Clare knew everything about rural early mornings. It is among the most frequent of his scenes, symbolic for him of the infancy of the universe and of man, freshened with dew, full of life and sweetness. He knew the dawn as the woodman, the milk-maid and the foddering boy knew it - with wet grass on his boots.
Health in these meadows must in summer dwell
& take her walks among these fields of corn
I cannot see her yet her voice is out
On every breeze that fans my hair about
Although the sun is scarcely out of bed
& leans on ground as half awake from sleep
The boy hath left his mossy-thatched shed
& bawls right lustily to cows and sheep
Climbs up to pluck them from their thorny bowers
Half drowned by dropples pattering on his head
From leaves bemoistened by nights secret showers