Playfull mirth

Feel warm hopes glow with earnest eagerness

To mark the signs that promise us success

As gleaming suns that twitter while they gleam
& dance their blazing shadows in the stream
Were small black moths dip light their fluttering wings
& heedless fishes leap in bouncing springs
Curving the flood tho winds withold their breath
In ceasless eddies with their playfull mirth

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Lovely and red

To see the sun rise thro the skirts of the wood
In his mantle so lovley and red
It cheers up my spirits and does me much good
As thro the cold stubbles I tred.
Tho not that his beams more advances the scene
Or adds to the Landscape a charm
But all that delights me by him may be seen
That the ensuing hours will be warm.

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The winter time is over love

The winter time is over love
White thorns begin to bud
& brown & green of freshness love
Enlivens all the wood
Theres 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

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Early rising

Aside the green hills steepy brow

Where shades the oak its darksome bough

The maiden sat to milk her cow

The cause of early rising

The wild rose mingling with the shade

Stung with envy clos'd to fade

To see the rose her cheeks display'd

The fruits of early rising

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In telling way

& O how quiet sundays past away

When by that little gravel brook we lay

Where milking maidens on its shelving brink

Feared soiling clothes by kneeling down to drink

I sipt from out their hands in telling way

& seemed to make it more sense to stay

O how I long to see that pleasant place

& meet the welcome of each pleasant face

(fragment, from ‘The Wish’)

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The pasture pathway

Where youth has rovd & still where memory roves

The pasture pathway neath its willow groves

Ah as my eye looks oer these lovly scenes

All the delights of former life beholding

Spite of the pain the care that intervenes

When lovd remembrance is her bliss unfolding

Picking her childish posies on your greens

My soul can peer oer its distress awhile

& sorrows cheek find leisure for a smile

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I love thee

I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens? There lives happiness for me!

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Claumpt over the moor

Ere the church bell i the morn had tung four

Fudging old Jemmy claumpt over the moor
He cockt up his beaver & nockt at the door
& up wi ye Jenney bawls he
Deuce take him god knows I een wisht him neck braken
But mizerdly dad & old mam was awaken
Who telld me take chance when it is to be taken
So jemmys fair drudge I mun be

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Grazeing Cattle

The Paigles Bloom In Shower's In Grassy Close

How Sweet To Be Among Their Blossoms Led
& Hear Sweet Nature To Herself Discourse
While Pale The Moon Is Bering Over Head

& Hear The Grazeing Cattle Softly Tread

Cropping The Hedgerows Newly Leafing Thorn
Sounds Soft As Visions Murmured Oer In Bed
At Dusky Eve Or Sober Silent Morn
For Such Delights Twere Happy Man Was Born

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Sweeping oer the land

Red lightning shot its flashes as they came 

& passing clouds seemed kindling into flame 

& strong & stronger came the sulphury smell 

With demons following in the breath of hell 

Laughing in mockery as the doomed complained 

Losing their pains in seeing others pained 

Fierce raged destruction sweeping oer the land 

& the last counted moment seemed at hand

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Green lanes that shut out burning skies

Of happiness & thoughts arise 

With home bred pictures many a one 

Green lanes that shut out burning skies 

& old crookd stiles to rest upon 

Above them hangs the maple tree 

Below grass swells a velvet hill 

& little footpaths sweet to see 

Go seeking sweeter places still

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Bawl freedom

Thoust heard the knave abusing those in power 

Bawl freedom loud & then opress the free

Thoust sheltered hypocrites in many a shower 

That when in power would never shelter thee

Thoust heard the knave supply his canting powers 

With wrongs illusions when he wanted friends 

That bawled for shelter when he lived in showers 

& when clouds vanished made thy shade amends

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Shadows dancing

The sun beams scarce molest me wi a smile 

So thick the leafy armies gather round 

& where they do the breeze blows cool the while 

Their leafy shadows dancing on the ground 

—Full many a flower too wishing to be seen 

Perks up its head the hiding grass between— 

In midwood silence thus how sweet to be 

Where all the noises that on peace intrude 

Comes from the chittering cricket bird & bee 

Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude

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Home

So when the Traveller uncertain roams
On lost roads leading every where but home
Each vain desire that leaves his heart in pain
Each fruitless hope to cherish it in vain
Each hated track so slowly left behind
Makes for the home which night denies to find
& every wish that leaves the aching breast
Flies to the spot where all its wishes rest

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Lane path

O simple nature how I do delight

To pause upon thy trifles—foolish things

So some woud call em—on the summer night

Tracing the lane path where the dog rose hings

Wi dew drops seathd while chickering cricket sings

My eye cant help but glance upon its leaves

Where loves warm beauty steals her sweetest blush

When sweet the while the even silence heaves

Her pausing breath just trembling thro the bush

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Mossy ground

The hedgerow bank where oft in searching ken

We both have crawl'd along the mossy ground

To hunt the snailhorn in his secret den

The thymy seated hill the hoof plod ground

Whose batterd surface ownd the marble ring

The straggling bush where many a nest was found

The shelterd hovel & the bathing spring

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Fetch the horses

& first of all a jobs laid out for Hodge

Boy fetch the horses but before yah go

Make haste I charge yah—now tis fine yah know

Them shocks want carreying—& that tedded hay

Some how or other must be made to day

Then boy make hast & let us see from this

How fast yah can go’ Hodge he answer'd ‘Yes’

