The sun unveils his smiles

Soon as the twilight through the distant mist
In silver hemmings skirts the purple east
Ere yet the sun unveils his smiles to view
& dries the mornings chilly robes of dew
Young Hodge the horse-boy with a soodly gait
Slow climbs the stile or opes the creaky gate
With willow switch & halter by his side
Prepared for Dobbin whom he means to ride
The only tune he knows still whistling oer
& humming scraps his father sung before
As "Wantley Dragon” & the "Magic Rose”
The whole of music that his village knows
Which wild remembrance in each little town
From mouth to mouth through ages handles down

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May

Come Queen of months in company

Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedgerow crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise

The first 12 lines from ‘May’ from ‘The Shepherd’s Calendar’.

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The bluebell

I pluck Summer blossoms

& think of rich bosoms
The bosoms Ive leaned on & worshipped & won
The rich valley lilies
The wood daffodillies
Have been found in our rambles when Summer begun

Where I plucked thee the bluebell
'Twas where the night dew fell
& rested till morn in the cups of the flowers
I shook the sweet posies
Bluebells & brere roses
As we sat in cool shade in Summers warm hours

Bedlam-cowslips & cuckoos
With freckd lip & hooked nose
Growing safe near the hazel of thicket & woods
& water blobs ladies smocks
Blooming where haycocks
May be found in the meadows low places & floods

& cowslips a fair band
For May ball or garland
That bloom in the meadows as seen by the eye
& pink ragged robin
Where the fish they are bobbing
Their heads above water to catch at the fly

Wild flowers & wild roses
'Tis love makes the posies
To paint Summer ballads of meadow & glen
Floods cant drown it nor turn it
Even flames cannot burn it
Let it bloom till we walk the green meadows again

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Black grows the southern sky

Black grows the southern sky betokening rain

& humming hive bees homeward hurry bye

They feel the change so let us shun the grain

& take the broad road while our feet are dry

Ay there some dropples moistened on my face

& pattered on my hat tis coming nigh

Let's look about & find a sheltering place

The little things around like you and I

Are hurrying through the grass to shun the shower

Here stoops an ash-tree hark the wind gets high

But never mind this ivy for an hour

Rain as it may will keep us dryly here

That little wren knows well his sheltering bower

Nor leaves his dry house though we come so near

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A dark extract from ‘Child Harold’

My life hath been one love—no blot it out

My life hath been one chain of contradictions


Madhouses Prisons wh---re shops—never doubt


But that my life hath had some strong convictions

That such was wrong—religion makes restrictions

I would have followed—but life turned a bubble


& clumb the jiant stile of maledictions


They took me from my wife & to save trouble


I wed again & made the error double


Yet abscence claims them both & keeps them too

& locks me in a shop in spite of law


Among a low lived set & dirty crew


Here let the Muse oblivions curtain draw


& let man think—for God hath often saw


Things here too dirty for the light of day


For in a madhouse there exists no law—


Now stagnant grows my too refined clay
I envy birds their wings to flue away

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Backed deceptions wrong

A ‘political’ poem I discovered in the Peterborough Archive a few years ago.  As far as I know entirely previously unknown, but WHAT a message, not only for his own time, but for our times too.   How familiar it is.

They give me eight pence by the day

& make it up at night

With six pence worth of parish pay

& can ye call it right

Im going to justice just to see

What she will have to say

& faith I doubt I shall not see

Yer honour there today

No friend I am a faithful mate

To justice but ye mean

What may be named a magistrate

& there Im never seen

Nay they have stopt me when Ive gone

To take that weight away

& backed deceptions wrong        
To take your gains away

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Woodlands gentle ride

Berrys freed from rhyme awhile 
Shines red on hedgrow twigs again 
One may a midday hour beguile 
To walk in shielding wood & plain 
To track some woodlands gentle ride 
Where hanging branches lend a screen 
Or banks slopd down on either side 
Were sheltering vallys creep between 
As down such hollows one proceeds 
We instant feel a warmer day 
While mong each bank tops rustling weeds 
Winds noise their unfelt rage away

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