The Winter's Spring

The winter comes; I walk alone,
I want no bird to sing;
To those who keep their hearts their own
The winter is the spring.
No flowers to please--no bees to hum--
The coming spring's already come.

I never want the Christmas rose
To come before its time;
The seasons, each as God bestows,
Are simple and sublime.
I love to see the snowstorm hing;
'Tis but the winter garb of spring.

I never want the grass to bloom:
The snowstorm's best in white.
I love to see the tempest come
And love its piercing light.
The dazzled eyes that love to cling
O'er snow-white meadows sees the spring.

I love the snow, the crumpling snow
That hangs on everything,
It covers everything below
Like white dove's brooding wing,
A landscape to the aching sight,
A vast expanse of dazzling light.

It is the foliage of the woods
That winters bring--the dress,
White Easter of the year in bud,
That makes the winter Spring.
The frost and snow his posies bring,
Nature's white spurts of the spring.

 

Signs of Winter

The cat runs races with her tail. The dog
Leaps oer the orchard hedge and knarls the grass.
The swine run round and grunt and play with straw,
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack.
Sudden upon the elmtree tops the crow
Unceremonious visit pays and croaks,
Then swops away. From mossy barn the owl
Bobs hasty out--wheels round and, scared as soon,
As hastily retires. The ducks grow wild
And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel
A circle round the village and soon, tired,
Plunge in the pond again. The maids in haste
Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizzled clothes
And laughing hurry in to keep them dry.
 

Don Juan a Poem

‘Poets are born’ – & so are whores – the trade is   

Grown universal – in these canting days          

Women of fashion must of course be ladies     

& whoreing is the business – that still pays     

Playhouses Ball rooms – there the masquerade is  

– To do what was of old – & now adays          

Their maids – nay wives so innoscent & blooming   

Cuckold their spouses to seem honest women

                                                                         

Milton sung Eden & the fall of man                   

Not woman for the name implies a wh—e        

& they would make a ruin of his plan               

Falling so often they can fall no lower              

Tell me a worse delusion if you can                  

For innoscence – & I will sing no more             

Wherever mischief is tis womans brewing        

Created from manself – to be mans ruin

                                                                         

The flower in bud hides from the fading sun    

& keeps the hue of beauty on its cheek           

But when full blown they into riot run              

The hue turns pale & lost each ruddy streak    

So ’t’is with woman who pretends to shun      

Immodest actions which they inly seek            

Night hides the wh–e – cupboards tart & pasty      

Flora was p-x-d – & womans quite as nasty

                                                                         

Marriage is nothing but a driveling hoax          

To please old codgers when they’re turned of forty

I wed & left my wife like other folks                  

But not untill I found her false & faulty             

O woman fair – the man must pay thy jokes    

Such makes a husband very often naughty     

Who falls in love will seek his own undoing      

The road to marriage is – ‘the road to ruin’

                                                                         

Love worse then debt or drink or any fate       

It is the damnest smart of matrimony              

A hell incarnate is a woman-mate                    

The knot is tied – & then we loose the honey  

A wife is just the protetype to hate                  

Commons for stock & warrens for the coney    

Are not more trespassed over in rights plan    

Then this incumberance on the rights of man                   

There’s much said about love & more of women     

I wish they were as modest as they seem       

Some borrow husbands till their cheeks are blooming     

Not like the red rose blush – but yellow cream

Lord what a while those good days are in coming –        

Routs Masques & Balls – I wish they were a dream

– I wish for poor men luck – an honest praxis  

Cheap food & cloathing – no corn laws or taxes

                                                                         

I wish – but there is little got bye wishing       

I wish that bread & great coats ne’er had risen      

I wish that there was some such word as ‘pishun’  

For ryhme sake for my verses must be dizen   

With dresses fine – as hooks with bait for fishing   

I wish all honest men were out of prison         

I wish M.P’s. would spin less yarn – nor doubt 

But burn false bills & cross bad taxes out

                                                                         

I wish young married dames were not so frisky      

Nor hide the ring to make believe they’re single     

I wish small beer was half as good as whiskey

& married dames with buggers would not mingle    

There’s some too cunning far & some too frisky      

& here I want a ryhme – so write down ‘jingle’

& there’s such putting in – in whores crim con 

Some mouths would eat forever & eat on

                                                                         

Childern are fond of sucking sugar candy         

& maids of sausages – larger the better          

Shopmen are fond of good sigars & brandy     

& I of blunt – & if you change the letter           

To C or K it would be quite as handy                

& throw the next away – but I’m your debtor  

For modesty – yet wishing nought between us       

I’d hawl close to a she as vulcan did to venus

                                                                         

