Is it Love?

It is the very essence of all pleasure
It is earth’s diamond and the ocean’s gem
It is of life and soul the dearest treasure
Woman through life is man’s own diadem
To love God truly, may we worship them?
Of life in love how various is the scene
Of infant cherubs Love’s the parent stem
I wooed a gipsey wench on Sunday e’ens
And worshiped beggar-girls and courted queens

Love is the fire that burns the heart to cinders
Love is the thought that makes the poets sigh
Sweet as Queen’s portraits* stuck in London windows
For loyal subjects in their love to buy
Love is of every heart the painted toy
The idol of man’s worship - faces fair
Were my enchanted magic from a boy —
The pouting lip, the colour of the hair
Left me in raptures, next of kin to care

I loved and wooed them in the field like gems
Of too much value for the clown who sung
The azure bluebells in their sapphire stems
Among green bushes, low their mute bells hung
These seemed love’s modest maidens dew-bestrung
With blebs o’ morning’s glittering pearls
I loved them in the valleys where I sung
With their green drapery and crispy curls
I loved them as a crowd of blooming girls

With bonny bosom* white as is the may
Sweet milkmaid o’ May mornings - Queen Victoria,
The wild brere blushes wi’ the break o’ day
Sweet as the cowslip fields that spread before thee,
Sweet are the dusky clouds that sprinkle o’er thee
Filling the cowslip pips wi’ pearls untold.
Thy crown and scepter fade from nature’s glory
Like toys for tyrants or like garments old —
Be nature’s Queen and keep her crown of gold

The wild hedge-rose it is a bonny flower
As ever met the sunshine and the sky
Its gold threads beeded with the summer showers
That patter on the glossy leaves and lye
Like pears that glitter ’neath the maiden’s eye
Who stands admiring by the burning flowers
That from her own looks takes a deeper dye
Like feathers on the hedges at morn’s hours
They look to fancies happier then ours

I could not walk the fields like common men
And have no fancys nourish — nor could I
Pass the wild rose-bush o‘er the foxes’ den
And not admire its grandeur silently
Nature’s own majesty who could pass bye?
Things left all beauty, like those simple scenes —
The wild rose blushing ’neath a summer sky
The summer morning and the rosey e’en
With all the woodland multitudes of green

Song

We never know the sweets o’ joy
Untill it goes away
The sweetest flower no notice wakes
Untill it meets decay

The bright sun shines our heads above
Like rich unnoticed dreams
And when the day is lost in clouds
We value the sunbeams

The spring is nothing when it comes
That seemed so bright before
The merry bee neglected hums
Flowers weeds, and nothing more
The present joy we cannot see
The sweetest comes tomorrow
But when it’s past, no longer free
Past joys are present sorrow
Song

I long to think of thee in lonely midnight
When thy spirit comes warm as an angel of light
Thy face is before me in rosey and flame
Which my kiss canna reach and I know not thy name
My heart aches to think on’t — ’tis long sin’ we met
If love is the truth, love, how can I forget
My arms would have clasped thee to pull thy face down
But when I embraced thee the Vision was flown

And was it true luv’ and cud I forget
Thy name, when I feel how enraptured we met?
And can love forget thee sae much and keep true?
Thy vision brought daylight before the cock crew
I saw thee above me in roseate hue
Thy cheeks they were red and thy bosom swelled too
My arm couldna reach those pearl shoulders sae white
Nor my lips cud na kiss wi’ thy lips to unite

And can it be love to have loved and forget?
To see thee in visions nor know thy name yet?
Thy face is my own that was worshiped in love
And thou comest before me a light from above
’Tis thyself but I canna yet think o’ thy name
Though my cell’s light at midnight before the day came
Thy face is still beauty, thy breast rosey’s hue,
But thy name I can’t think of, and yet love is true

God looks on nature with a glorious eye
And blesses all creation with the sun
Its drapery of green and brown, earth, ocean, lie
In morning as Creation just begun
That saffron East fortells the riseing sun
And who can look upon that majesty
Of light brightness and splendour nor feel won
With love of him whose bright all-seeing eye
Feeds the day’s light with Immortallity?

March Violet

Where last year’s leaves and weeds decay
March violets are in blow
I’d rake the rubbish all away
And give them room to grow

Near neighbour to the Arum proud
Where dew-drops fall and sleep
As purple as a fallen cloud
March violets bloom and creep

Scenting the gales of early morn
They smell before they’re seen
Peeping beneath the old whitethorn
That shows its tender green

The lamb will nibble by their bloom
And eat them day by day
Till briars forbid his steps to come
And then he skips away

’Mid nettle-stalks that wither there
And on the greensward lie
All bleaching in the thin March air
The scattered violets lie

I know the place, it is a place
In spring where nettles come
There milk-white violets show their face
And blue ones earlier bloom ...

O the first days of summer — morning’s blush
Is rife with healthy freshness hung with dew
To dip your hand into a wet rose-bush
And crop the fairest flower that ever grew
Pearled with the silver shine of morning dew
How beautifull it looks how sweet it smells
The breath of virgin morning coming new
That from the sweets of flowers her story tells
And voice of song-birds in the ecchoing dells ...

STANZAS

Would’st thou but know where Nature clings
That cannot pass away
Stand not to look on human things
For they shall all decay:
False hearts shall change and rot to dust
While truth exerts her powers
Love lives with Nature, not with lust.
Go find her in the flowers

Dost dream o’er faces once so fair,
Unwilling to forget?
Seek Nature in the fields and there
The first-loved face is met*
The native gales are lovers’ voices
As nature’s self can prove
The wild field-flowers are lovers’ choices
And Nature’s self is Love.

I AM

I am — yet what I am, none cares or knows;*
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes —
They rise and vanish in oblivion’s host
Like shadows in love-frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live — like vapours tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I love the best
Are strange — nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below — above, the vaulted sky.

SONNET

I feel I am, I only know I am
And plod upon the earth as dull and void
Earth’s prison chilled my body with its dram
Of dullness, and my soaring thoughts destroyed.
I fled to solitudes from passion’s dream
But strife persued - I only know I am.
I was a being created in the race
Of men disdaining bounds of place and time -
A spirit that could travel o’er the space
Of earth and heaven — like a thought sublime,
Tracing creation, like my maker, free -
A soul unshackled like eternity,
Spurning earth’s vain and soul-debasing thrall
But now I only know I am - that’s all.

Left in the world alone
Where nothing seems my own
And everything is weariness to me
‘Tis a life without an end
’Tis a world without a friend
And everything is sorrowful I see

There’s the crow upon the stack
And other birds all black
While November’s frowning wearily
And the black cloud’s dropping rain
’Till the floods hide half the plain
And everything is weariness to me

The sun shines wan and pale
Chill blows the Northern gale
And odd leaves shake and shiver on the tree
While I am left alone
Chilled as a mossy stone
And all the world is frowning over me

SONG

Love lives beyond
The tomb, the earth which fades like dew
I love the fond
The faithfull and the true

Love lives in sleep
The happiness of healthy dreams
Eve’s dews may weep
But love delightfull seems

’Tis seen in flowers
And in the even’s pearly dew
On earth’s green hours
And in the heaven’s eternal blue

’Tis heard in spring
When light and sunbeams warm and kind
On angel’s wing
Bring love and music to the mind

And where is the voice*
So young and beautifully sweet
As nature’s choice
When spring and lovers meet?

