Living death

Abscence in love is worse than any fate
Summer is winters desert & the spring
Is like a ruined city desolate
Joy dies & hope retires on feeble wing
Nature sinks heedless birds unheeded sing.
‘Tis solitude in cities crowds all move
Like living death though all to life still cling
The strongest bitterest thing that life can prove
Is womans undisguise of hate & love

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Pearls by the morning

Though grass is green though flowers are gay
& everywhere they be
What are the leaves on branches hung 
Unto the withered tree
Lifes happiest gifts & what are they
Pearls by the morning strung
Which ere the noon are swept away 
Short as a cuckoos song
A nightingales the summer is
Can pleasure make us proud 
To think when swallows fly away 
They leave her in her shroud

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Image from my friend #JohnAbbott

Full & brimming

The floods come oer the meadow leas

The dykes are full & brimming
Field furrows reach the horses knees
Where wild ducks oft are swimming
The skies are black the fields are bare
The trees their coats are loosing
The leaves are dancing in the air
The sun its warmth refusing

Brown are the flags & fading sedge
& tanned the meadow plains
Bright yellow is the osier hedge
Beside the brimming drains
The crows sit on the willow tree
The lake is full below
But still the dullest thing I see
Is self that wanders slow

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Gold unto gold

The sun rises bright oer the oaks in the spinney
Bringing gold unto gold on the winbushes there
Blossoming bright as a new minted guinea
& moist wi' the mist of the morns dewy air
The flower is bowed down & I let the tired Bee be
All wet wi' night dew & unable to flye
Such a kindness in me would be pleasure to Phebe
A poor trampled Insect would cause her to sigh

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Silence sitteth now

Summers pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
& the cloudy days of autumn & of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart & eye & forever far away
Dear heart & can it be that such raptures meet decay
I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay
I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout & play
On its bank at "clink and bandy” "chock" & "taw" & "ducking stone”
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone

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Familiar fondness

In the same sence of her it may be said 
Whos guiding hand my infant foot-steps led 
To learning path that her impressing plan 
First laid the basis of the future man 
& by imbibing what she simply taught 
My taste for reading there was surely caught 
However if it was or not fullfild 
(In philosophic arguments not skilld)
Its naught to me her memory can impart 
Familiar fondness to a feeling heart

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Image from the amazing #LadyHarwarden collection from 1860 (colourised)

Flattery findeth friends

On National Poetry Day, a poem for our ‘leaders’ (everywhere) by the great John Clare, written in about 1827:

The flatterers meet with smiles
The cunning find their friends
Without I made my pilgrimage
& so met small amends
I looked on fame as merits plea
Twas spring but winter frowned on me

To cringe to menial slaves
To worship titled power
To bend the knee to knaves
The price of earthly dower
Is what I neer was taught to pay
So empty [that] Ive turned away

Where pleasing is to flatter
Where loving is to hate
To praise what we at heart abuse
In love & church & state
This is the worlds but not my game
So poor I am without the shame

Tho flattery findeth friends
In every grade & state
& telling truth offends
The lowly & the great
Truth when the worst is bye shall rise
When follys vapour stinks & flyes

Prides pomps are shadows all
& Titles honours toys
Great births in merits oft are small
& all their praise but noise
Rainbows upon the skyes of May
Fade soon but scarce so soon as they

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