Like an april storm

The cleanly maiden thro the village streets
In pattens clicks down causways never drye
While eaves above head drops—where oft she meets
The school boy leering on wi mischiefs eye
Trying to splash her as he hurrys bye
While swains afield returning to their ploughs
Their passing aid wi gentle speech apply
& much loves rapture thrills when she allows
Their help wi offerd hand to lead her oer the sloughs
The hedger soakd wi the dull weather chops
On at his toils which scarcly keeps him warm
& every stroke he takes large swarms of drops
Patter about him like an april storm

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Thy gentle stream

Upon thy winding side wild gwash I lie 

Viewing with curious eye the silver bream 

Taking vaunting springs to trap the thoughtless flye 

That heedless dances on thy gentle stream 

The black snail wakens from the swoons of day 

& from the boughs that nestle by thy side 

The light wing'd moths steal out again to play 

Crossing with hasty wing thy rippling tide

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Waters creep

& here the shepherd with his sheep
& with his lovley maid
Together where these waters creep
In loitering dalliance playd 

& here the Cow boy lovd to sit
& plate his rushy thongs
& dabble in the fancied pit
& chase the Minnow throwngs

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The Gwash

The bridge over the Gwash at Great Casterton

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

Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

*Gwash, where Clare met his wife-to-be Patty, “a fair girl of eighteen, slender, with regular features, and pretty blue eyes".  They were married in March 1820 in the church of St Peter and St Paul, Great Casterton, close by where the Gwash crosses under the Great North Road.  Patty was born in Tickencote, the nearby hamlet, the river Gwash virtually joins the two villages together.  How pleasant is must have been, walking together on the riverside path on a summer’s day.  Alas now ‘enclosed’ and thus ‘private’ land.

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By the river side

A ramble by the river side
No walk so sweet can be
To see the creeping waters glide
& hear the humble bee

Theres nothing else so fine to see
As a fast flowing river
Hemmd by green banks continually
& winding on for ever

There nature lives devoid of strife
There boats sail on the tide
Theres nought so sweet to me in life
As a walk by the rivers side

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from September

Old goody seeks her milking cloak
And hastens out to milk the cow
And fill the troughs to feed the sow
Or seeking old hens laid astray
Or from young chickens drives away
The circling kite that round them flyes
Waiting the chance to seize the prize
Hogs trye thro gates the street to gain
And steal into the fields of grain
From nights dull prison comes the duck
Waddling eager thro the muck
Squeezing thro the orchard pales
Where mornings bounty rarely fails
Eager gobbling as they pass
Dew worms thro the padded grass

A ruin of the past

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 & 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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