Love lives beyond
The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew.
I love the fond,
The faithfull, young, and true.

HESPERUS*

Hesperus, the day is gone
Soft falls the silent dew
A tear is now on many a flower
And heaven lives in you

Hesperus, the evening mild
Falls round us soft and sweet
’Tis like the breathings of a child
When day and evening meet

Hesperus, the closing flower
Sleeps on the dewy ground
While dews fall in a silent shower
And heaven breathes around

Hesperus, thy twinkling ray
Beams in the blue of heaven
And tells the traveller on his way
That earth shall be forgiven

THE AUTUMN WIND

The Autumn wind on suthering wings
Plays round the oak-tree strong
And through the hawthorn hedges sings
The year’s departing song
There’s every leaf upon the whirl
Ten thousand times an hour
The grassy meadows crisp and curl
With here and there a flower
There’s nothing in the world I find
That pleases like the Autumn wind

The chaffinch flies from out the bushes
The bluecap ‘tee hees’ on the tree
The wind sues on in merry gushes
His murmuring autumn’s minstrelsy
The robin sings his autumn song
Upon the crabtree overhead
The clouds like smoak slow sail along
Leaves rustle from their mossy bed
There’s nothing suits my musing mind
So pleasant as the Autumn wind

How many miles it suthers on
And stays to dally with the leaves
And when the first broad blast is gone
A stronger gust the foliage heaves
The poplar tree it turns to gray
As leaves lift up their underside
The birch it dances all the day
To rippling billows petrified
There’s nothing calms the quiet mind
So welcome as the Autumn wind

Sweet twittering o‘er the meadow grass
Soft sueing o’er the fallow ground
The lark starts up as on they pass
With many a gush and moaning sound
It fans the feathers of the bird
And ruffs the robin’s ruddy breast
As round the hovel-end it whirled
Then sobs and gallops o’er the West
In solitude the musing mind
Must ever love the Autumn wind

Oct 15th/45

TO A LARK SINGING IN WINTER

Wing-winnowing lark with speckled breast
Has just shot up from nightly rest
To sing two minutes up the West
Then drop again
Here’s some small straws about her nest
All hid from men.

Thou farmer’s minstrel ever cheery
Though winter’s all about so dreary
I dare say thou sat warm and erie*
Between the furrows
And now thy song that flows unweary
Scorns earthly sorrows

The little mouse comes out and nibbles
The small weed in the ground of stubbles
Where thou, lark, sat and slept from troubles
Amid the storm
The stubble’s icicle began to dribble
In sunshine warm

Sweet minstrel of the farm and plough
When ploughman’s fingers’ gin to glow
How beautiful and sweet art thou
Above his head
The stubble-field is in a glow
All else seems dead

All dead without the stubble-ground
Without a sight without a sound
But music sunshines all around
Beneath thy song
Winter seems softened at thy sound
Nor nips to wrong

On all the stubble-blades of grass
The melted drops turn beads of glass
Rime feathers upon all we pass
Everywhere hings
And brown and green all hues that was
Feathered like wings

It is a morn of ragged rime
The coldest blast of winter time
Is warmth to this Siberian clime
Dead winter sere
And yet that clod-brown bird sublime
Sings loud and clear

The red round sun looks like a cheat
He only shines blood-freezing heat
And yet this merry bird’s night seat
Seems warm’s a sty
The stubble-woods around it meet
And keep it dry

How safe must be this bird’s sweet bed
In stubble-fields with storms o‘er head
Or skies like bluest curtains spread
Lying so lone
With bit of thurrow o’er her head
Mayhap a stone

The god of nature guides her well
To choose best dwellings for hersel’
And in the spring her nest we’ll tell
Her choice at least
For God loves little larks as well
As man or beast

Thou little bird thou bonny charm
Of every field and every farm
In every season cold and warm
Thou sing’st thy song
I wish thy russet self no harm
Nor any wrong

Free from the snares thy nature shuns
And nets and baits and pointed guns
Dangers thy timid nature shuns
May thou go free
Sweet bird as summer onward runs
I’ll list to thee

I’d writ one verse, and half another,
When thou dropt down and joined a brother
And o‘er the stubble swopt together
To play ’till dark
Then in thy night nest shun cold weather
As snug’s a Lark

Old russet fern I wish thee well
Till next year’s spring comes by itsel’
Then build thy nest and hide it well
’Tween rig or thurrow
No doubt may be this is the dell
- Spring comes the morrow

Then blossomed beans will bloom above thee
And bumble bee buz in and love thee
And nothing from thy nest shall move thee
When May shines warm
And thy first minstrelsy above thee
Sing o’er the farm

STANZAS

The spring is come forth but no spring is for me
Like the spring of my boyhood on woodland and lea
When flowers brought me heaven and knew me again
In the joy of their blooming o’er mountain and plain
My thoughts are confined and imprisoned — O when
Will freedom find me my own vallies again?

The winds breathe so sweet and the day is so calm
In the woods and the thicket the flowers look so warm
And the grass is so green so delicious and sweet
O when shall my manhood my youth’s vallies meet,
The scenes where my children are laughing at play,
The scenes where my memory is fading away

The primrose looks happy in every field
In strange woods the violets their odours will yield
And flowers in the sunshine all brightly arrayed
Will bloom just as fresh and as sweet in the shade
But the wild flowers that bring me most joy and content
Are the blossoms that blow where my childhood was
spent

Then I played like a flower in the shade and the sun
And slept as in Eden when daylight was done
There I lived with my parents and felt my heart free
And love — that was yet joy or sorrow to be,
Joy and sorrow it has been like sunshine and showers
And their sun is still bright o’er my happiest hours

The trees they are naked the bushes are bare
And the fields they are brown as if winter lay there
But the violets are there by the dykes and the dell
Where I played ‘hen and chickens’ - and heard the
church bell
Which called me to prayer-book and sermons in vain
O when shall I see my own vallies again?

The churches look bright as sun at noon-day
There meadows look green ere the winter’s away
There the pooty still lies for the schoolboy to find
And a thought often brings these sweet places to mind
Where the trees waved like thunder no music so well
Then nought sounded harsh but the school-calling bell

There are spots where I played there are spots where I
loved
There are scenes where the tales of my choice were
approved
As green as at first — and their memory will be
The dearest of life’s recollections to me
The objects seen* there in the care of my heart
Are as fair as at first — and will never depart

Though no names are mentioned to sanction my themes
Their hearts beat with mine and make real my dreams
Their memories with mine their diurnal course run,
True as night to the stars and as day to the sun
And as they are now so their memories will be
Long as sense, truth, and reason remaineth with me.

