Moody crows

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose

Crouching & sleeping neath its grassy lair

& scarcely startles tho the shepherd goes

Close by its home & dogs are barking there

The wild colt only turns around to stare

At passer by then knaps his hide again

& moody crows beside the road forbear

To fly tho pelted by the passing swain

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Ripened hues

A beauty on the scene attends

Ere autumn comes & summer ends

When summers glory first we see 

As stained with its mortality

Each morn wakes wan its sunlight wanes

On yellowing leaves & fading plains

Green fields no more the summer views

All sickened into ripened hues

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Wild swan hurries

The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by

& darken like a cloud the evening sky

The larks like thunder rise & suther round

Then drop & nestle in the stubble ground

The wild swan hurries high & noises loud

With white necks peering to the evening cloud

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Twisted roots

The woods again how sweet

To find the peace which freedom finds

& from the world retreat

To stretch beneath a spreading tree

That far its shadow shoots

While by its side the water free

Curls through its twisted roots

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Winding through

Ive oft been glad at heart to see 

A footpath winding through the grass

Oer narrow stiles neath spreading tree 

Not wide enough for two to pass 

But now no ownership I fear 

Nor path to keep nor stile to climb 

I feel myself a monarch here 

My very fancies grow sublime

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Fields & fen

O for the pasture fields & fen

When shall I see such rest agen

I love the weeds along the fen

More sweet then garden flowers

Freedom haunts the humble glen

That blest my happiest hours

Here prisons injure health & me

I love sweet freedom & the free

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Spreading shady oak

Neath a spreading shady oak 

For awhile to muse I lay 

From its grains a bough I broke 

To fan the teasing flies away 

Then I sought the woodland side 

Cool the breeze my face did meet 

& the sun the shade did hide 

Tho twas hot it seemed sweet

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Faded bleak & wild

When the summers swarms half namless fled

& autumns landscape faded bleak & wild

When leaves gun fall & show their berries red

Still with the season woud I be beguild

Lone spots to seek home leaving far behind

Were wildness rears her lings & teazle burs

& were last lingering of the flowery kind

Blue heath bells tremble neath the sheltering furze

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

By the river side

A ramble by the river side
No walk so sweet can be
To see the creeping waters glide
And hear the humble bee

There's nothing else so fine to see
As a fast flowing river
Hemm'd by green banks continually
And winding on for ever

There nature lives devoid of strife
There boats sail on the tide
There's nought so sweet to me in life
As a walk by the rivers side

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Cutting Winter’s come

Tis not great what I solicit

Was it more thou woulds't not miss it

Now the cutting Winter's come

‘Tis but just to find a home

In some shelter dry & warm

That will s[h]ield me from the storm—

Toiling in the naked fields

Where no bush a shelter yields

Needy labour dithering stands

Beats & blows his numbing hands

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Beneath a dotterel tree

Oft wi shepherds he woud sit to sigh

On past delights of many a bygone day

& how the runnel wound its weedy way

& how the willows on its margin grew

Talk oer wi them the rural feats of May

Who got the blossoms neath the morning dew

As how he coud remember well when he

Laden wi blooming treasures from the plain

Has mixt wi them beneath a dotterel tree

Drove from his cowslips by a hasty rain

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Image by my friend #AnnieLee

For melancholy has its joy

A wild confusion hangs upon the ear,

And something half romantic meets the view;
Arches half fill'd with wither'd leaves appear,
Where white foam stills the billow boiling through.

Those yellow leaves that litter on the grass,
'Mong dry brown stalks that lately blossom'd there,
Instil a mournful pleasure as they pass:
For melancholy has its joy to spare—

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Yellow woods

I[t]s music aye & more indeed

To those of musing mind

Who through the yellow woods proceed

& listen to the wind

The poet in his fitful glee

& fancys many moods

Meets it as some strange melody

& poem of the woods

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Image by the wonderful #CarryAkroyd

Flow on my verse

Flow on my verse though barren thou mayest be
Of thought—Yet sing & let thy fancys roll
In Early days thou sweept a mighty sea
All calm in troublous deeps & spurned controul
Thou fire & iceberg to an aching soul
& still an angel in my gloomy way
Far better opiate then the draining bowl
Still sing my muse to drive cares fiends away
Nor heed what loitering listener hears the lay

