Song : On a bonny April morning'

On a bonny April morning

By the grey and green wood side
Where the blue-bells were adorning
There a pretty girl I spied
Her hair was brown and curling
Her eyes were bright and blue
Where the mossy brook was purling
O I loved the maiden true

I loved her fond and tender
Aye tenderly and true
So heavens love defend her
A rose half blown i' dew
A blue-bell in the white thorn green
A violet in the shade
The sweetest flower I'd ever seen
Was that all beauteous maid

Her face was young and pretty
And sweetly she could sing
And her bright eye drop't pity
At every cruel thing
The place was full of blue bells
Where that pretty girl I spied
A heaven in the green dells
Hid in this world so wide

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

(Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1984)