THE ROUND OAK

The apple-top’t oak in the old narrow lane
And the hedgerow of bramble and thorn
Will ne’er throw their green on my visions again
As they did on that sweet dewy morn
When I went for spring pooteys and bird’s nest to look
Down the border of bushes ayont the fair spring
I gathered the palm-grass close to the brook
And heard the sweet birds in thorn-bushes sing

I gathered flat gravel-stones up in the shallows
To make ducks and drakes when I got to a pond
The reed-sparrow’s nest it was close to the sallows
And the wren’s in a thorn-bush a little beyond
And there did the stickleback shoot through the pebbles
As the bow shoots the arrow quick-darting unseen
Till it came to the shallows where the water scarce
drebbles
Then back dart again to the spring-head of green

The nest of the magpie in the low bush of whitethorn
And the carrion-crow’s nest on the tree o’er the spring
I saw it in March on many a cold morn
When the arum it bloomed like a beautiful thing
And the apple-top’t oak aye as round as a table
That grew just above on the bank by the spring
Where every Saturday noon I was able
To spend half a day and hear the birds sing

But now there’s no holidays left to my choice
That can bring time to sit in thy pleasures again
Thy limpid brook flows and thy waters rejoice
And I long for that tree - but my wishes are vain
All that’s left to me now I find in my dreams
For fate in my fortune’s left nothing the same
Sweet apple-top’t oak that grew by the stream
I loved thy shade once, now I love but thy name

June 19/46

TWILIGHT

Sweet twilight nurse of dews
And mother of sweet hours
With thee a walk I choose
Among the hawthorn bowers
That overhang the molehill greenly gray
Made as it were to intercept the way

Beetles are thy trumpeters
And to thy silence play
Where the soft still rustle stirs
O‘er dead winds of the day
’Mid marshy sedge, dull aspens, and pasture-rushes
O’er green cornfields and hedge-row bushes

Thy hours have one light place
Streaky and dunly grey
As if the night was giving place
And bringing back the day
The sun seems coming, so the eye believes,
But darkness deepens round and undeceives

O’er brooks the weeping ash
Hangs cool and grimly dark
I hear the water splash
And then, half-fearing, mark
In ivy’d ash a robber near the stream
Till from a nearer view I find it but a dream

Sweet twilight nurse of night
Thy path the milkmaid treads
With nimble step so light
Scarce bends the cowslips’ heads
But hastening on ere by thy light forsook
She leaves her cows all resting by the brook

Sweet twilight thy cool dews
Are beautifully spread
Where the nightingale its song renews
Close by the old cow-shed
In that low hazel oft’ I’ve heard her sing
While sombre evening came on downy wing

The playful rabbit too
Its white scut glancing
Amid the silver dew
I’ve seen them oft advancing
In troops from spinneys where they love to dwell
Dancing on molehills in the open dell

Spring leaves seem old in green
And the dull thorn is lost in the
Dun twilight - but the hazel still is seen
In sleeping beauty by the old oak-tree
Giving the woods a beauty and a power
While earth seems Eden in such an hour

Sweet twilight in thy dews
And silence I rejoice
Thy odd stars bid me muse
And give to silence voice
Now twilight ceases on the verge of even
And darkness like a pall spreads over heaven

WOOD-ANEMONIE

The wood-anemonie through dead oak-leaves
And in the thickest wood now blooms anew
And where the green briar and the bramble weaves
Thick clumps o’ green anemonies thicker grew
And weeping flowers in thousands pearled in dew
People the woods and brake’s hid hollows there
White, yellow, and purple-hued the wide wood through
What pretty drooping weeping flowers they are
The clipt frilled leaves the slender stalk they bear
On which the drooping flower hangs, weeping dew
How beautiful through April time and May
The woods look filled with wild anemonie
And every little spinney now looks gay
With flowers ’mid brush-wood and the hugh oak-tree

I love thee nature with a boundless love
The calm of earth the storms of roaring woods
The winds breathe happiness where e’er I rove
There’s life’s own music in the swelling floods
My harp is in the thunder-melting clouds
The snow-capt mountain and the rolling sea
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens? There lives happiness for me

Death breathes its pleasures when it speaks of him
My pulse beats calmer while its lightnings play
My eye with earth’s delusions waxing dim
Clears with the brightness of eternal day
The elements crash round me — it is he
And do I hear his voice and never start
From Eve’s posterity I stand quite free
Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart

Love is not here - hope is - and in his voice
The rolling thunder and the roaring sea
My pulse they leap and with the hills rejoice
Then strife and turmoil is a peace to me
No matter where life’s ocean leads me on
For nature is my mother and I rest
When tempests trouble, and the sun is gone,
Like to a weary child upon her breast

Flowers shall hang upon the palls
Brighter than patterns upon shawls
And blossoms shall be in the coffin-lids
Sadder than tears on grief’s eyelids
Garlands shall hide pale corpses’ faces
When beauty shall rot in charnel places
Spring flowers shall come in dews of sorrow
For the maiden goes down to her grave tomorrow

Last week she went walking and stepping along
Gay as first flowers of spring or the tune of a song
Her eye was as bright as the sun in its calm
Her lips they were rubies her bosom was warm
And white as the snowdrop that lies on her breast
Now death like a dream is her bedfellow-guest
And white as the sheets - aye and paler than they
Now her face in its beauty has perished to clay

Spring flowers they shall hang on her pall
More bright than the pattern that bloomed on her shawl
And blooms shall be strewn where the corpse lies hid
More sad than the tears upon grief’s eyelid
And ere the return of another sweet May
Shall be rotting to dust in the coffined clay
And the grave whereon the bright snowdrops grow
Shall be the same soil as the beauty below

Feby 11th/47

How hot the sun rushes
Like fire in the bushes
The wild flowers look sick at the foot of the tree
Birds’ nests are left lonely
The pewit sings only
And all seems disheartened and lonely like me

Baked earth and burnt furrows
Where the rabbit he burrows
And yet it looks pleasant beneath the green tree
The crow’s nest look darkly
O’er fallows dried starkly
And the sheep all look restless as nature and me

Yet I love a meadow, dwelling
Where nature is telling
A tale to the clear stream — it’s dearest to me
To sit in green shadows
While the herd turns to gadders
And runs from the hums of the fly and the bee

This spot is the fairest
The sweetest and rarest
This sweet sombre shade of the bright green tree
Where the morehen’s flag-nest
On the water’s calm breast
Lies near to this sweet spot that’s been mother to me

MARY: A BALLAD

The skylark mounts up with the morn
The vallies are green with the spring
The linnets sit in the whitethorn
To build mossy dwellings and sing
I see the thorn-bush getting green
I see the woods dance in the spring
But Mary can never be seen
Though the all-cheering spring doth begin

I see the grey bark of the oak
Look bright thro’ the underwood now
To the plough-plodding horses they joke
But Mary is not with her cow
The birds almost whistle her name
Say where can my Mary be gone
The spring brightly smiles - and ’tis shame
That she should be absent alone

The cowslips are out on the grass
Increasing like crowds at a fair
The river runs smoothly as glass
And the barges float heavily there
The milkmaid she sings to her cow
But Mary is not to be seen
Can Nature such absence allow
At milking on pasture and green?

