From "The Winters Come"

Sweet chesnuts brown, like soleing leather turn,

The larch trees, like the colour of the sun,
That paled sky in the Autumn seem'd to burn.
What a strange scene before us now does run,
Red, brown, and yellow, russet black, and dun,

White thorn, wild cherry, and the poplar bare,
The sycamore all withered in the sun,
No leaves are now upon the birch tree there,
All now is stript to the cold wintry air.
See! not one tree but what has lost its leaves,
And yet, the landscape wears a pleasing hue,
The winter chill on his cold bed receives,
Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue,
Naked, and bare, the leafless trees repose,
Blue headed titmouse now seeks maggots rare,
Sluggish, and dull, the leaf strewn river flows.

The Oxford Authors: John Clare

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell (Oxford, 1984)