Summers in its glory now

Summer's in its glory now     Sweet the flower and green the bough

Dry is every swamp and slough     My own kind deary

Could I press thy bonny bosom     Swelling like a bursting blossom
Sweetly ripe as I suppose 'em     Then heaven would be near thee

Fair and buxsome bonny Lassie     Let us seek for places grassy
Where the brook it dimples glassy     There I'll love thee deary

On thy lilly bosom leaning     View thy eyes to guess their meaning
Kiss where not a look has been in     Thy lilly bosom deary

Clasp thee round thy gimpsy middle     Playing loves tunes without the fiddle
And loves secret joys unriddle     To kiss and cheer me

To throw my arms about thy shoulders     And in the band O' love enfold us
I' these green shades where none behold us     Where heaven would be near thee

Come my blyth and bonny deary     Let me clasp thee and lie near thee
And I of love shall ne'er be weary     To clasp my bonny deary

To kiss thy cheeks O' new blown roses     Thy breasts where hills O' alpine snow's is
As sweet as ever love supposes     To glad and cheer me

About thy bonny arms I'll clasp thee     And i' the vice o' fondness grasp thee
Till matrimony's charms shall hasp thee     And bind thee aye my deary

The Later Poems of John Clare,

ed. Eric Robinson and Geoffrey Summerfield

(Manchester University Press, 1964)