But wisper'd to him self contrary

Not a Mite faster then I us'd to go

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Rivers wider floods

The landscapes stretching view that opens wide 

With dribbling brooks & rivers wider floods 

& hills & vales & darksome lowering woods 

With grains of varied hues & grasses pied 

The low brown cottage in the shelterd nook 

The steeple sprouting just above the trees 

Whose dangling leaves keep rustling in the breeze

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The oaks & open sky

Thro flowers & grass & many crippled brake 

Then garden clumps as nature wills to make 

Where oft he stands & pauses & admires 

& feels that happiness that never tires 

Now marking little tiny creeping things 

Creep on the leaves & then the coloured wings 

Of startled moth & eager butter flye 

That puzzled in the leaves & by & bye 

Mounts in the oaks & then the open sky

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Wizzing over head

The stirt'ling pewets as they pass


Scream joyous wizzing over head


Right glad the fields & meadow grass


Will quickly hide their carless shed


The rooks were yonder witchens spread


Quawk clamourous to the springs approach


Here silent from its watery bed


To hail its coming leaps the roach


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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Quiet hanging blooms

Ive left my own old home of homes
Green fields & every pleasant place
The summer like a stranger comes
I pause & hardly know her face
I miss the hazels happy green
The bluebells quiet hanging blooms
Where envys sneer was never seen
Where staring malice never comes

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Their greenery

A little lane the brook runs close beside
& spangles in the sunshine while the fish glide swiftly by
& hedges leafing with the green spring tide
From out their greenery the old birds fly
& chirp & whistle in the morning sun
The pilewort glitters neath the pale blue sky
The little robin has its nest begun
& grass green linnets round the bushes fly

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While cows

Dames from milking trotting home

Said no sign was half so bad

& shakd their heads at ills to come

While cows restless from the ground

Plungd into the stream & drank

& the rings went wirling round

Till they toucht the flaggy bank

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A secret shade

Hot was the noon in summers sultry hour

The sun then raging with meridian power

When I more burning with the scorching heat

Of hot desire - lay hid in close retreat

Beneath the covert of a secret shade

Flush'd "with expectance of the lovley maid"

Sweet was the spot no one throughout the grove

Was better suited to the sports of Love

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Balm & Breezes

Now Come The Balm & Breezes Of The Spring

Not With The Pleasure's Of My Early Day's
When Nature Seemed One Endless Song To Sing
A Joyous Melody & Happy Praise
Ah Would They Come Agen—But Life Betrays
Quicksands & Gulphs & Storms That Howl & Sting
All Quiet Into Madness & Delays
Care Hides The Sunshine With Its Raven Wing
& Hell Glooms Sadness Oer The Songs Of Spring

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Like stars

Sweet solitude, what joy to be alone--
In wild, wood-shady dell to stay for hours.
Twould soften hearts if they were hard as stone
To see glad butterflies and smiling flowers.
Tis pleasant in these quiet lonely places,
Where not the voice of man our pleasure mars,
To see the little bees with coal black faces
Gathering sweets from little flowers like stars

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Shining eggs

How true she warped the moss, to form a nest
And modelled it within with wood and clay
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers
Ink-spotted-over shells of greeny blue
And there I witnessed in the sunny hours
A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly
Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky

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Merry Moods

The frog half fearful jumps across the path
& little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive
Till past & then the cricket sings more strong
& grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare

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Gilt wi dew

Thines the dandelion-flowers
Gilt wi dew like suns wi showers
Hare bells thine & bugles blue
& cuckoo flowers all sweet to view
Thy wild woad on each road we see
& medicinal betony
By thy wood side railing reeves
Wi antique mullins flannel leaves
These tho mean the flowers of wastes
Planted here in natures haste

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The wild journey

He hears the wild geese gabble oer his head

& pleasd wi fancys in his musings bred

He marks the figurd forms in which they flye

& pausing follows wi a wondering eye

Likening their curious march in curves or rows

To every letter which his memory knows

While far above the solitary crane

Swings lonly to unfrozen dykes again

Cranking a jarring mellancholy cry

Thro the wild journey of the cheerless sky

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Wildest dress

Spirit of the woods awake

In thy wildest dress appear
Trace with me the curdled brake
Sound thy wildness in my ear
Genius of the woods that dwells
Sweeping boughs & grains among
As I climb thy rough rude dells
Breath thy roughness in my song

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The book I love

A photo I took in the archive in November 2012... and this of another unpublished Clare manuscript.  It is an honour to be able to go and study these texts -- and seek to decipher Clare's handwriting!

The book I love is everywhere,
And every place the same;
God bade me make my dwelling there,
And look for better fame.
I never feared the critic's pen,
To live by my renown;
I found the poems in the fields,
And only wrote them down.

(from "Sighing for Retirement)
(lines 9 to 16)

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Smoothing green

On that side view the meads their smoothing green
Edg'd with the peeping hamlets checkering brown
Here the steep hill as dripping headlong down
While glides the stream a silver streak between
As glides the shaded clouds along the sky
Brightning & deep'ning loosing as they're seen

In light & shade—so when old willows lean
Thus their broad shadow—runs the river bye
With tree & bush repleat a wilderd scene
& mossd & Ivyd sparkling on my eye—
O thus wild musing am I doubly blest
My woes unheeding—& my heart at rest

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Image by my gifted friend #CarryAkroyd