thou beautiful in truth
Rebecca’s faith warm with the love of Ruth
Leave heaven’s sunshine on thy thoughtfull brow
Thou beautifull of sorrow and of truth
Hiding no secret sin no broken vow
While in thy raven hair white snowdrops glow ...

Song

There is a feeling nought can calm
A passion nought can quell
The mention of a sweetheart’s name
That fond thoughts dare not tell
To know thee thus my dearest maid
And then to part in twain
The thunder making earth affraid
Will smile upon the main

The just may fall by thunder-shocks
That never knew a crime
And earthquakes rend the lonely rocks
That upward used to climb
But love fond love that wedlock ties
Each other as their own
Then choked to tears and stifled sighs
And petrified to stone

For thee dear maid I touch the strings
And keep my heart awake
’Tis simple truth the ballad sings
That love will not forsake
And stubborn are the hands that strike
The chords to melody
That loved the many all alike*
With a double love for thee

Thy pedigree and titles high
As shadows pass away
And that fine face and brighter eye
Must also meet decay
But love that warmed us at the first
Can live and love alone
Nor ever die by fate accursed
Though petrified to stone

The thunder mutters louder and more loud
With quicker motion hay-folks ply the rake
Ready to burst, slow sails the pitch-black cloud
And all the gang a bigger haycock make
To sit beneath — the woodland winds awake
The drops so large wet all thro’ in an hour
A tiney flood runs down the leaning rake
In the sweet hay yet dry the hay-folks cower
And some beneath the waggon shun the shower ...

O Woman lovely woman how beguiling
Is thy sweet voice of music and thy smiles
Thy cheeks all roses and thy lips all smiling
And where’s the treachery that thy heart beguiles
For thy sweet self man labours, sweats, and toils
Mines the whole earth and raviges the deep
For thee the summer in its glory smiles
Yet ‘Man was made to mourn’* and women weep
And briars and thorns as harvests both must reap ...

Poets and Poesy are aspirations
Of minds superior to the common lot
The light and life and ornament of nations
That leave no writing they could wish to blot
Time mossed in centurys finds them unforgot
Green with the leaves of laurel and the bay
The poet’s dwelling is a sacred spot
Where pilgrims love when ages pass away
The low mossed cot — the steeple crack’d and grey ...

Look through the naked bramble and blackthorn
And see the arum show its vivid green
Glossy and rich and some ink-spotted like the morn-
Ing sky with clouds - in sweetest neuks I’ve been
And seen the arum sprout its happy green
Full of spring visions and green thoughts
Dead leaves a-litter where its leaves are seen
Broader and brighter green from day to day
Beneath the hedges in their leafless spray

Here is the scenes the rural poet made
So famous in his songs - the very scenes
He painted in his words that warm and shade
In winter’s wild waste and spring’s young vivid greens
Alcove and shrubbery - and the tree that leans
With its overweight of Ivy - Yardley oak
The pheasant’s nest* and fields of blossomed beans
The bridge and avenue of thick-set oak
The wilderness - here Cowper’s spirit spoke

The Awthorn

I love the awthorn well
The first green thing
In woods and hedges - blackthorn dell
Dashed with its green first spring
When sallows shine in golden shene
These whitethorn places in the black how green

How beautifully green
Though March has but begun
To tend primroses planted in the sun
The roots that further in
Are not begun to bud or may be just begun

I love the whitethorn bough
Hung over the molehill
Where the spring-feeding cow
Rubs off the dewdrop chill
When on the cowslip pips and glossy thorn
The dews hang shining pearls at early morn

Song

There’s a little odd house by the side of the Lane
Where the daisys smiles sweet in the spring
Where the morning sun glitters like gold on the pane
And the hedgesparrow trembles his wing
Where chaffinch, green linnet, and Sparrows have tones
That make the green Lane and the cottage their own
The sparrows they chirp and make nests i’ the eaves
The chaffinch sings ‘pink’ in the hedge o’ whitethorn
That fences the garden and there the bird weaves
A nest of grey lichen soon as light i’ the morn
And there bonny Susan will sit at the door
And see the green linnet at work at its nest
Where the robin flyes in for a crumb on the floor
And seems as if longing to sit on her breast

Song

Come dwell with me
‘Neath the greenwood tree
And nature will teach thee plain
That peace and health is liberty
We nowhere else shall gain
Come dwell with me
’Neath the greenwood tree
Where life is not spent in vain

Come where the wilding blows
Like the hedge-dogrose
With its pale and pinky stain
Where the hugh oak rocks
While the tempest blows
Come dwell with me
’Neath the hugh oak tree
Where nature no ill bestows

Full green is the spring
And thrushes they sing
In the hazle and maple tree
Come to the greenwood
And ’twill set thy heart free
In such a still place to be
With all that’s beautiful and good

I love the little pond to mark at spring
When frogs and toads are croaking round its brink
When blackbirds’ yellow bills ’gin first to sing
And green woodpecker rotten trees to clink
I love to see the cattle muse and drink
And water crinkle to the rude March wind
While two ash dotterels flourish on its brink
Bearing key-bunches children run to find
And water-buttercups they’re forced to leave behind

Spring

Pale sun beams gleam
That nurture a few flowers
Pilewort and daisey and a sprig o’ green
On whitethorn bushes
In the leaf-strewn hedge

These harbingers
Tell spring is coming fast
And these the schoolboy marks
And wastes an hour from school
Agen the old pasture-hedge

Cropping the daisey
And the pilewort flowers
Pleased with the Spring and all he looks upon
He ope’s his spelling-book
And hides her blossoms there

Shadows fall dark
Like black in the pale Sun
And lye the bleak day long
Like blackstock under hedges
And bare wind-rocked trees

’Tis dull but pleasant
In the hedge-bottom lined
With brown seer leaves the last
Year littered there and left
Mopes the hedge-sparrow

With trembling wings and cheeps
Its welcome to pale sunbeams
Creeping through and further on
Made of green moss
The nest and green-blue eggs are seen

All token spring and every day
Green and more green hedges and close
And everywhere appears
Still ’tis but March
But still that March is spring

The wind blows happily on everything
The very weeds that shake beside the fold
Bowing they dance - do anything but sing
And all the scene is lovely to behold
Blue mists of morning evenings of gold
How beautiful the wind will play with spring
Flowers beam with every colour light beholds
Showers o’er the landscape flye on wet pearl wings
And winds stir up unnumbered pleasant things

I love the luscious green before the bloom
The leaves and grass and even beds of moss
When leaves ’gin bud and spring prepares to come
The Ivy’s evergreen the brown-green gorse
Plots of green weeds that barest roads engross
In fact I love the youth of each green thing
The grass, the trees, the bushes, and the moss
That pleases little birds and makes them sing
I love the green before the blooms of spring

Sorrow is felt not seen — the grief of verse
Is writ by those who share not in our pain
The pall embrodered and the sable hearse
Are symbols not of sorrow but of gain
What of the scutcheoned hearse and pall remain
When all is past — there sorrow is no more
Sorrow’s heart aches — and burning scars will stain
As morning dews — as April showers is o’er
Some tears fall on their graves again ...

False time what is it but a rogue’s account
Of books wrong-kept - time’s keystone is the sun
True nature’s wronged — and what is the amount
But death’s diseases — that their circuit run
Through error and through deeds that fate has done
Religion is the health — the sun’s bright ray
By which the goal of Love and Freedom’s won
The ocean’s tide will flow its natural way
And none its speed and none its course will stay

All nature has a feeling: wood, brooks, fields
Are life eternal — and in silence they
Speak happiness - beyond the reach of books
There’s nothing mortal in them - their decay
Is the green life of change to pass away
And come again in blooms revifified
Its birth was heaven, eternal is its stay
And with the sun and moon shall still abide
Beneath their night and day and heaven wide

Twilight

Twilight meek nurse of dews
And mother of refreshing births to flowers
Sweet now a walk to chuse
And roam in thy cool hours
To be an hour away unseen of men
In the green lane or whitethorn-studded glen

Sweet twilight, swarth or pale, meek nurse of dews
Mother of sweet sleep to many flowers
The birth of dewwebbed breezes that imbues
Our hearts to meditation in sweet hours
Sweet twilight nurse of sleep
In watchet stole and web of sober grey

Old times forgetfull memories of the past
Are cold and drear as snow upon our graves
In books less then a shadow’s doom will last
But fragments there each stranded volume saves
Like some rich gems washed up from ocean-waves
But now no summer dwells upon the spot
Nor flower to blossom - the eternal blast,
Oblivion, leaves the earth in which they rot
Darkness in which the very light’s forgot

Where are the citys* Sodom and Gommorrah
The marble pallaces upon the plain
Citys today and a dead sea tomorrow
And what they was they ne‘er will be again
That earth is lost and all its city slain
By the o’erwhelming waves entombed and gone
Search for its ruins now is void and vain
And but one witness saw that ruin done
The ever-burning bright eternal Sun ...

The heaven of earth’s visions — boyhood’s dreams —
But too much love turns dirty - here we halt
And face about from heaven and extremes
Ale can’t be good if they forget the malt
And earth has lost its savour without salt
Love, hate are nearer kindred than life seems
To own to — if her fault I cannot tell
That sweet that turns to sour and never creams
Makes strange reallities the heaviest dreams

Love tickled is by any bents or straws
A lady-likeing whisper in the dark
A rebel doubtfullness unknown to laws
That looks all eyes and greedy as a shark
Swallows the mall the promenade and park
But such is sham love fond of different faces
Not that which hears the ballads of the lark
True love’s the inward self in secret places
What’s felt by two in love a third but guesses ...

O for one real imaginary blessing*
Ideal real blessing blasted through
With sin, and yet how rich is the carressing
Of love as mothers’ kisses sweet as Hermon dew
A bright grey eye or black, it knocks mine through
And leaves them dim as stars fall’n from above
Electric shocks they come from God knows who
Milkmaids have eyes the pictures of the dove’s
That thrill through bones and marrow.