Fond desire

Now melancholly autumn comes anew
With showery clouds & fields of wheat tanned brown
Along the meadow banks I peace pursue
& see the wild flowers gleaming up & down
Like sun & light—the ragworts golden crown
Mirrors like sunshine when sunbeams retire
& silver yarrow—theres the little town
& oer the meadows gleams that slender spire
Reminding me of one—& waking fond desire

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

I saw a Bonny maid

From bank to bank the water roars - Like thunder in a storm
A Sea in sight of both the shores - Creating no alarm
The water birds above the flood - Fly o'er the foam and spray
And nature wears a gloomy hood - On this October day
And there I saw a bonny maid - That proved my hearts delight
All day she was a Goddess made - An angel fair at night
We loved and in each others power felt - Nothing to condemn
I was the leaf and she the flower - And both grew on one stem
I loved her lip her cheek her eye - She cheered my midnight gloom
A bonny rose neath Gods own sky - In one perrenial bloom
She lives mid pastures evergreen - And meadows ever fair
Each winter spring and summer scene - The sweetest woman there

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

Thy truth

I love thee nature in my inmost heart
Go where I will thy truth seems from above
Go where I will thy landscape forms a part
Of heaven—e'en these fens where wood nor grove
Are seen—their very nakedness I love
For one dwells nigh that secret hopes prefer
Above the race of women—like the dove
I mourn her abscence—fate that would deter
My hate for all things—strengthens love for her

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

Like 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

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

The evil air

The sleepy birds scared from their mossy nest

Beat through the evil air in vain for rest
& many a one the withering shades among
Wakened to perish oer its brooded young
The cattle startled with the sudden fright
Sickend from food & maddend into flight
& steed & beast in plunging speed pursued
The desperate struggle of the multitude
The faithful dogs yet knew their owners face
& cringing followd with a fearful pace
Joining the piteous yell with panting breath
While blasting lightnings followd fast with death
Then as Destruction stopt the vain retreat
They droppd & dying lickd their masters feet

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

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 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

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

No words dare tell

Along the road were coupld maid & swain
& dick from dolly now for gifts did sue
Hed gen her ribbons & he deemd again
Some kind return as nothing but his due
& he told things as ploughmen rarely knew
Bout breaking hearts & pains—a mighty spell
Her sunday clo'hs might damage wi the dew
She quite forgot them while he talkd so well
She gave the contest up at last to what no words dare tell

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty