My wild eye in rapture

Swamps of wild rush beds & sloughs squashy traces
Grounds of rough fallows wi thistle & weed
Flats & low vallies of king cups & daiseys
Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed

Ye commons left free in the rude rags of nature
Ye brown heaths be cloathed in furze as ye be
My wild eye in rapture adores e'ery feature
Yere as dear as this heart in my bosom to me

O native endearments I woud not forsake ye
I woud not forsake ye for sweetest of scenes
For sweetest of gardens that nature coud make me
I woud not forsake ye dear vallies & greens

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

Sweet solitude

Sweet solitude what joy to be alone

In wild wood shady dell to stay for hours
Twould soften hearts if they were hard as stone
To see glad Butterflies & smiling flowers
Tis pleasant in these quiet lonely places
Where not the voice of Man our pleasure mars
To see the little bees with coal black faces
Gath'ring sweets from little flowers like stars

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

Solitude

    O how sweet I cannot tell
    With thee at that hour to dwell
    Stretchd the mossy bank beside
    Lye to view the random tide
    Where no clowns has chopt from thence
    Bush nor stake to mend his fence

    Cornerd stones & pebbles round
    Breaking dasht wi mellow sound
    Wether this or that to see
    I am blest if Im wi thee
    & full dear has been the hour
    Spent wi in thy noon day bower
    Prest wi thee thy mossy seat
    O its unexpressive sweet

(Lines deleted from the published version by his publisher)

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

Fenny dells

Sweet solitude thou partner of my life 
Thou balm of hope & every pressing care 
Thou soothing silence oer the noise of strife 
These meadow flats & trees—the Autumn air 
Mellows my heart to harmony—I bear 
Lifes burthen happily—these fenny dells 
Seem Eden in this sabbath rest from care 
My heart with loves first early memory swells 
To hear the music of those village bells

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

King of the east

Aye now it delights ye to look at the sky
Those are hawks sailing proud as the clouds & as high
See there ones at rest hanging still even now
As fixed in the air as a bird on a bough
These are sweet sights in sooth but the milking maid sees
The sky every morning wear sweeter than these
When she hies to her cows while the sun large & round
Starts up like a table of fire from the ground
& she sees it so often she gives it no praise
Though some never saw it not once all their days
This morning I marked in what splendour he rose
Like a king of the east ere his journey he goes

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty

A farm house

On a heath stood a farm house as lone as coud be
Let em look where they woud nothing else coud they see
But here an odd furze bush & there an odd tree
            Green corn field & fallow land brown
More lonsomly too in a hollow it lay
The hermit like tennants no neighbours had they
To pop in & chat a few hours of the day
            Twas two mile or more from a town

Follow for daily #JohnClare postings

#poetry  #environment #truth #honesty