Thou art towering

Huge elm with rifted trunk all notched & scarred 

Like to a warrior's destiny I love

To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward

Or on thy buttressed roots to sit & lean

In  careless attitude & there reflect

On  times & deeds & darings that have been

Old castaways now swallowed in neglect

While thou art towering in thy strength of heart

Stirring the soul to vain imaginings

In which lifes sordid being hath no part

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The young horse

The gladdend swine bolt from the sty

& round the yard in freedom run

Or stretching in their slumbers lie

Beside the cottage in the sun

The young horse whinnies to his mate

& sickening from the threshers door

Rubs at the straw-yards banded gate

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The blackbird in the wood

How many times Spring blossoms meek
Have faded on the land
Since last I kissed that pretty cheek
Caressed that happy hand
Eight time the green's been painted white
With daisies in the grass
Since I looked on thy eyes so bright
& pressed my bonny lass

The ground lark sung about the farms
The blackbird in the wood
When fast locked in each other's arms
By hedgerow thorn we stood
It was a pleasant Sabbath day
The sun shone bright and round
His light through dark oaks passed & lay
Like gold upon the ground

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Autums weary journey

Emigrating swallows now
Sweep no more the green hills brow
Nor in circuits round the spring
Skim & dip their sutty wing
& no more their chimny nigh
Twitter round to catch their flye
But with more majestic rise
Practising their exercise
& their young brood to pursue
Autums weary journy through

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The thistldown’s flying

The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still, 
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, 
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot; 
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot. 

The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread, 
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.  
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed, 
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed. 

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In bracken glen

Bard of the wild flowers

Rain washed & wind shaken

Dear to thee was mild showers

& heaths o' green bracan

The song o' the wild bird

Than nothing seemed dearer

The low o' the mild herd

& sheep bleating nearer

Bard o' the sheep pen

The stack yard & stable

The hovel in bracken glen

Where a stone makes a table

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Heavens archway

The lightenings vivid flashes—rend the cloud

That rides like castled crags along the sky

& splinters them to fragments—while aloud

The thunders heavens artillery vollies bye

Trees crash, earth trembles—beast prepare to flye

Almighty what a crash—yet man is free

& walks unhurt while danger seems so nigh— 

Heavens archway now the rainbow seems to be

That spans the eternal round of earth & sky & sea

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Universal ecstasy

Go where I will, naught but delight is seen;
The blue and luscious sky is one broad gleam
Of universal ecstasy; the green,
Rich, sweeping meadows and the laughing stream,
As sweet as happiness on heaven's breast,
Lie listening to the never-ceasing song
That day or night ne'er wearies into rest
But hums unceasingly the summer long.

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A storm encroaches

At distance from the waters edge
On hanging thorn boughs farthest stretch
The more hen 'gins her nest of sedge
Safe from destroying boys to reach
Fen sparrows chirp & flye to fetch
The witherd reed down rustling nigh
& by the sunny side the ditch
Prepare their dwelling warm & dry
Again a storm encroaches round
Thick clouds are dark'ning deep behind
& thro the arches hoarsley sound
The risings of the hollow wind

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Cupids adorning

Her hair bound in tortoise or else loosley flowing

(Lo each is a beautiful show)
More blacker than jet the fine ringlets seem glowing
Nay they rival the Micaelmas sloe.
Her face cloth'd in blushes like the east in a morning
Sheds a lustre so healthful and gay
And O! her sweet neck is with Cupids adorning
More whiter than blossoms of May

 

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Bubbles of the brook

Now as even's warning bell 

Rings the day's departing knell

Leaving me from labour free

Solitude, I'll walk with thee

Whether 'side the woods we rove

Or sweep beneath the willow grove

Whether sauntering we proceed 

Cross the green, or down the mead

Whether, sitting down, we look 

On the bubbles of the brook

 

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Full of health & toil

The autumn morn looks mellow as the fruit
& ripe as harvest—every field & farm
Is full of health & toil—yet never mute
With rustic mirth & peace the day is warm
The village maid with gleans upon her arm
Brown as the hazel nut from field to field
Goes cheerily—the valleys native charm—
I seek for charms that autumn best can yield
In mellowing wood & time bleaching field

 

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Yellow leaves fall

The dark days of Autumn grows cloudy and rainy
The sun pales like sulphur the shadows grow long
To me the dull season the sweetest of any
I love to see yellow leaves fall in my song
The rush covered green and thistle capped mountain
The dead leaves a falling and winds singing round
The willow and ash leaves they choak up the fountain
There's health i' the strife o't and joy i' the sound

 

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Zig zag lane

O now the crimson east its fire streak burning

Tempts me to wander neath the blushing morn 

Winding the zig zag lane turning & turning 

As winds the crooked fences wilderd thorn 

O wheres the eye can gaze upon the dawn  

That flushes yon blue sky of cloudless heaven 

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Image: My Chapbook No.7 ‘Walking with John Clare’

A silver streak

Where winding gash wirls round its wildest scene

On this romantic bend I sit me down

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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Intruding cow

The steeple perking just above the trees

Whose dangling leaves keep rustling in the breeze
And thoughtful shepherd bending o'er his hook
And maidens stript haymaking too appear
And Hodge a-whistling at his fallow plough
And herdsman hallooing to intruding cow
All these with hundreds more far off and near
Approach my sight and please to such excess
That language fails the pleasure to express

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The autumn tans

Crimson & yellow bloch'd with Iron Brown

The Autumn tans and varigates the leaves
The nuts are ripe in woods about the Town
Russet the cleared fields where the bindweed weaves
Round stubbles and still flowers the trefoil seeds
And troubles all the land from rig to furrow
Ther's nothing left but rubbish and foul weeds
I love to see the rabbits snug made burrow
Under the old edge bank or hugh mossed oak
Claspt fast with Ivy there the rabbit breeds
Where the Kite pelews and the Ravens croak
And hares and Rabbits at their leisure feed

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Across the river

Across the river winds along.

In coat of orange, green, and blue
Now on a willow branch I view,
Grey waving to the sunny gleam,
Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
For little fish that nimble bye
And in the gravel shallows lie.

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Patty

O once I had a true love

As blest as I could be
Patty was my turtle dove
& Patty she loved me
We walked the fields together
By roses & woodbine
In Summers sunshine weather
& Patty she was mine

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My latest Chapbook published today

The drowking flower

& upon the dripping ground

As the shower had ceasd again
As the eye was wandering round
Trifling troubles causd a pain
Overtaken in the shower
Bumble-bees I wanderd by
Clinging to The drowking flower
Left without the power to fly

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd