from "Summer Evening"

The sinken sun is takin leave

& sweetly gilds the edge of eve
While purple clouds of deepening dye
Huddling hang the western skye
Crows crowd quaking oever head
Hastening to the woods to bed
Cooing sits the lonly dove
Calling home her abscent love
Kirchip Kirchip mong the wheat
Partridge distant partridge greet

Beckening call to those that roam
Guiding the squandering covey home
Swallows check their rambling flight
& twittering on the chimney light

Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

Beautiful Woman (fragment) & With our little ones...

Beautiful woman visions dwell

Of heavens joy about thee
& every step I take is hell
That walks thro life without thee

LP 10

When with our little ones we spent

Each Sunday after tea
And up the woods dark side we went
Or pastures rushy lea
To look among the woodland boughs
To find the bird' retreat,
Or crop the cowslap for the cows

Then sat to rest the little feet
In many a pleasant place
And see the lambs who tried to bleat
Come first in every race
Then laughd the childerns joys to view
Who ran across the lea
At birds that from the rushes flew
& many a wandering bee

LP 10

Both published in 'Overland Monthly' (1873)

SONG - "Sukey's rare and Sukey's fair"

[Image: Lady Clementina Hawarden - 1860]

Sukey's rare and Sukey's fair

Sukey's got the coal black hair

And in her neck the curl'd drakes tail
That makes her looks so very fine
And in her breast this heart of mine
That keeps me like a thief in jail
Which is so very fair and white
It keeps me waken half the night

Sukey's neat, and Sukey's sweet
Sukey's every way complete
Like a lily in the shower
Rich as kingcup in the spring
The colour of the bridal ring
Queen of blossom of the bower
Bespangled with the morning dew
And paved with clumps of violets blue

Sukey's young, and Sukey's song
The market hill with music rung
And Sukey's ballad there
Her neck was white her cheek was red
Just like the sun a going bed
And coal black was her hair
A bulfinch on a blackthorn tree
Warnt half so beautiful as she

The crowds among, I heard it sung
The market with the ballad rung
The fiddle played so sweet
And Sukey tall stood near the wall
And heard the fiddle song and all
And I could some repeat
About her waist, her lips, and eyes
More rich than flowers or butterflies

Sukey's rare and Sukey's fair
Sukey's blythe and debonair
Love lives in every place
White as lilies and as sweet
Small white hands, and smaller feet
And beautiful her face
As roseys in the morning dew
As violets in their veils of blue

Sukey's rare, and Sukey's fair
Sukey's got the coal black hair
And in her neck the curled drakes tail
That makes her look so sweet and fine
And in her breast this heart of mine
That keeps me like a thief in jail
That swells so very fair and white
I cannot sleep a wink at night

Pet MS 20 I p251
LP 525

Footpaths

Now tracking fields where passenger appears

As wading to his waist in crowding grain
Wherever as we pass the bending ears
Pat at our sides & gain their place again
Then crooked stile with little steps that aid
The climbing meets us & the pleasant grass
& hedgerows old with arbours ready made
For weariness to rest in pleasant shade
Surround us & with ecstasy we pass
Wild flower & insect tribes that ever mate
With joy & dance from every step we take
In numberless confusion all employ
Their little aims for peace & pleasures sake
& every summers footpath leads to joy

Pet MS A54 p415

Middle Period IV 318

from 'The Parish'

Clare prophetically commenting on the current government?

Deceptions aimd at ignorance alone

Empty as frothing bubbles on the stream

Or shadowy banquets in a beggars dream

Ruins the mark the motly monster bears

& vile hypocrisy the mask it wears

Cant as high priest around its alter prays

& preaches loud its mockery of praise

Oer blinded minds its poison quickly runs

But shrinks in mist from reasons searching suns

To those gilt Dagons knaves & fools may raise

Deceptions alters of decieving praise

& paint their claims as interest wills to paint

Call each a god a devil or a saint

(lines 1048-1059)

Written between 1820 and 1824, and added to in the following years, 'The Parish a Satire' remained largely unpublished [I WONDER why] until the Tibbles edition in 1935.  Clare thought it, "the best thing in my own mind that I have ever written & I mean to take some pains in altering & making it better still if I can" (Letters p377)