Flies in the window

Some of John Clare’s prose on flies.

"These little window dwellers in cottages and halls were always entertaining to me     after dancing in the window all day from sunrise to sunset they would sip of the tea     drink of the beer & eat of the sugar & be welcome all summer long     They look like things of mind or fairies & seem pleased or dull as the weather permits     In many clean cottages & genteel houses they are allowed every liberty to creep fly or do as they like & seldom or ever do wrong     In fact they are the small or dwarfish portion of our own family & so many fairy familiars that we know & treat as one of ourselves”

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Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers go in many a thumming spring
& now to stalks of tasseled sow-grass cling
That shakes & swees awhile but still keeps straight
While arching oxeye doubles with his weight
Next on the cat tail grass with farther bound
He springs that bends until they touch the ground

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image by my friend Carry Akroyd

Fallen friends

I hate to see mans strength employ’d
To desolate the wood
To see a favourite tree destroy’d
That has for ages stood
To see the stript oak stretch’d its length
A mournful thought the scene attends
Those seem thats left still green in strength
To mourn their fallen friends

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Sophia

On the 24th July 1830 Sophia was born to Patty and John - the family then consisted then of 6 children, Anna (10), Eliza (8 ), Freddy (6) John (4), William (2), and baby Sophia. Grandfather Parker (70) and Ann (66) made up the crowded household of 10 all living in the tenement in Woodgate (a quarter of what is now called ‘Clare Cottage’). What a struggle it must have been, seeking to support such a family.

When with our little ones we spent

Each Sunday after tea,

& up the woods dark side we went

Or pastures rushy lea

To look among the woodland boughs

To find the birds retreat

Or crop the cowslip for the cows

Then sat to rest the little feet

In many a pleasant place

& see the lambs who tried to bleat

Come first in every race

Then laughd the childrens joys to view

Who ran across the lea

At birds that from the rushes flew

& many a wandering bee

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The daisy button

The daisy button tipped wi' dew 

     Green like the grass was sleeping
On every thing 'neath heaven blue 

     In moonlight dew was weeping
In dark wood sung the Nightingale 

     The moon shone round above me
My arms were clasped round Mary Gale 

     My dearest do you love me
Her head a woodbine wet wi' dew 

     Held in the moonlight sleeping
& two in one together grew 

     Wi' daisy buds a weeping
O' Mary Gale sweet Mary Gale 

     How round and bright above thee
The moon looks down on grassy vale 

     My dearest can you love me
How sweet the moonlight sleeps and still 

     Firdale & hedge row brere
The mole wharps mound & distant hill 

     Is moonlight every where

The totter grasses pendalums 

     Are still as night above me
The bees are gone and nothing hums 

     My dearest do you love me
The moonlight sleeps o'er wood & wall 

     Sweet Mary While you'r nigh me
Can any charm O' courtship fail 

     & any joy pass by me
The gossamer all wet wi' dew 

     Hung on the brere above me
She leaned her cheek & said ‘I do’ 

     & ever mean to love thee

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A green wood side

I wandered down a green wood side
On Sunday noon in spring
Where little birds their dwellings hide
& Thrushes sweetly sing
The moss so green round Hazel roots
The Primrose by its side
That in its brimstone livery shoots
In bunches far and wide

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My illness was love

I peeled bits o straws & I got switches too
From the grey peeling willow as idlers do
& I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
Till my flesh blood & marrow wasted to the dry bone

My illness was love though I knew not the smart
But the beauty o love was the blood o my heart

Willow switches I broke & I peeled bits o straws
Ever lonely in crowds in natures own laws

My ballroom the pasture my music the bees
My drink was the fountain my church the tall trees
Whoever would love or be tied to a wife
When it makes a man mad all the days of his life

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