There's music in the songs of birds

There's music in the songs of birds

There's music in the bee
There's music in a womans voice
When sitting on your knee
While walking in the mossy vales
Beneath the spreading beech
Song lives in singing nightingales
And in a womans speech

To hear her wisper in the dark
'Tis heavens melody
Her calm reply her wise remark
Is more than song to me
The harp can touch no sweeter chord
In music's thrilling choice
Nor music breathe a sweeter word
Than comes from womans voice

There's music in the singing lark
That carols to the sky
To hear her wisper in the dark
'Tis heavens melody
There's music in a womans voice
While sitting on your knee
And Emma is my own heart's choice
When e'er she chooses me

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

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