Summers prime


I cant contain myself in summers prime 
Tuneless I hum my wonder songs into rhyme 
Mere scraps of what I think or feel or see 
Whil[e] sauntering narrow lanes – they are to me 
A heritage of happiness & yields 
Peace & calm joy from the refreshing fields
(Fragment)

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Reflective joy


Winter wrapt in her dismal forms
Cannot their happiness annoy
Cold days black nights & snowy storms
Inspire them with reflective joy
Old dob when sitting by the fire
Will often bid old judie ‘hark
‘I fear the wind is rising higher
‘And o the night is dismal dark’

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Delight my heart


The gatherers seeking entrance pause awhile
Ere they mount up the bank to climb the stile
Half wishing that a better road was nigh
Yet here mid [moss] strewn mornings autumn mild
While pleasing sounds & pleasing sights are bye
Things beautiful delight my heart to smile
Here underneath the stiles moss covered post
A little bunch of fern doth thrive & spring
Hid from the noisey wind & coming frost
Like late reared young neath the wood piegons wing

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Tedded grass or kine


As one who long in populous city pent
Wanders the summers breezes to inhale
Among the pleasant farms & dew plash'd bents
I wander through the winding vale
How sweet the smell of grain of tedded grass or kine
How sweet the days o summer in his prime
How sweet the hayfields with the shocks all clear
Soft as a feather bed to sit or lie
& short and green as bowling greens appear
While all above the beautiful clear sky

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

All now is stript


White thorn wild cherry & 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
& yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue
The winter chill on his cold bed receives
Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Long leaved mistletoe


Amidst the wreck of perishable leaves
How box or holly garden walks relieves
How fresh & fine appears the evergreen
How bright the ivy round the oak is seen
& on old thorns the long leaved mistletoe
While dark spurge laurel on the banks below

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Cottage made snug


My wish nows to sit in a cottage made snug
By a fire burning roozy and bright
With a Friend to make shorter short days by a Jug
And some Books for amusement at night
And could I enjoy such a peaceable lot
I'd ne'er cast on Fortune a frown
Nor would I possesing my Friend, Books, and Cott
Exchange 'em away for a — Crown!

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

He painted in his words


Here is the scenes the rural poet made
So famous in his songs—the very scenes
He painted in his words that warm & shade
In winters wild waste & springs young vivid greens
Alcove & shrubbery—& the tree that leans
The peasants nest & fields of blossomed beans

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The pale sun


Shadows fall dark
Like black in the pale Sun
& lye the bleak day long
Like black stock under hedges
& bare wind rocked trees
Tis chill but pleasant
In the hedge bottom lined
With brown seer leaves — the last
Year littered there & left 
Mopes the hedge Sparrow

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

A wishing eye


The clouds of purple & of crimson dye
Were huddled up together in a heap
& oer the scented wide worlds edge did lie
Resting as quiet as if lulled to sleep
I gazed upon them with a wishing eye
& longed but vainly for the painters power
To give existence to the mingling dye
& snatch a beauty from an evening hour

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Belovd by me


I 'gin to seek the[e] charming flower
Along each hedghrows mossy seat
Where dithering many a cold blee hour
Ive hugd my self in thy retreat
What makes me cherish such fond taste
What makes such raptures spring for thee
Is that thou lovst the dreary waste
Which is so well belovd by me

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #KathrynParsons

Startld hare


Till now the rolling seasons through
Scard Solitude now bids adieu

& from the thicket dark & deep

The fluttering pheasant scared from sleep

While nearly trampld on her lair

Bobbing jerks the startld hare

& the squirrels agilty 

Sputters up the timber tree

There in safty on the grain

Wipes his face & peeps again


Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Glad Christmass


Neighbours resume their anual cheer
Wishing wi smiles and spirits high
Glad christmass and a happy new year
To every morning passer bye
Milk maids their christmass journeys go
Accompanyd wi favourd swain
And childern pace the crumping snow
To taste their grannys cake again
Hung wi the ivys veining bough
The ash trees round the cottage farm
Are often stript of branches now
The cotters christmass hearth to warm

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Photo by my friend #RebeccaHawley

Grand sublimity


Who does not feel the grand sublimity
Of natures pictures touchd with endless skill
In endless changes that neer cease to be
Awakening wonder were we will page
The earths broad landscape varying every hour
In every beautious shape & varying on
In inscets of all hues & leaf & flower
Till fanceys power exaus'tless seems & done
& stretching plains & wood & wilderness
Were natures pencil spurns mans puney power
To imitate the grandeur they posses

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

A splendid show


Een winter deemed so desolate a waste
Hath crowds of beautys to the man of taste
& oft he walks about on quiet days
Full many things to notice & to praise
Where oer the snow clad fields the little feet
Of hares are printed that betray their seat
& woods so still he een may hear the sound
Of small wrens footsteps oer the heaving ground
While trees & branches make a splendid show
Of lights & shadows hung in wreaths of snow

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Buried & overcast


Tis winter & the fields are bare & waste

The air one mass of ‘vapour clouds & storms’
The suns broad beams are buried & oercast
& 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 & storms
Bare fields the frozen lake & leafless grove
Are natures grand religion & true love

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Fallow fields glitter


The fallow fields glitter 
          Like water indeed
& gossamers twitter 
          Flung from weed unto weed
Hill tops like hot iron 
          Glitter hot i' the sun
& the Rivers were eyeing 
          Burn to gold as they run
Burning hot is the ground 
          Liquid gold is the air
Who ever looks round 
          Sees Eternity there

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Colors newly proud


A rainbow paints yon deep blue cloud  
Arching its colors newly proud 
In glossy hues of watery green 
& red & orange hues between 
While oer it in a faded hue 
Its fainting shadow dims the blue 
That in a moments breath decays
& shrinks to nothing ere we gaze

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Comfort crowns the cottage


Each house is swept the day before

& windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is beesomd from the door
& comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi its thorny pricks
& yew & box wi berrys small
These deck the unusd candlesticks
& pictures hanging by the wall

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Slender shade is by


The osiers slender shade is by
& bushes thickly spread
Again the ground is firm & dry
Nor trembles 'neath the tread
On this side ash or oak embowers
There hawthorns humbler grow
With goatsbeard wreath & woodbine flowers
That shade a brook below

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Wan & pale


The sun shines wan & pale

Chill blows the northern gale
& odd leaves shake and quiver on the tree
While I am left alone
Chilled as a mossy stone
& all the world is frowning over me

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Golden gems


The river flooded to the brim
The yellow trees the uplands grey
That in the light of heaven swim
Like rocks and vallies far away
The east is hung with golden gems
In crimson red and saphire blue
In gold and crystal fringed hems
The spiders lace is hung with dew

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Withered in the sun


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, & yellow, russet black, & dun, 
White thorn, wild cherry, & the poplar bare, 
The sycamore all withered in the sun, 
No leaves are now upon the birch tree there.

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Sweet it is


Sweet it is to wind the rill
Sweet with thee to climb the hill
On whose lap the bullock free
Chews his cud most placidly
Or oer fallows bare and brown
Beaten sheep-tracks wander down
Where the mole unwearied still
Roots up many a crumbling hill
& the little chumbling mouse
Gnarls the dead weed for her house

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Clouds misted oer the hill


[So] full sweet it was to look
How clouds misted oer the hill
Rain drops how they dimpt the brook
Falling fast & faster still
While the gudgeons sturting bye
Cringd neath water grasses shade
Startling as each nimble eye
Saw the rings the dropples made
& upon the dripping ground
As the shower had ceasd again

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The work of Roman hands



These walls the work of Roman hands
How may conjecturing Fancy pore
As lonely here one calmly stands
On paths that age has trampled oer
The builders names are known no more
No spot on earth their memory bears
& crowds reflecting thus before
Have since found graves as dark as theirs

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

The figure in the 1820s print is John Clare

Leafless trees repose


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
& yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue
The winter chill on his cold bed receives
Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue
Naked & bare the leafless trees repose
Sluggish & dull the leaf strewn river flows

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment

Quiet many joys


It doth ones spirits good to go

Through beds of fern that fan below
The rustle that the branches make
While giving way to let me through,
The leaves that for a moment shake
As out a blackbird hasty flew—
Oh there is stillness in the noise
That brings to quiet many
joys

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment 

Image by my friend #AnnieLee

Down the lane


As the load joggd hom ward down the lane
When welcome night shut out the toiling day
His followings markt the simple hearted swain
Joying to listen on his homward way
As rests warm rapture rousd the rustics lay
The thread bare ballad from each quavering tongue
As ‘peggy bond’ or the ‘sweet month of may’
As how he joyd to hear each ‘good old song’
That on nights pausing ear did echo loud & strong

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment 

 

With admiring eyes


How oft he'll stoop inquisitive to trace
The opening beauties of a daiseys face
& often witness with admiring eyes 
The brooks sweet dimples oer the pebbles rise 
& often bent as oer some magic spell 
He’ll pause & [see] his shaped stone & shell
Raptures the while his inward powers inflame
& joys delight him which he cannot name

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment 

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Shoots streaking spars


There frost his quiet toil resumd 
Shoots streaking spars that wildly run
From weed to weed & shine illumnd
Like glittering stars before the sun
Were as one steps its oaken plank 
The hollow frozen sounding noise 
From flags & sedge beside the bank
The wild ducks brooding peace destroys

Follow me for daily #JohnClare postings. 
#photography #poetry #environment 

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott