The skylark

The stranger striding down the paths of spring

Will turn half round a stooping man to see

& wonder why a man so old should sing

Humming along as bums the bumble-bee

For though so old a merry man is he

& where he goes right merry is the way

You hear him ere you see him down the grain

As sings the skylark at the peep of day

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

The dark oak

Where the clear stream by the wild bank is wirling

& the green awthorn bush shades the spring head

Where the glass wave oer the smooth stone is curling

Feeding the moss bank that warms the hares bed

There let me lie & the daisey notts cover me

While the grass tuft shields the nest of the lark

& the dark oak its brown branches hangs over me

Let this inscription be carvd on its bark

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Choisest authors

Hung round with little pictures it should be

For these are trifles which I love to see

Near the fireside close fitted in the wall

I'de have a nice made cubboard not too small

Each shelf in breadth so uniformly pland

That books in eightvo size or more might stand

For this one use Id have the cubboard made

Where none but choisest authors should be laid

Such as Dermody Scott Macniel & Burn

With rural Bloomfield Templeman & Hurn

These are the authors that can boast the power

Of giving raptures in a leisure hour

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Image?  Part of my John Clare library

A crow fly

How peaceable it seems for lonely men
To see a crow fly in the thin blue sky
Over the woods and fealds, o'er level fen
It speaks of villages, or cottage nigh
Behind the neighbouring woods -- when March winds high
Tear off the branches of the huge old oak
I love to see these chimney sweeps sail by
And hear them o'er gnarled forest croak
Then sosh askew from the hid woodman's stroke

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Schoolboys

The schoolboys still their morning ramble take 
To neighboring village school with playing speed
Loitering with passtimes leisure till they quake
Oft looking up the wild geese droves to heed
Watching the letters which their journeys make
Or plucking haws on which their fieldfares feed

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Gentle breathing Spring

Welcome gentle breathing Spring
Now the birds are heard to sing
And the budding tree is seen
Putting forth her tender green
O delightful season hail
May my footsteps never fail
When time permits to visit thee
And view thy new born scenery

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

All are devoured

Where grass at stand still all the year is found

Winter & summer scarce above the ground

Where Rushes (usless in most places seen)

Are all devoured (hungers bites so keen)

Where spite of all the spears their leaves contain

Sharp prickly thistles strive to rise in vain

There with a motley drove of sheep & cows

(That on the green all summer daily brouze)

.

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

from ‘The Stranger’

His presence was a peace to all,
He bade the sorrowful rejoice.
Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
Health lived and issued from his voice.
He healed the sick and sent abroad
The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.

The blind met daylight in his eye,
The joys of everlasting day;
The sick found health in his reply;
The cripple threw his crutch away.
Yet he with troubles did remain
And suffered poverty and pain.

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

To the snipe

Thriving on seams

That tiny islands swell

Just hilling from the mud and rancid streams

Suiting thy nature well

For here thy bill

Suited by wisdom good

Of rude unseemly length doth delve & drill

The jellied mass for food

& here mayhap

When summer suns have drest

The moors rude desolate & spongy lap

May hide thy mystic nest

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

An ashen stoven

How sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs

Upon an ashen stoven pillowing me

Faintly are heard the ploughmen at their ploughs

But near an eye can find its way to see

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

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Winter’s rage

Torn by his rage in ruins as you are
To me more pleasing then a summers morn
Your shatterd scenes appear—despoild & bare
Stript of your clothing naked & forlorn
—Yes Winters havoc wretched as you shine
Dismal to others as your fate may seem
Your fate is pleasing to this heart of mine
Your wildest horrors I the most esteem

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Image by my friend #RachelBurch

The snowdrop

The snowdrops in the orchard grass

As white as clumps of snow

Drooping—tell thee lovely lass

That winters strife must go

With all his snow storms drifting deep

No longer to trepan

The snowdrop wakes the hive bees sleep

& I love Mary Ann

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Bluebells

Bluebells how beautifull & bright they look

Bowed oer green moss & pearled in morning dew

Shedding a shower of pearls as soon as shook

In every wood hedgegap theyre shineing through

Smelling of spring & beautifully blue

Childhood & Spring how beautifully dwells

Their memories in the woods we now walk through

O balmy days of spring in white thorn dells

How beautifull are woods & their bluebells

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Mistress shrew

‘Go wipe your shoes’ says mistress shrew
To Hodge who up for's dinner drew
‘'Tis'n't fitting that such hogs as you
‘Shou'd come into a house’
‘Why not’ says hodge—‘if thats the case
‘I cant come in a better place
‘For surely there is no disgrace
‘For hogs to herd wi' Sows’

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Startled from slumber

The woods how gloomy in a winters morn

The crows & ravens even cease to croak
The little birds sit chittering on the thorn
The pies scarce chatter when they leave the oak
Startled from slumber by the woodmans stroke
The milk maids song is drownd in gloomy care
& while the village chimneys curl their smoke
She milks & blows & hastens to be there
& nature all seems sad & dying in despair

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Stand & show

Go vile hypocrisy with subtle tongue  

& smooth spruce visage that can hide a lie  

In fairest speech & meditate a wrong  

Under prayers masking—put that covering bye  

That hid thy speckled snakes thy whole life long  

Here truth reigns absolute—nay pass not bye  

That mask must off—& thy deformity  

In nakedness of deeds must stand & show  

The hypocrite that seemed a saint below 

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Sadder than tears

Flowers shall hang upon the pawls
Brighter than patterns upon shawls
& blossoms shall be in the coffin lids
Sadder than tears on griefs eyelids
Garlands shall hide pale corps 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

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Wealthy thieves

But tis well known that justice winks at crimes

A saying thats in season at all times

Or why should the poor sinning starving clown

Meet jail & hanging for a stolen crown

While wealthy thieves with knaverys bribes endued

Plunder their millions & are not pursued

Nay at the foot of Tyburns noted tree

They do deserving deeds & still go free

Where others suffer for some pigmy cause

They all but murder & escape the laws

Skulking awhile in briberys dirty den

Then start new gilt & pass as honest men

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Ribbons gay

& when its past a merry crew
Bedeckt in masks and ribbons gay
The 'Morrice danse' their sports renew
& act their winter evening play
The clown-turnd-kings for penny praise
Storm wi the actors strut and swell
&  harlequin a laugh to raise
Wears his hump back and tinkling bell

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

White necks peering

The larks like thunder rise & suther round

Then drop & nestle in the stubble ground

The wild swan hurries high & noises loud

With white necks peering to the evening cloud

The weary rooks to distant woods are gone

With length of tail the magpie winnows on

To neighbouring tree & leaves the distant crow

While small birds nestle in the hedge below

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Heavy winged kite

While the hazel-bush sheltered my seat from a storm

& there came the linnet with wool in its bill

To build its new nest in the hedge or the thorn

& there I could see the black sails of the mill

& the spire in the gray sleeping light of the morn

& there came the heavy-wingd kite oer the lea

& the old hens they calld for their chickens aloud

& there the black crow came & perchd on the tree

& the lark hid itself in the black bosomd cloud

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Little selfsown flowers

Ere yet the year is one month old

In spite of frost & wind & snow
Bare-bosomed to the quaking cold
Springs little selfsown flowers will blow

& ever kin to early hours
Peep aconites in cups of gold
With frilled leaves muffled round their flowers
Like tender maidens shunning cold

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Welcome pale primrose

Welcome pale primrose starting up between
Dead matted leaves of oak & ash that strew
The every lawn the wood & spinney through
Mid creeping moss & ivys darker green
How much thy presence beautifies the ground
How sweet thy modest unaffected pride
Glows on the sunny bank & wood's warm side

 

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Tis spring

Tis Spring my love 'tis Spring
& the birds begin to sing
If 'twas Winter left alone with you
Your bonny form & face
Would make a Summer place

& be the finest flower that ever grew.

Tis Spring my love 'tis Spring

& the hazel catkins hing
While the snowdrop has its little blebs of dew
But thats not so white within
As your bosoms  hidden skin--
That sweetest of all flowers that ever grew

 

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Accursed Wealth

Clare’s famous words, expunged from his first published book when his rich supporters realised what they meant.  But, still true today.

Now all laid waste by Desolations hand

Whose cursed weapons level half the land

O who could see my dear green willows fall

What feeling heart but dropt a tear for all

Accursed Wealth oer-bounding human laws

Of every evil thou remainst the cause

Victims of want those wretches such as me

Too truly lay their wretchedness to thee

Thou art the bar that keeps from being fed

& thine our loss of labour & of bread

Thou art the cause that levels every tree

& woods bow down to clear a way for thee

 

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Fame

I would not wish the burning blaze
Of fame around a restless world
The thunder & the storm of praise
In crowded tumults heard & hurled.
I would not be a flower to stand
The stare of every passer-bye
But in some nook of fairyland
Seen in the praise of beautys eye 

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Warm gorse blossoms

The sharp wind shivers in the warm gorse blossoms

& trembles in the dead grass oer the heath
The silver rain pearls in the wild flowers bosoms
& moistens minute flowers of moss beneath
There i' the morning dew I early ramble
What time beneath the fern the weary moth
Hides from the sun in dew drops hangs the bramble
As down the rabbit track I venture forth

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Sheltering tree

Though snow-storms clothe the mossy wall

& hourly whiten oer the lea

Yet when from clouds the sun is free

& warms the learning bird to sing

Neath sloping bank & sheltering tree

Tis sweet to watch the creeping spring

Though still so early one may spy

& track her footsteps every hour

The daisy with its golden eye

& primrose bursting into flower

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment