Sings in the air

Come maiden dear maiden a beautiful troop

Of images now the young morning doth wear

The lark leaves her nest & the dew splashes up

As she flies through the clover & sings in the air

The bushes that rustle & catch at thy gown

The trees that thy pathway envelopes in leaves

The grass smooth as velvet runs green up and down

& from the young morning a rapture receives

& from the green hedge that the path brushes nigh

The flight of a bird shakes the rain in the place

& the blackbird frit off from her nest rushing bye
Shakes a shower on the path that will sprinkle thy face

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Daybreak light

How beautiful is daybreak light betimes 
Threads thro the clouds the red sun sweetly climbs 
Up to our chamber windows thwart the sky 
The clouds like bright volcanoes slumber by 
Slowly & grand toil early out of doors
Goes praising the sweet time devoid of sorrow 
& prophesies the cuckoos song to morrow
Birds hop about each hedge & by the stack 
The small wren twits with tail cocked oer his back
Building his nest right early neath the shed 
Where cows in winter found a pleasant bed
Flowers thicken everywhere the very tops 
Of walls are thronged with springs delicious crops 
Of tiny snow-white blossoms thickly spread

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Come little Robin

Come come to my cottage & thou shalt be free
To perch on my finger or sit on my knee
Thou shalt eat of the crumbles of bread to thy fill
& have leisure to clean both thy feathers & bill
Then come little robin & never believe
Such warm Invitations are meant to deceive
In duty I'm bound to show mercy on thee
While God dont deny it to sinners like me

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This sweet vision

No fence of ownership crept in between 

To hide the prospect from the gazing eye
Its only bondage was the circling sky
A mighty flat undwarfed by bush & tree
Spread its faint shadow of immensity
& lost itself which seemed to eke its bounds
In the blue mist the orizons edge surrounds
Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours
Free as spring clouds & wild as forest flowers
Is faded all—a hope that blossomed free
& hath been once as it no more shall be
Enclosure came & trampled on the grave

Of labours rights & left the poor a slave

Photo from my friend #AdyKerry

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Happiest happiness

Unequal'd raptures happiest happiness

For sure no raptures can compare with thee
Now lovley Anna in her sunday dress
In softest pressure sits upon my knee.—
For O to see the snowey bosom heave
& feel those robes to me so softley cleave
Robes which half show what modesty consceals
While round her slender wa[i]ste I fling my arms
& while her eye whats wanting yet reveals
To me apears such (more than heavenly) charms
That might I wish—& could I be so blest
To have it granted—O I'd wish to be
For ever of this matchles maid posses'd
To bear her weight through all Eternity

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From Clare’s unfinished novel

The black thorn was in its blossom & the soldiers were reminded of their early days      & one of them said    in such a spot as this comrade I tended sheep & have been delighted at seeing the black thorn in blossom as the earnest of may day a coming      when we should play at crookhorn & duck under-water & pelt over the garland -- & I little thought then of where I should ramble & what I should see --      these days Richard are all over & our happiness is gone after them for some other boys to pick up & loose agen as we did -- 

& so they wandered along shortning the way by little remembrances of former days that the scene around them brought up in their minds -- untill the sun went to bed as red as a drunken man dropping as if in the midst of the waste that surrounded them      & they were astonished in the seeming boundless stretch of the common which like an ocean of waste seemed to have no shore of termination to human existance & no harbours of comfortable cottages -- for they had not only been out of the sight of smoaking chimneys for hours but had even lost all sight of human existance in the shape of foot paths or waggon tracks –

From Clare's 'The Two Soldiers' an episode in his aborted novel from the 1820s, now published with Clare’s title “The Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby" (Arbour Editions, 2017).

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A sheltering place

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
Lets look about & find a sheltering place
The little things around like you & I

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