When Sabbath it comes to the green
The maidens are there in their best
But Mary is not to be seen
Though I walk till the sun’s in the West
I fancy still each wood and plain
Where I and my Mary have strayed
When I was a country swain
And she was the happiest maid

But woods they are all lovely now
And the wild flowers blow all unseen
The birds sing alone on the bough
Where Mary and I once have been
But for months she now keeps away
And I am a lonely hind
Trees tell me so from day to day
When waving in the wind

Birds tell me so upon the bough
That I’m threadbare and old
The very sun looks on me now
A being dead and cold
Once I’d a place where I could rest
And love and quiet be
That quiet place was Mary’s breast
And still a hope to me -

The spring comes brighter by day
And brighter flowers appear
And though she long has kept away
Her name is ever dear
Then leave me still the meadow-flowers
Where daffies blaze and shine
Give but the spring’s young hawthorn-bower
For then sweet Mary’s mine

SONG

How silent comes this gentle wind
And fans the grass and corn
It leaves a thousand thoughts behind
Of happiness forlorn
The memory of my happier days
When I was hale and young
Where still my boyish fancy strays
Corn-fields and woods among

It fans among the lazy weeds
And stirs the wild flowers’ leaves
Sweet is the playful noise it breeds
While the heart its joys receives
While listening to the gentle sounds
That murmur thro’ the grass
And must I love the airy sounds
Of crows that o’er me pass

And larks that fly above the corn
Frit by a jilted stone
A few yards high at eve or morn
Then drop and hide alone
I love to see the breeze at eve
Go winnowing o’er the land
And partridges their dwellings leave
And call on either hand

I love the all that nature loves
The water, earth, and sky
The greenness of the leafy groves
Brown fallows rising high
The breezes of the early morn
The early evening breeze
The Brown Lark’s mattins in the corn
The rook’s song in the trees

I love the haunts of solitude
The coverts of the free
Where man ne’er ventures to intrude
And God gives peace to me
Where all I hear and all I see
In peace of freedom roam
Here shall my heart’s own dwelling be
And find itself at home

AUTUMN

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
The casement all the day
And from the mossy elm-tree takes
The faded leaf away
Twirling it by the window pane
With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig
Dance till the shut of eve
The sparrow on the cottage-rig
Whose chirp would make believe
That spring was just now flirting by
In summer’s lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage-smoke
Curl upwards through the naked trees
The pigeons nestled round the cote*
On dull November days like these
The cock upon the dunghill crowing
The mill-sails on the heath agoing

The feather from the raven’s breast
Falls on the stubble-lea
The acorns near the old crow’s nest
Fall pattering down the tree
The grunting pigs that wait for all
Scramble and hurry where they fall

SONG

Where the ash-tree weaves
Shadows over the river
And the willow’s grey leaves
Shake and quiver —
Meet me and talk, love,
Down the grasshopper’s baulk, love,
And then love for ever.

There meet me and talk, love,
Of love’s inward feelings
Where the clouds look like chalk, love,
And the huts and the shielings
Lie like love o’er the river
Here talk of love’s feelings
And love on for ever.

Where the bee hums his ballads
By the river so near it
Round docks and wild salads
While all love to hear it,
We’ll meet by the river
And by old willow-pollards
Bid love live for ever.

Janry 13th 1848

THE WIND

The frolicksome wind through the trees and the bushes
Keeps sueing and sobbing and waiving all day
Frighting magpies from trees and from whitethorns the
thrushes
And waveing the river in wrinkles and spray
The unresting wind is a frolicksome thing
O’er hedges in floods and green fields of the spring

It plays in the smoke of the chimney at morn
Curling this way and that i’ the morn’s dewy light
It curls from the twitch-heap among the green corn
Like the smoke from the cannon i’ th’ midst of a fight
But report there is none to create any alarm
From the smoke on the ground hiding meadow and
farm

How sweet curls the smoke o‘er the green o’ the field
How majestic it rolls o’er the face o’ the grass
And from the low cottage the elm-timbers shield
In the calm o’ the evening how sweet the curls pass
I’ the sunset how sweet to behold the cot smoke
From the low red-brick chimney beneath the dark oak

How sweet the wind whispers o’ midsummer’s eves
And fans the winged elder-leaves o‘er the old pales
While the cottage smoke o’er them a bright pillar leaves
Rising up and turns clouds by the strength of the gales
O’ sweet is the cot ’neath its colums of smoke
While dewy eve brings home the labouring folk

THE SHEPHERD BOY

The fly or beetle on their track
Are things that know no sin
And when they whemble on their back
What terror they seem in
The shepherd boy wi’ bits o’ bents
Will turn them up again
And start them where they nimbly went
Along the grassy plain
And such the shepherd boy is found
While lying on the sun-crackt ground

The lady-bird that seldom stops
From climbing all the day
Climbs up the rushes’ tassle-tops
Spreads wings and flies away
He sees them — lying on the grass
Musing the whole day long
And clears the way to let them pass
And sings a nameless song
He watches pismires on the hill
Always busy never still

He sees the traveller-beetle run
Where thick the grass-wood weaves
To hide the black-snail from the sun
He props up plantain leaves
The lady-cows have got a house
Within the cowslip pip
The spider weaving for his spouse
On threads will often slip
So looks and lyes the shepherd boy
The summer long his whole employ

O could I be as I have been
And ne’er can be no more
A harmless thing in meadows green
Or on the wild seashore

O could I be what once I was
In heaths and valleys green
A dweller in the summer grass
Green fields and places green

A tennant of the happy fields
By grounds of wheat and beans
By gipsey’s camps and milking-bield
Where lussious woodbine leans

To sit on the deserted plough
Left when the corn was sown
In corn and wild weeds buried now
In quiet peace unknown

The harrow’s resting by the hedge
The roll within the dyke
Hid in the ariff and the sedge
Are things I used to like

I used to tread through fallow lands
And wade through paths of grain
When wheat-ears pattered on the hands
And headaches left a stain

I wish I was what I have been
And what I was could be
As when I roved in shadows green
And loved my willow-tree

To gaze upon the starry sky
And higher fancies build
And make in solitary joy
Love’s temple in the field

AN INVITE TO ETERNITY

Wilt thou go with me sweet maid
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade
Of night and dark obscurity
Where the path hath lost its way
Where the sun forgets the day
Where there’s nor life nor light to see
Sweet maiden wilt thou go with me

Where stones will turn to flooding streams
Where plains will rise like ocean-waves
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity*
Where parents live and are forgot
And sisters live and know us not

Say maiden wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life-to-be
To live in death and be the same
Without this life or home or name
At once to be and not to be
That was and is not — yet to see
Things pass like shadows — and the sky
Above, below, around us lie.

The land of shadows wilt thou trace
And look nor know each other’s face
The present mixed with seasons gone
And past and present all as one
Say maiden can thy life be led
To join the living with the dead
Then trace thy footsteps on with me
We’re wed to one eternity

CHILDHOOD

O dear to us ever the scenes of our childhood
The green spots we played in, the school where we met
The heavy old desk where we thought of the wildwood
Where we pored o’er the sums which the master had set
I loved the old church-school both inside and outside
I loved the dear ash-trees and sycamore too
The graves where the buttercups burning gold outvied
And the spire where pelitory dangled and grew

The bees i’ the wall that were flying about
The thistles the henbane and mallows all day
And crept in their holes when the sun had gone out
And the butterfly ceased on the blossoms to play
O dear is the round stone upon the green hill
The pinfold hoof-printed with oxen - and bare
The old princess-feather-tree growing there still
And the swallows and martins wheeling round in the air

Where the chaff whipping outwards lodges round the
barn-door
And the dunghill-cock struts with his hens in the rear
And sings ‘Cockadoodle’ full twenty times o’er
And then claps his wings as he’d fly in the air
And there’s the old cross with its roundabout steps
And the weathercock creaking quite round in the wind
And there’s the old hedge with its glossy red heps
Where the green-linnet’s nest I have hurried to find

— To be in time for the school or before the bell rung.
Here’s the odd martin’s nest o’er the shoemaker’s door
On the shoemaker’s chimney the old swallows sung
That had built and sung there in the seasons before
Then we went to seek pootys among the old furze
On the heaths, in the meadows, beside the deep lake
And returned with torn cloathes all covered wi’ burrs
And oh what a row my fond mother would make

Then to play boiling kettles just by the yard-door
Seeking out for short sticks and a bundle of straw
Bits of pots stand for teacups after sweeping the floor
And the children are placed under school-mistress’s awe
There’s one set for pussy, another for doll
And for butter and bread they’ll each nibble an awe
And on a great stone as a table they loll
The finest small teaparty ever you saw

The stiles we rode upon ‘all a cock-horse’
The mile-a-minute swee
On creaking gates - the stools o’ moss
What happy seats had we
There’s nought can compare to the days of our
childhood
The mole-hills like sheep in a pen
Where the clodhopper sings like the bird in the
wild-wood
All forget us before we are men

Oct. 15th/48

SONG

The girl I love is flesh and blood
With face and form of fairest clay
Straight as the firdale in the wood
And lovely as a first spring day

The girl I love’s a lovely girl
Bonny and young in every feature
Richer than flowers and strings o’ pearl
A handsome and delightful creature

She’s born to grace the realms above
Where we shall both be seen together
And sweet and fair the maid I love
As rose trees are in summer weather

O bonny straight and fair is she
I wish we both lived close together
Like as the acorns on the tree
Or foxglove-bell in summer weather

Come to me love and let us dwell
Where oak-trees cluster all together
I’ll gaze upon thy bosom’s swell*
And love yes love thee then forever

Her face is like another’s face
As white another’s skin may prove
But no one else could fill her place
If banished from the maid I love

THE HUMBLE BEE

When life’s tempests blow high
In seclusion I tread
Where the primroses lie
And the green mosses spread
Where the bottle-tit hangs
At the end of a twig
Where the humble bee bangs
That is almost as big

Where I feel my heart lonely
I am solitude’s own
Talking to myself only
And walking woods lone
In the wood-briars and brambles
Hazel-stools and oak-trees
I enjoy such wood-rambles
And hear the wood-bees

That sing their wood-journey
And stop at wood-blooms
Where the primroses burn ye
And the violet perfumes
There to myself talking
I rub through the bushes
And the boughs where I’m walking
Like a sudden wind rushes

The wood-gate keeps creaking
Opened ever so slow
And from boughs bent to breaking
Often starts the odd crow
Right down the green riding
Gladly winds the wild bee
Then through the woodsiding
He sucks flowers in glee

He flies through the stovens
Brown, hazel, and grey
Through fern-leaves like ovens
Still singing his way
He rests on a moss-bed
And perks up his heels
And strokes o’er his small head
Then hies to the fields

I enjoy these wood-rambles
And the juicey wheat-fields
Where the woodrose and brambles
A shower’s covert yields
I love the wood-journey
Where the violets melt blue
And primroses burn ye
With flames the day through

THE EVENING IS FOR LOVE

The evening is for love As the morning is for toil
Though the fire is from above The pot is got to boil
A hard day’s work is mine And I’ll live wi’ care no more
So I’ll see dew come to the woodbine At Isabella’s door

Wi’ hairy leaves and droping flowers The
canterberry-bell
Grows underneath the hazle-bower By most folks
favoured well
Up the bean-stalks creeps the snail The moth sleeps
down below
The grey mist creep along And I’ll a courting go

I’ll gang and Isabella see Nor more i’ love repine
By her yard gate’s the elder-tree By her door the
streaked woodbine

And red pink-bunches on the bed And pansies blue and
yellow
The West is glowering gold and red And I’ll gang to
Isabella

I’ll court her a’ the lee-lang night And tomorrow being
Sunday
I’ll wrap her in my heart’s delight And uggle her till
Monday
Her bosom is so fair and white she never had a fellow
I’ll gang and stay till broad daylight Wi’ my handsome
Isabella

HER LOVE IS ALL TO ME

O cold is the winter day And iron is the ground
And winter’s snow has found his way For fifty miles
around
I turn a look to every way And nothing to be seen
The frozen clouds shuts out the day And snow hides all
the green

The hedges all of leaves are bare My heart beats cold and
chill
O once I loved a pretty girl And love her dearly still
Though love is but a frozen pearl As you may plainly
see
My lovely girl is handsome As any maid can be

Freeze on the bitter biteing sky Snows shade the naked
tree
All desolate alone am I Yet I’ll love none but thee
No tears I shed my love to show To freeze before they
fall
No sighs I send along the snow But she’s my all in all

The footpath leaves the ruts and carts O‘er furrow and
o’ er rig
And my love lives at the ‘White Hart’* A stone throw
from the brig
She’s like a ballad sung in tune And deep in love to be
Her face is like the rose in June And her love is all to me

THE DAISY-BUTTON TIPP’D WI’ DEW

The daisy-button tipped wi’ dew Green like the grass
was sleeping
On every thing ’neath heaven blue In moonlight dew
was weeping
In dark wood sung the Nightingale The moon shone
round above me
My arms were clasped round Mary Gale My dearest do
you love me?

Her head a woodbine wet wi’ dew Held in the
moonlight sleeping
And two in one together grew Wi’ daisy-buds a
weeping
O’ Mary Gale sweet Mary Gale How round and bright
above thee
The moon looks down on grassy vale My dearest can
you love me?

How sweet the moonlight sleeps and still Firdale and
hedge-row brere
The molewarp’s mound and distant hill Is moonlight
everywhere
The totter-grasses’ pendalums Are still as night above
me
The bees are gone and nothing hums My dearest do you
love me?

