John Clare

Here grandeur triumphs at its topmost pitch
In gardens, groves, and all that life beguiles;
Here want, too, meets a blessing from the rich,
And hospitality for ever smiles:
Soldier or sailor, from his many toils,
Here finds no cause to rail at pomp and pride;
He shows his scars, and talks of battle's broils,
And wails his poverty, and is supplied.
No dogs bark near, the fainting wretch to chide,
That bows to misery his aged head,
And tells how better luck did once betide,
And how he came to beg his crust of bread:
Here he but sighs his sorrows and is fed--
Mansion of wealth, by goodness dignified!

O now the crimson east, its fire-streak burning,
Tempts me to wander 'neath the blushing morn,
Winding the zig-zag lane, turning and turning,
As winds the crooked fence's wilder'd thorn.
Where is the eye can gaze upon the blushes,
Unmov'd, with which yon cloudless heaven flushes?
I cannot pass the very bramble, weeping
'Neath dewy tear-drops that its spears surround,
Like harlot's mockery on the wan cheek creeping,
Gilding the poison that is meant to wound;--
I cannot pass the bent, ere gales have shaken
Its transient crowning off, each point adorning,--
But all the feelings of my soul awaken,
To own the witcheries of most lovely Morning.

There's a bonny place in Scotland,
Where a little spring is found;
There Nature shows her honest face
The whole year round.
Where the whitethorn branches, full of may,
Hung near the fountain's rim,
Where comes sweet Alice every day
And dips her pitcher in;
A gallon pitcher without ear,
She fills it with the water clear.

My bonny Alice she is fair;
There's no such other to be found.
Her rosy cheek and dark brown hair--
The fairest maid on Scotland's ground.
And there the heather's pinhead flowers
All blossom over bank and brae,
While Alice passes by the bowers
To fill her pitcher every day;
The pitcher brown without an ear
She dips into the fountain clear.

O Alice, bonny, sweet, and fair,
With roses on her cheeks!
The l...

Here sparrows build upon the trees,
And stockdove hides her nest;
The leaves are winnowed by the breeze
Into a calmer rest;
The black-cap's song was very sweet,
That used the rose to kiss;
It made the Paradise complete:
My early home was this.

The red-breast from the sweetbriar bush
Drop't down to pick the worm;
On the horse-chestnut sang the thrush,
O'er the house where I was born;
The moonlight, like a shower of pearls,
Fell o'er this "bower of bliss,"
And on the bench sat boys and girls:
My early home was this.

The old house stooped just like a cave,
Thatched o'er with mosses green;
Winter around the walls would rave,
But all was calm within;
The trees are here all green agen,
Here bees the flowers still kiss,
But f...

My love, thou art a nosegay sweet,
My sweetest flower I'll prove thee,
And pleased I pin thee to my breast,
And dearly do I love thee.

And when, my nosegay, thou shalt fade,
As sweet a flower thou'lt prove thee;
And as thou witherest on my breast
For beauty past I'll love thee.

And when, my nosegay, thou shalt die,
And heaven's flower shalt prove thee,
My hopes shall follow to the sky,
And everlasting love thee.

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 valleys again?

The wind breathes 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 valleys meet--
The scenes where my children are laughing at play--
The scenes that from memory are 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 ...

'T was somewhere in the April time,
Not long before the May,
A-sitting on a bank o' thyme
I heard a maiden say,
"My true love is a sailor,
And ere he went away
We spent a year together,
And here my lover lay.

The gold furze was in blossom,
So was the daisy too;
The dew-drops on the little flowers
Were emeralds in hue.
On this same Summer morning,
Though then the Sabbath day,
He crop't me Spring pol'ant'uses,
Beneath the whitethorn may.

He crop't me Spring pol'ant'uses,
And said if they would keep
They'd tell me of love's fantasies,
For dews on them did weep.
And I did weep at parting,
Which lasted all the week;
And when he turned for starting
My full heart could not speak.

The same roots grow pol'ant'us...

The faint sun tipt the rising ground,
No blustering wind, the air was still;
The blue mist, thinly scatter'd round,
Verg'd along the distant hill:
Delightful morn! from labour free
I jocund met the south-west gale,
While here and there a busy bee
Humm'd sweetly o'er the flow'ry vale.

O joyful morn! on pleasure bent,
Down the green slopes and fields I flew;
And through the thickest covert went,
Which hid me from the public view:
Nor was it shame, nor was it fear,
No, no, it was my own dear choice;
I love the briary thicket, where
Echo keeps her mocking voice.

The sun's increasing heat was kind,
His warm beams cheer'd the vales around:
I left my own fields far behind,
And, pilgrim-like, trod foreign ground;
The glowing landscape's...

O Native scenes, nought to my heart clings nearer
Than you, ye Edens of my youthful hours;
Nought in this world warms my affections dearer
Than you, ye plains of white and yellow flowers;
Ye hawthorn hedge-rows, and ye woodbine bowers,
Where youth has rov'd, and still where manhood roves
The pasture-pathway 'neath the willow groves.
Ah, as my eye looks o'er those lovely scenes,
All the delights of former life beholding;
Spite of the pain, the care that intervenes,--
When lov'd remembrance is her bliss unfolding,
Picking her childish posies on your greens,--
My soul can pause o'er its distress awhile,
And Sorrow's cheek find leisure for a smile.