I really cant tell what this poem will be            

About – nor yet what trade I am to follow       

I thought to buy old wigs – but that will kill me

With cold starvation – as they’re beaten hollow     

Long speeches in a famine will not fill me         

& madhouse traps still take me by the collar    

So old wig bargains now must be forgotten     

The oil that dressed them fine has made them rotten               

I wish old wigs were done with ere they’re mouldy

I wish – but heres the papers large & lusty     

With speeches that full fifty times they’ve told ye   

– Noble Lord John to sweet Miss Fanny Fusty  

Is wed – a lie good reader I ne’er sold ye        

– Prince Albert goes to Germany & must he     

Leave the queens snuff box where all fools are strumming      

From addled eggs no chickens can be coming

                                                                         

Whigs strum state fiddle strings untill they snap     

With cuckoo cuckold cuckoo year by year         

The razor plays it on the barbers strap            

– The sissars grinder thinks it rather quere     

That labour wont afford him ‘one wee drap’     

Of ale or gin or half & half or beer                    

– I wish prince Albert & the noble dastards     

Who wed the wives – would get the noble bastards

                                                                         

I wish prince Albert on his german journey      

I wish the Whigs were out of office &               

Pickled in law books of some good atorney      

For ways & speeches few can understand       

They’ll bless ye when in power – in prison scorn ye

& make a man rent his own house & land –     

I wish prince Alberts queen was undefiled       

– & every man could get his wife with child

                                                                         

I wish the devil luck with all my heart               

As I would any other honest body                   

His bad name passes bye me like a f—t           

Stinking of brimstone – then like whisky toddy

We swallow sin which seems to warm the heart     

– There’s no imputing any sin to God – he       

Fills hell with work – & is’n’t it a hard case       

To leave old whigs & give to hell the carcass

                                                                         

Me–b—ne may throw his wig to little Vicky       

& so resign his humbug & his power                

& she with the young princess mount the dickey    

On ass milk diet for her german tour                

Asses like ministers are rather tricky                

I & the country proves it every hour                 

W–ll—gt–n & M–lb—n in their station               

Coblers to queens – are phisic to the nation           

These batch of toadstools on this rotten tree  

Shall be the cabinet of any queen                    

Though not such coblers as her servants be    

They’re of Gods making – that is plainly seen  

Nor red nor green nor orange – they are free  

To thrive & flourish as the Whigs have been    

But come tomorrow – like the Whigs forgotten

You’ll find them withered stinking dead & rotten

                                                                         

Death is an awfull thing it is by God                 

I’ve said so often & I think so now                    

Tis rather droll to see an old wig nod               

Then doze & die the devil don’t know how       

Odd things are wearisome & this is odd –        

Tis better work then kicking up a row              

I’m weary of old Whigs & old whigs heirs         

& long been sick of teazing God with prayers

                                                                         

I’ve never seen the cow turn to a bull              

I’ve never seen the horse become an ass       

I’ve never seen an old brawn cloathed in whool –  

But I have seen full many a bonny lass            

& wish I had one now beneath the cool           

Of these high elms – Muse tell me where I was      

O – talk of turning I’ve seen Whig & Tory         

Turn imps of hell – & all for Englands glory

                                                                         

I love good fellowship & wit & punning            

I love ‘true love’ & God my taste defend          

I hate most damnably all sorts of cunning –     

I love the Moor & Marsh & Ponders End –        

I do not like the song of ‘cease your funning’   

I love a modest wife & trusty friend                 

– Bricklayers want lime as I want rhyme for fillups  
– So here’s a health to sweet Eliza Phillips

LP 89 amongst other places

From 'January'

At last! We return from 10 weeks of travelling... USA... New Zealand and South Africa. But it's great to be back, even to an English January. We resume our perambulations through John Clare's work with an excerpt from 'January'.

"... unperceived, through key-holes creep,
When all around have sunk to sleep,
To feast on what the cotter leaves,--
Mice are not reckoned greater thieves.
They take away, as well as eat,
And still the housewife's eye they cheat,
In spite of all the folks that swarm
In cottage small and larger farm;
They through each key-hole pop and pop,
Like wasps into a grocer's shop,
With all the things that they can win
From chance to put their plunder in;--
As shells of walnuts, split in two
By crows, who with the kernels flew;
Or acorn-cups, by stock-doves plucked,
Or egg-shells by a cuckoo sucked;
With broad leaves of the sycamore
They clothe their stolen dainties oer:
And when in cellar they regale,
Bring hazel-nuts to hold their ale;
With bung-holes bored by squirrels well,
To get the kernel from the shell;
Or maggots a way out to win,
When all is gone that grew within;
And be the key-holes eer so high,
Rush poles a ladder's help supply.
Where soft the climbers fearless tread,
On spindles made of spiders' thread.
And foul, or fair, or dark the night,
Their wild-fire lamps are burning bright:
For which full many a daring crime
Is acted in the summer-time..."