The lane path

O simple nature how I do delight

To pause upon thy trifles foolish things

So some woud call em on the summer night

Tracing the lane path where the dog rose hings

Wi dew drops seathd while chickering cricket sings

My eye cant help but glance upon its leaves

Where loves warm beauty steals her sweetest blush

When sweet the while the even silence heaves

Her pausing breath just trembling thro the bush

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September 1824

Took a walk in the fields: saw an old wood stile taken away from a familiar spot which it had occupied all my life. The posts were overgrown with ivy, and it seemed akin to nature and the spot where it stood, as though it had taken it on lease for an undisturbed existence. It hurt me to see it was gone, for my affections claim a friendship with such things; but nothing is lasting in this world.

Last year Langley Bush was destroyed -- an old white-thorn that had stood for more than a century, full of fame. The gipsies, shepherds, and herdsmen all had their tales of its history, and it will be long ere its memory is forgotten.

An excerpt from ‘Remembrances’

Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one,
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on.
I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and forever far away.
Dear heart, and 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 and play
On its bank at “clink and bandy,” “chock” and “taw” and “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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Of fame

I would not wish the burning blaze
     Of fame around a restless world
The thunder & the storm of praise
     In crowded tumults heard & hurled
I would not be a flower to stand
     The stare of every passer-bye
But in some nook of fairyland,
     Seen in the praise of beautys eye

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Greensward pathways

The Vicars greensward pathways once his pride

His woodbine bowers that used his doors to hide
& he himself full often in his chair
Smoaking his pipe & conning sermons there
The yard & garden roods his only farms
& all his stock the hive bees yearly swarms
Are swept away—their produce & their pride
Were doomed to perish when the owner dyd
Fresh faces came with little taste or care
& joyd to ruin what was his to rear
His garden plants & blossoms all are fled
& docks & nettles blossom in their stead

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Earth’s decay?

Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay:
But hath it nothing of eternal kin?
No majesty that shall not pass away?
No soul of greatness springing up within?
Thought marks without hoar shadows of sublime,
Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win
Eternity, stand laughing at old Time
For ages: in the grand ancestral line
Of things eternal, mounting to divine,
I read Magnificence where ages pay
Worship like conquered foes to the Apennine,
Because they could not conquer. here sits Day
Too high for Night to come at--mountains shine,
Outpeering Time, too lofty for decay.

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Foot pad turning

The arching groves & walks so dark 
All appear in mem'rys eye 
With deep regret I view'd the spire 
Which told the busy vil so nigh 
For lonley shades are my desire 
Far from the reach of human eye 
The foot pad turning to the town 
No longer provd alone to me 
Loud noisy murmurs filld the air 
& spoild my deep sollemnity 
The passing hours jog'd on apace 
& in their progress seem'd to say 
‘Haste and gain that destind place’

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Sauntering

I cant contain myself in summers prime 

Tuneless I hum my wonder songs into rhyme 

Mere scraps of what I think or feel or see 

While sauntering narrow lanes – they are to me 

A heritage of happiness & yields 

Peace & calm joy from the refreshing fields

(A Clare ‘unpublished fragment’)

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