O simple Nature, how I do delight
To pause upon thy trifles--foolish things,
As some would call them.--On the summer night,
Tracing the lane-path where the dog-rose hings
With dew-drops seeth'd, while chick'ring cricket sings;
My eye can't help but glance upon its leaves,
Where love's warm beauty steals her sweetest blush,
When, soft the while, the Even silent heaves
Her pausing breath just trembling thro' the bush,
And then again dies calm, and all is hush.
O how I feel, just as I pluck the flower
And stick it to my breast--words can't reveal;
But there are souls that in this lovely hour
Know all I mean, and feel whate'er I feel.

Sweet comes the morning
In Nature's adorning,
And bright shines the dew on the buds of the thorn,
Where Mary Ann rambles
Through the sloe trees and brambles;
She's sweeter than wild flowers that open at morn;
She's a rose in the dew;
She's pure and she's true;
She's as gay as the poppy that grows in the corn.

Her eyes they are bright,
Her bosom's snow white,
And her voice is like songs of the birds in the grove.
She's handsome and bonny,
And fairer than any,
And her person and actions are Nature's and love.
She has the bloom of all roses,
She's the breath of sweet posies,
She's as pure as the brood in the nest of the dove.

Of Earth's fairest daughters,
Voiced like falling waters,
She walks down the meadows, than blossoms more fa...

All nature owns with one accord
The great and universal Lord:
The sun proclaims him through the day,
The moon when daylight drops away,
The very darkness smiles to wear
The stars that show us God is there,
On moonlight seas soft gleams the sky
And "God is with us" waves reply.

Winds breathe from God's abode "we come,"
Storms louder own God is their home,
And thunder yet with louder call,
Sounds "God is mightiest over all";
Till earth right loath the proof to miss
Echoes triumphantly "He is,"
And air and ocean makes reply,
God reigns on earth, in air and sky.

All nature owns with one accord
The great and universal Lord:
Insect and bird and tree and flower--
The witnesses of every hour--
Are pregnant with his prophesy
And "Go...

Night spreads upon the plain her ebon pall,
Day seems unable to wash out the stain;
A pausing truce kind nature gives to all,
And fairy nations now have leave to reign:
So may conjecturing Fancy think, and feign.
Doubtless in tiny legions, now unseen,
They venture from their dwellings once again:
From keck-stalk cavity, or hollow bean,
Or perfum'd bosom of pea-flower between,
They to the dark green rings now haste, to meet,
To dance, or pay some homage to their queen;
Or journey on, some pilgrim-friend to greet.
With rushy switch they urge some beetle's flight,
And ride to revel, ere 'tis morning-light.

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

On Martinmas eve the dogs did bark,
And I opened the window to see,
When every maiden went by with her spark
But neer a one came to me.
And O dear what will become of me?
And O dear what shall I do,
When nobody whispers to marry me--
Nobody cometh to woo?

None's born for such troubles as I be:
If the sun wakens first in the morn
"Lazy hussy" my parents both call me,
And I must abide by their scorn,
For nobody cometh to marry me,
Nobody cometh to woo,
So here in distress must I tarry me--
What can a poor maiden do?

If I sigh through the window when Jerry
The ploughman goes by, I grow bold;
And if I'm disposed to be merry,
My parents do nothing but scold;
And Jerry the clown, and no other,
Eer cometh to marry or woo;
The...

    On Martinmas eve the dogs did bark,
    And I opened the window to see,
    When every maiden went by with her spark,
    But ne'er a one came to me.
    And O dear what will become of me?
    And O dear what shall I do,
    When nobody whispers to marry me--
    Nobody cometh to woo?

    None's born for such troubles as I be:
    If the sun wakens first in the morn,
    "Lazy hussy" my parents both call me,
    And I must abide by their scorn,
    For nobody cometh to marry me,
    Nobody cometh to woo,
    So here in distress must I tarry me--
    What can a poor maiden do?

    If I sigh through the window when Jerry
    The ploughman goes by, I grow bold;
    And if I'm disposed to be merry,
    My parents do nothing but scold...

The mid-day hour of twelve the clock counts o'er,
A sultry stillness lulls the air asleep;
The very buzz of flies is heard no more,
Nor faintest wrinkles o'er the waters creep.
Like one large sheet of glass the waters shine,
Reflecting on their face the burnt sunbeam:
The very fish their sporting play decline,
Seeking the willow-shadows 'side the stream.
And, where the hawthorn branches o'er the pool,
The little bird, forsaking song and nest,
Flutters on dripping twigs his limbs to cool,
And splashes in the stream his burning breast.
O, free from thunder, for a sudden shower,
To cherish nature in this noon-day hour!

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky--blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, though the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, though pelted by the pas...