The moonlight sleeps o‘er wood and wall Sweet Mary
while you’re nigh me
Can any charm o’ courtship fail And any joy pass by me?
The gossamer all wet wi’ dew Hung on the brere above
me
She leaned her cheek and said ‘I do, And ever mean to
love thee’

NOW IS PAST

Now is past, the happy now,
When we together roved
Beneath the wild woods’ oak-tree bough
And nature said we loved

Winter’s blast

The now since then has crept between
And left us both apart
Winters that withered all the green
Hath froze the beating heart

Now is past

Now is past since last we met
Beneath the hazle-bough
Before the evening sun was set
Her shadow stretched below

Autumn’s blast

Has stained and blighted every bough
Wild strawberrys like her lips
Have left the mosses green below
Her bloom’s upon the hips

Now is past

Now is past is changed agen
The woods and fields has painted new
Wild strawberrys which both gathered then
None knows now where they grew

The sky’s o’er cast

Wood-strawberrys faded from woodsides
Green leaves have all turned yellow
No Adelaide walks the woodsides
True love has no bedfellow

Now is past

LITTLE TROTTY WAGTAIL

Little trotty wagtail he went in the rain
And tittering tottering sideways he ne’er got straight
again
He stooped to get a worm and looked up to catch a fly
And then he flew away ere his feathers they were dry

Little trotty wagtail he waddled in the mud
And left his little foot marks trample where he would
He waddled in the water-pudge and waggle went his tail
And chirrupt up his wings to dry upon the garden rail

Little trotty wagtail you nimble all about
And in the dimpling water-pudge you waddle in and
out
Your home is nigh at hand and in the warm pigsty
So little Master Wagtail I’ll bid you a ‘Good bye’

Augst 9th/49

CLOCK-A-CLAY

In the cowslip’s peeps I lye
Hidden from the buzzing fly
While green grass beneath me lies
Pearled wi’ dew like fishes’ eyes
Here I lie a Clock-a-clay
Waiting for the time o’ day

While grassy forests quake surprise
And the wild wind sobs and sighs
My gold home rocks as like to fall
On its pillar green and tall
When the pattering rain drives by
Clock-a-Clay keeps warm and dry

Day by day and night by night
All the week I hide from sight
In the cowslip’s peeps I lie
In rain and dew still warm and dry
Day and night and night and day
Red black-spotted Clock-a-clay

My home it shakes in wind and showers
Pale green pillar topt wi’ flowers
Bending at the wild wind’s breath
Till I touch the grass beneath
Here still I live lone Clock-a-clay
Watching for the time of day

THE SWEETEST WOMAN THERE

From bank to bank the water roars Like thunder in a storm
A Sea in sight of both the shores Creating no alarm
The water-birds above the flood Fly o’er the foam and
spray
And nature wears a gloomy hood On this October day

And there I saw a bonny maid That proved my heart’s
delight
All day she was a Goddess made An angel fair at night
We loved and in each other’s power Felt nothing to
condemn
I was the leaf and she the flower And both grew on one
stem

I loved her lip her cheek her eye She cheered my
midnight gloom
A bonny rose ‘neath God’s own sky In one perrenial
bloom
She lives ’mid pastures evergreen And meadows ever
fair
Each winter spring and summer scene The sweetest
woman there

She lives among the meadow floods That foams and
roars away
While fading hedgerows distant woods Fade off to
naked spray
She lives to cherish and delight All nature with her face
She brought me joy morn noon and night In that low
lonely place

AUTUMN

The thistledown’s flying Though the winds are all still
On the green grass now lying Now mounting the hill
The spring from the fountain Now boils like a pot
Through stones past the counting It bubbles red-hot

The ground parched and cracked is Like overbaked
bread
The greensward all wrecked is Bents dried up and dead
The fallow fields glitter Like water indeed
And gossamers twitter Flung from weed unto weed

Hill-tops like hot iron Glitter hot i’ the sun
And the Rivers we’re eyeing Burn to gold as they run
Burning hot is the ground Liquid gold is the air
Whoever looks round Sees Eternity there

AND MUST WE PART?

And must we part that once so close
And fond were knit together
Love’s buds betorn by wonton force
The flowers for summer weather
And must my happy thoughts decay
And summer blossoms wither
The hope that cheered me many a day
Must now belong to neither

Yet still the cottage-chimney smokes
Beneath the spreading walnut
Though heeded not by other folks
There evil can no gall put
Green grass there looks never cold
’Sward daisies none looks whiter
The willow-leaves fall off like gold
In autumn and look brighter

To Bessey I’ll not say farewell
Nor trouble feel at parting
I’ll love the Cottage where ye dwell
And feel one truth as certain
For nature’s self will dwell wi’ me
To charm all sorts o’ weather
And love and truth will still agree
And leave us both together

THE CROW SAT ON THE WILLOW

The Crow sat on the willow tree
A-lifting up his wings
And glossy was his coat to see
And loud the ploughman sings
I love my love because I know
The milkmaid she loves me
And hoarsely croaked the glossy crow
Upon the willow tree
I love my love, the ploughman sung
And all the field wi’ music rung

I love my love a bonny lass
She keeps her pails so bright
And blythe she trips the dewy grass
At morning and at night
A cotton drab her morning-gown
Her face was rosey health
She traced the pastures up and down
And nature was her wealth
He sung and turned each furrow down
His sweetheart’s love in cotton gown

My love is young and handsome
As any in the town
She’s worth a ploughman’s ransom
In the drab cotton gown
He sung and turned his furrows o’er
And urged his team along
While on the willow as before
The old crow croaked his song
The ploughman sung his rustic lay
And sung of Phebe all the day

The crow was in love no doubt
And wi’ a many things
The ploughman finished many a bout
And lustily he sings
My love she is a milking-maid
Wi’ red and rosey cheek
O’ cotton drab her gown was made
I loved her many a week
His milking-maid the ploughman sung
Till all the fields around him rung

THE PEASANT POET

He loved the brook’s soft sound
The swallow swimming by
He loved the daisy-covered ground
The cloud-bedappled sky
To him the dismal storm appeared
The very voice of God
And where the Evening rock was reared
Stood Moses with his rod
And every thing his eyes surveyed
The insects i’ the brake
Were creatures God almighty made
He loved them for his sake
A silent man in life’s affairs
A thinker from a Boy
A Peasant in his daily cares —
The Poet in his joy

SONG

The wind waves o’er the meadows green
And shakes my own wild flowers
And shifts about the moving scene
Like the life o’ summer hours
The little bents with reedy head
The scarce-seen shapes o’ flowers
All kink about like skeins o’ thread
In these wind-shaken hours

All stir and strife and life and bustle
In every thing around we see
The rushes whistle, sedges rustle,
The grass is buzzing round like Bees
The butterflyes are tossed about
Like skiffs upon a stormy sea
The bees are lost amid the rout
And drop in green perplexity

Wilt thou be mine thou bonny lass
Thy drapery floats so gracefully
We’ll walk along the meadow-grass
We’ll stand beneath the willow-tree
We’ll mark the little reeling bee
Along the grassy ocean rove
Tossed like a little boat at sea
And interchange our vows of love

OH COME TO MY ARMS

O’ come to my arms i’ the cool o’ the day
When the veil o’ the evening falls dewy and grey
O’ come to me under the awthorn green
When eventide falls i’ the bushes serene

O’ come to me under the awthorn tree
When the lark’s on his nest and gone bed is the bee
When the veil of the evening falls dark on the scene
And we’ll kiss love and court i’ the bushes so green

O’ come to me dear wi’ thy own maiden head
Where the wild flowers and rushes shall make thee a bed
We will lie down together in each other’s arms
Where the white moth flirts by and gives us alarms

Where the rush-bushes bend and are silvered wi’ dew
Ere the sunbeam the red cloud O’ morning breaks
through
Thy face is so sweet and thy neck is so fair
O’ come at eve dearest and live with me there

REMEMBER DEAR MARY

Remember dear Mary love cannot decieve
Love’s truth cannot vary dear Mary believe
You may hear and believe it believe it and hear
Love could not deceive those features so dear
Believe me, dear Mary, to press thy soft hand
Is sweeter than riches in houses and land

Where I pressed thy soft hand at the dewfall o’ eve
I felt the sweet tremble that cannot deceive
If love you believe in Belief is my love
As it lived once in Eden ere we fell from above
To this heartless this friendless this desolate earth
And kept in first love Immortality’s birth

‘Tis there we last met I adore thee and love thee
There’s nothing beneath thee around thee above thee
I feel it and know it I know so and feel
If your love cannot shew it mine cannot conceal
But knowing I love I feel and adore
And the more I behold — only loves thee the more

SONG

I wish I was where I would be
With love alone to dwell
Was I but her or she but me
Then love would all be well
I wish to send my thoughts to her
As quick as thoughts can fly
But as the wind the waters stir
The mirrors change and flye

SONG

She tied up her few things*
And laced up her shoe-strings
And put on her bonnet worn through at the crown
Her apron tied tighter
Than snow her cap’s whiter
She lapt up her earnings and left our old town

The Dog barked again
All the length o’ his chain
And licked her hand kindly and huffed her good bye
Old hens prated loudly
The Cock strutted proudly
And the horse at the gate turned to let her go bye

The Thrasher-man stopping
The old barn-floor wopping
Wished o’er the door-cloth her luck and no harm
Bees hummed round the thistle
While the red Robins whistle
And she just cast one look on the old mossy farm

’Twas Michaelmas season
They’d got corn and pears in
And all the Fields cleared save some rakings and tythes
Cote-pigeon-flocks muster
Round beans-shelling cluster
And done are the whettings o’ reap-hooks and scythes

Next year’s flowers a-springing
Will miss Jinney’s singing
She opened her Bible and turned a leaf down
In her bosom’s forewarnings
She lapt up her earnings
And ere the sun’s set’ll be in her own town

SONG

I hid my love when young while I
Coudn’t bear the buzzing of a flye
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place
Where e’er I saw a wild flower lye
I kissed and bade my love goodbye

I met her in the greenest dells
Where dew-drops pearl the wood bluebells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye
The bee kissed and went singing bye
A sunbeam found a passage there
A gold chain round her neck so fair
As secret as the wild bee’s song
She lay there all the summer long

I hid my love in field and town
Till e‘en the breeze would knock me down
The bees seemed singing ballads o’er
The flye’s buzz turned a lion’s roar
And even silence found a tongue
To haunt me all the summer long
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love

SONG

I peeled bits o’ straws and I got switches too
From the grey peeling Willow as Idlers do
And I switched at the flyes as I sat all alone
Till my flesh, blood, and marrow wasted to dry bone
My illness was love though I knew not the smart
But the beauty o’ love was the blood o’ my heart

Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And flew to the silence of sweet solitude
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and
fades
Unseen of a shepherd and flower-loving maids
The hermit-bees find them but once and away
There I’ll bury alive and in silence decay

I looked on the eyes o’ fair woman too long
Till silence and shame stole the use o’ my tongue
When I tried to speak to her I’d nothing to say
So I turned myself round and she wandered away
When she got too far off — why I’d something to tell
So I sent sighs behind her and talked to mysel’

Willow-switches I broke and I peeled bits o’ straws
Ever lonely in crowds in nature’s own laws
My ball-room the pasture, my music the bees’
My drink was the fountain, my church the tall trees.
Whoever would love or be tied to a wife
When it makes a man mad a’ the days o’ his life?

THE RAWK O’ THE AUTUMN

The rawk o’ the Autumn hangs over the woodlands
Like smoke from a city dismembered and pale
The sun without beams burns dim o‘er the floodlands
Where white cawdymaws slow swiver and sail
The flood froths away like a fathomless ocean
The wind winnows chill like a breeze from the sea
And thoughts of my Susan give the heart an emotion
To think, does she e’er waste a thought upon me?

Full oft I think so on the banks of the meadows
While the pale cawdymawdy flies swooping all day
I think of our true love where grass and flowers hid us
As by the dyke-side o’ the meadows we lay
The seasons have changed since I sat wi’ my true love
Now the flood roars and raves o’er the bed where we lay
There the bees kissed the flowers - Has she got a new love?
I feel like a wreck of the flood cast away

The rawk of the Autumn hangs over the woodlands
Like smoke from a city sulphurously grey
The heronshaw lonely hangs over the floodland
And cranks its lone story throughout the dull day
There’s no green on the hedges, no leaves on the darkwood
No cows on the pasture or sheep on the lea
The linnets cheep still and how happy the lark would
Sing songs to sweet Susan to remind her of me

WOMAN HAD WE NEVER MET

Woman had we never met
I nor thou had felt regret
Never had a cause to sigh
Never had a wish to die
To part and cease to love thee

Had I shared the smallest part
Of friendship from a woman’s heart
Never had I felt the pains
Of these ever-galling chains
Or ever ceased to love thee

And never on my burning brow
Felt the Cain-curses I do now
That withers up the anxious brain
Blighting what never blooms again
When woman ceased to love me

The Spring may come, the sun may shine
The earth may send forth sweets divine
What pain I’ve felt, have still to know,
The nought in Nature e’er to show
Since woman ceased to love me

Woman had we never met
Love had witnessed no regret
Never left us cause to sigh
Or me a vainer wish to die
To part and cease to love thee

WRITTEN IN PRISON

I envy e‘en the fly its gleams of joy
In the green woods from being but a boy
Among the vulgar and the lowly bred
I envied e’en the hare her grassy bed
Innured to strife and hardship from a child
I traced with lonely step the desert wild
Sighed o’er bird-pleasures but no nest destroyed
With pleasure felt the singing they enjoyed
Saw nature smile on all and shed no tears
A slave through ages though a child in years
The mockery and scorn of those more old
An Esop in the world’s extended fold
The fly I envy settling in the sun
On the green leaf and wish my goal was won

SONG

My old lover left me I knew not for why
He left me wi’ kisses I parted in tears
After painting my cheeks i’ the rosey bloom’s dye
And swearing my eyes were the gems o’ the spheres
My lover has left me I knew not for why
Two years and three months he has wandered afar
The things that were hisn I’ve put them all by
And from the fire corner removed the armchair
I once had a sweetheart I knew not for why
But I think I could love all the days o’ my life
But he left me one morning like a bird i’ the sky
And the cloud-wracks o’ heaven seemed boiling in strife
My sweetheart he left me I knew not for why
He’s left me alone for two desolate years
The swallows on holliday-wings chitter bye
And my eyes looking silent keep filling wi’ tears
I can’t be myself let me do as I will
I think till I’m blind and feel willing to die
But my true love has left me and there remains still
He kissed me and left me nor do I know why

SONG

I’ll come to thee at eventide
When the West is streaked wi’ grey
I’ll wish the night thy charms to hide
And daylight all away

I’ll come to thee at set o’ sun
Where whitethorn’s i’ the may
I’ll come to thee when work is done
And love thee till the day

When daisey-stars are all turned green
And all is meadow-grass
I’ll wander down the bank at e’en
And court the bonny lass

The green banks and the rustleing sedge
I’ll wander down at e’en
All slopeing to the water’s edge
And in the water green

And there’s the luscious meadowsweet
Beside the meadow-drain
My lassie there I once did meet
Who I wish to meet again

The water-lilies were in flower
The yellow and the white
I met her there at even’s hour
And stood for half the night

We stood and loved in that green place
When Sunday’s sun got low
Its beams reflected in her face
The fairest thing below

My sweet Ann Foot my bonny Ann
The meadow-banks are green
Meet me at even when you can
Be mine as you have been

THE WINTER’S COME*

Sweet chesnuts brown like soleing-leather turn,
The larch trees, like the colour of the sun
That paled sky in the Autumn seem’d to burn.
What a strange scene before us now does run
Red, brown, and yellow, russet, black, and dun,
Whitethorn, wild cherry, and the poplar bare,
The sycamore all withered in the sun,
No leaves are now upon the birch-tree there,
All now is stript to the cold wintry air.

See, not one tree but what has lost its leaves,
And yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue,
The winter chill on his cold bed receives
Foliage which once hung o’er the waters blue,
Naked, and bare, the leafless trees repose,
Blue-headed titmouse now seeks maggots rare,
Sluggish and dull the leaf-strewn river flows,
That is not green, which was so through the year,
Dark chill November draweth to a close.

‘Tis winter and I love to read in-doors,
When the moon hangs her crescent up on high
While on the window-shutters the wind roars
And storms like furies pass remorseless by,
How pleasant on a feather-bed to lie,
Or sitting by the fire in fancy soar,
With Milton or with Dante to regions high,
Or read fresh volumes we’ve not seen before,
Or o’er old Burton’s ‘Melancholy’ pore.

Spring comes and it is May — white as are sheets
Each orchard shines beside its little town
Childern at every bush a poesy meets
Bluebells and primroses - wandering up and down
To hunt birds’ nests and flowers a stone’s-throw from
town
And hear the blackbird in the coppice sing
Green spots appear like doubling a book down
To find the place again and strange birds sing
We have no name for in the burst of spring

The sparrow comes and chelps about the slates
And pops in to her hole beneath the eaves
While the cock-pigeon amourously awaits
The hen on barn-ridge, crows and then leaves
With crop all ruffled — where the sower heaves
The hopper at his side his beans to sow
There he with timid courage harmless thieves
And whirls around the teams and then drops low -
While plops the sudden gun and great the overthrow

And only o’er the heaths to ramble
Mary thou my partner be
Down the cool lanes lined wi’ bramble
Mary wind the brook wi’ me
Tho’ before wi’ glooms surrounded
When encircled in thy arms
Beating heart wi’ troubles crowded
Throbs to rest on Mary’s charms.

Mary when life’s shadow reaches
Stalkingly across the lane
When thine and mine the even stretches
Like two giants o’er the plain
Then’s the time the pleasure stealeth
Which I often wish to see
Then’s the time my bosom feeleth
All its joy belong to thee.

Then may Fortune shower her treasures
On her highly favored few
Little shall we miss the pleasures,
Mary, which we never knew.
Fate and Fortune, long contrary,
Grant but one request to me
Bless me in the charms of Mary
Nothing more I ask of thee.

I look on the past and I dread the tomorrow
My life grows a burthen I wish to lay down
Times meet one wi’ naught but new tidings of sorrow
And cares tan the bloom of my summer-leaf brown
If life owns a joy it ne’er fell to my portion
If pleasure’s a substance the shadow was mine
A skiff on the waves of a wild-tossing ocean
Where no rocks befriend me such life to resign.

Spring’s done wi’ me and my summer is waning
Time’s out of call wi’ my best younger days
Hope’s only prop of support now remaining
Is autumn attired in her mourning-array
Autumn haste on and come winter encroaching
As on my bare head the leaves part from the tree
I’ll feel consolation of slumbers approaching
When death does the same to my sorrows and me.

TO JOHN CLARE*

Well, honest John, how fare you now at home?
The spring is come and birds are building nests
The old cock-robin to the stye is come
With olive feathers and its ruddy breast
And the old cock with wattles and red comb
Struts with the hens and seems to like some best
Then crows and looks about for little crumbs
Swept out by little folks an hour ago
The pigs sleep in the sty the bookman comes
The little boy lets home-close-nesting go
And pockets tops and tawes where daiseys bloom
To look at the new number just laid down*
With lots of pictures and good stories too
And Jack the jiant-killer’s high renown

NOTES

Introduction

p. 15Cf. Russell Brain: Some Reflections on Genius, 1960. Lord Brain concluded that Clare was not schizophrenic, but suffering from a manic-depressive (circular) psychosis: this would be consistent with the ‘sanity’ of his poetry and the alienations of his conversations and letters.

p. 20 These quotations are from William James: ‘On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings’.

p. 22 Seamus Heaney’s observations are from his essay ‘In the Country of Convention’, Preoccupations, Faber, 1980.

The Poems Sources of Texts

Days and Seasons: all texts newly transcribed from Peterborough MSS A40, A41, A43, A45 and A54, collated with The Midsummer Cushion, ed. Anne Tibble and R. K. R. Thornton (MidNag/Carcanet), 1979 (in these notes, MC), and with The Rural Muse, ed. R. K. R. Thornton (MidNag/ Carcanet), 1982 (RM); except for ‘Summer Evening’ and ‘Crows in Spring’, which come from Eric Robinson and Geoffrey Summerfield, eds., Selected Poems and Prose of John Clare, Oxford University Press, 1967 (R S), a transcript of texts from various Northampton and Peterborough MSS. In the case of a few words, I have preferred the R S variant to that in M S A54.

Landscapes with Figures: all texts newly transcribed from MSS as above, except for ‘A Sunday with Shepherds and Herdboys’, and ‘Snow Storm’, which come from RS.

Birds and Beasts: all texts transcribed from MSS as above, except for ‘To the Snipe’, ‘The Martin’, ‘The Hedgehog’, ‘The Fox’ and ‘The Badger’, from R S.

Loves: all texts from MSS as above, except for ‘Dedication to Mary’ and ‘I’ve ran the furlongs . . .’ (RS).

Changes and Contradictions: all texts transcribed from M S S as above, except for ‘The Mores’ (R S) and ‘The Lament of Swordy Well’, from E. Robinson and D. Powell, John Clare, Oxford University Press, 1984 (R P).

Madhouses ...