Song: O Love is but a Butterfly (Part)

[Image: Meadow Brown or Gatekeeper]

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O Love is but a Butterfly
Fond of Green fields and the blue sky

Aye, love is fond of liberty
Green valleys and bright flowers
Sings seeking honey with the bee
For all the summer hours
A silent solitary thing
That lives within itself
You only see his azure wing
That flies from pride and pelf*

O Love is like a Butterfly
Fond of green fields and purple sky

This love's a very tender thing
That withering fades from crime
A singing bee without a sting
A flower in frost and rime
More tender then the simple maid
Who from seduction flies
More fair then flowers that love can braid
The birth of Paradise

(* pelf, OE 'riches')

The Shepherd's Calendar

September (excerpt)

Anon the fields are wearing clear
And glad sounds hum in labours ear

When children halloo ‘here they come’
And run to meet the harvest home

Stuck thick with boughs and thronged with boys
Who mingle loud a merry noise

Glad that the harvests end is nigh
And weary labour nearly bye

Where when they meet the stack thronged yard
Cross bunns or pence their shouts reward

Then comes the harvest supper night
Which rustics welcome with delight

When merry game and tiresome tale
And songs increasing with the ale

Their mingled up roar interpose
To crown the harvests happy close

While rural mirth that there abides
Laughs till she almost cracks her sides

Song: 'My love's like a lily my love's like a rose'

My love’s like a lily my loves like a rose
My love’s like a smile the spring morning’s disclose
And sweet as the rose on her cheek—her love glows
When sweetly she smileth on me

& as cold as the snow of the lily—my rose
Behaves to pretenders who ever they be
In vain higher stations their passions disclose
To win her affections from me

My love’s like the lily my love’s like the rose
My love’s like the smile the spring morning’s disclose
& fine as the lily & sweet as the rose
My loves beauty bloometh to me

& smiles of more pleasure my heart only knows
To think that pretenders who ever they be
But vainly their love & their passions disclose
My love remains constant to me

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[A song that is part of the collection of Clare Songs & Ballads that I have chosen and for which my son has composed tunes in a 'folk' idiom ~ we hope to record 'demos' this week]

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Turn again thou sweet beguiling

[Image: "The beguiling of Merlin" ~ Edward Burne-Jones]

Turn again thou sweet beguiling
Tho like summer suns they be
Painting shadows from thy smiling
While thy heart is false to me

Turn again & let me languish
If thy heart is falsly seen
In lovd scenes if death shoud ambush
Sure his weapons not so keen

Turn again & be't my duty
Thus to rob my soul of rest
If while feasting on thy beauty
Serpents wrankle to my breast

Turn again thou false alluring
Sweet the tale thy smilings tell
Sure in death theres small enduring
Killd by weapons lovd so well

Sun-Rising in September

With the settled and beautiful weather of the past week, and we are promised the coming week, a poem from Clare which beautifully summarises what many will feel this September.

How delightfuly pleasant when the cool chilling air
By September is thrown o’er the globe
When each morning both hedges and bushes do wear
Instead of their green—a grey robe.
To see the sun rise thro the skirts of the wood
In his mantle so lovely and red
It cheers up my spirits and does me much good
As thro the cold stubbles I tread.

Tho’ not that his beams more advances the scene
Or adds to the Landscape a charm
But all that delights me by him may be seen
That the ensuing hours will be warm.
And this with the poet as yet in the world
In a parallel sense will comply
For when he does view the gay scenes there unfurl'd
‘Tis only to light him on high.

Summer Evening (excerpt)

The sinking sun is taking leave
& sweetly gilds the edge of eve
While purple clouds of deepening dye
Huddling hang the western sky

Crows crowd quaking over head
Hastening to the woods to bed
Cooing sits the lonely dove
Calling home her absent love

'Kirchip Kirchip' among the wheat
Partridge, distant partridge, greet
Beckoning call to those that roam
Guiding the squandering covey home

Swallows check their rambling flight
& twittering on the chimney light
Round the pond the martins flirt
Their snowy breasts bedaubed in dirt

While the mason 'neath the slates
Each morter bearing bird awaits
Untaught by art each labouring spouse
Curious daubs his hanging house

Tuesday, 7th September 1824

I have read Foxes Book of Martyrs & finished it today & the sum of my opinion is Tyranny & Cruelty appear to be the inseparable companions of Religious Power & the aphorism is not far from truth that says: 'All priests are the same' the great moral presept of a meek & unoffending teacher was 'Do as ye would be done by' & 'love those that hate you' if religious opinion had done so her history had been praise­worthy.

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Clare's next entry, for the 8th September 1824, will revert to the 'Journal Blog' (Clare Links, left).

Monday, 6th September 1824

Monday 6th was the day that Clare began a Journal, which was to last just a year. Since May 2009 I have been serialising it (see Clare Links on the left of this page). Here is his first entry...

I have determine! this day of beginning a sort of journal to give my opinion of things I may read or see & set down any thoughts that may arise either in my reading at home or my musings in the Fields & this day must fill up a sort of Introduction for I have nothing else to set down all I have read today is Moore's Almanack for the account of the weather which speaks of rain tho it's very hot & fine

Sweet comes...

Sweet comes the misty mornings in September
Among the dewy paths how sweet to stray
Greensward or stubbles as I well remember
I once have done — the mist curls thick & grey
As cottage smoke — like net work on the sprey
Or seeded grass the cobweb draperies run
Beaded with pearls of dew at early day
& o’er the pleachy stubbles peeps the sun
The lamp of day when that of night is done

(lines 696-704, Child Harold)

Supression of a Sigh (II)

Yon pair of birds that weary roam
Have far more cause to grieve then I
Their rest is gone—their peaceful home
Could not escape the schoolboys eye

Their sorrow still its toil resumes
& of their loss they make the best
They chirp again & smooth their plumes
& painful build another nest

No nest have they from night to hide
Then fool to think that I alone
The killing frowns of fate abide
While Ive a cot to call my own

Poor bee that labours hard the hour
In hopes to find some honied store
Vainly peeps in each rifl'd flower
To prove its sweets was rob’d before

Yet still his toil his hopes recruits
& on he hums till setting sun—
O God thou knowst my station suits
& as thou wilt—thy will be done

Toil on poor bee companion sweet
Live on vain world thy joys are small
Compar'd to those I hope to meet
From God my peace, my hope, my all!