The Autumnal Morning (excerpt)

Wild woods ring in echos round

Wi many a lusty rural sound
Thro the day the wooping call
Of ramping nutters ceasless brawl
Weaving branches tearing down
Plucking nuts now ripe & brown

Boys as soon as loosd from school
Run to get their pockets full
& many a village clown [in extacys]
Rustling mong the faded trees
That bend beside her path is seen
Like the woodlands rural queen

Snatching hastes handfuls while she hies
To milking where her red cow lies
Venturing oer the woodland stile
Shepherds leave their sheep awhile
Dreading squalls & turning back
They snached a nut or 2 to crack

While the pindard* quirking out
As the lawyer squints about

Siezes on the chances found
& drives the straying sheep to pound
The Hedger who wi many a tap
Drives the stake down in the gap

Leaves his gaps & leaves his toil
& claims a share of autumns spoil
In short as full as it can snive*
The hamlets dead & woods alive
The once so still & silent shade
Is now a scene of uproar made

(lines 55 to 84)

'Bird's Nest: Poems by John Clare'

Anne Tibble (Ashington: Mid-NAG, 1973)

*Pindard = The impounder straying livestock

*Snive = Cram or stuff

See also my post ‘Gleaners or Thieves?’ for a piece by Professor Eric Robinson on, amongst other things, nutting : http://johnclare.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/gleaners-or-thieves.html