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Thunders rattling peal

The heavens are wroth the thunders rattling peal 

Rolls like a vast volcano in the sky 

Yet nothing starts the apathy I feel 

Nor chills with fear eternal destiny 

 

My soul is apathy a ruin vast 

Time cannot clear the ruined mass away 

My life is hell the hopeless die is cast 

& manhoods prime is premature decay 

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Winding ways

Theres somthing rich & joyful to the mind
To view through close & field those crooked shreds
Of footpaths that most picturesqly wind
From town to town or some tree hidden sheds
Where lonely cottager lifes peace enjoys
Far far from strife & all its troubled noise
The pent up artizan by pleasure led
Along their winding ways right glad employs

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Rustle through the sedge

Wandering by the river's edge
I love to rustle through the sedge
& through the woods of reed to tear
Almost as high as bushes are

Eddies run before the boats
Gurgling where the fisher floats
Who takes advantage of the gale
& hoists his handkerchief for sail
On osier twigs that form a mast

While idly lies nor wanted more
The spirit that pushed him on before

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

The autumn tans

Crimson & yellow blochd with Iron Brown

The Autumn tans & varigates the leaves
The nuts are ripe in woods about the Town
Russet the cleared fields where the bindweed weaves
Round stubbles & still flowers the trefoil seeds
& troubles all the land from rig to furrow
Ther's nothing left but rubbish & foul weeds
I love to see the rabbits snug made burrow
Under the old edge bank or hugh mossed oak
Claspt fast with Ivy there the rabbit breeds
Where the Kite pelews & the Ravens croak

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The faded leaves

I love the fitful gust that shakes 


The casement all the day


& from the glossy elm tree takes 


The faded leaves away


Twirling them by the window pane 


With thousand others down the lane


I love to see the shaking twig 


Dance till the shut of eve


The sparrow on the cottage rig


Whose chirp would make believe 


That Spring was just now flirting by


In Summers lap with flowers to lie


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Humble thatched cot

Near a grove of tall trees stretching far oer the pool

Whose broad shadows darken the stream as it flows

Where in summer the breeze from the waters so cool

Refreshes the flocks with a welcome repose

There nursd in a humble thatchd cot that stands nigh

A sweet lovely blossom blooms lowly unseen

& calld by the shepherds that wander hard bye

The lovley Jeannette the pride of the green

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Delightful hut

The Shepherds hut propt by the double ash 

Hugh in its bulk & old in mossy age 

Shadowing the dammed-up brook—where plash & plash 

The little mills did younkers ears engage 

Delightful hut rude as romances old 

Where hugh old stones made each an easy chair 

& brakes & ferns for luxurys manifold 

& flint & steel the all want needed there

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Every welcome stile

The hopes & joys of youth loves thrilling ways

When beauty[s] maiden flower was in its pride

Fond reccolections of sweet sabbath days

When wispering sweet hearts saunterd by their side

& told them witching tales & sought them flowers

& offerd help at every welcome stile

Tho oft left helpless in their withering hours

Thy picturd past still prompts the ready smile

Thou sun of fairest beauty never set

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Corn poppy red

How sweet we might find it & doubtless as sweet

To that boy would it be thats now tracking the wheat

For the corn poppy red as a fox hunters coat

& cockle flowers pale of a less showy sort

& blue caps as rich in their sweet summer dye

As the blue eyes of love or the deep bearing sky

No doubt if he knew what our wishes was at

While hes wreathg that garland to stick in his hat

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Dobbin

Dobbin a horse well known for miles around 

In every village & in every pound 

Altho so tame at toil that boys might guide 

& childern walk uninjured by his side 

When loose from geers he roved as freedoms mate 

Hed find all gaps & open every gate

& if aught sweet beyond his pasture grew 

No fence so thick but he would blunder thro'

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A rainbow paints

A rainbow paints yon deep blue cloud

Arching its colors newly proud

In glossy hues of watery green

& red & orange hues between

While oer it in a faded hue

Its fainting shadow dims the blue

That in a moments breath decays

& shrinks to nothing ere we gaze

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Heaven paints

Dull for a time the slumbering weather flings
Its murky prison round then winds wake loud
Wi sudden start the once still forest sings
Winters returning song cloud races cloud
And the orison throws away its shrowd
And sweeps its stretching circle from the eye
Storm upon storm in quick succession crowd
And oer the samness of the purple skye
Heaven paints its wild irregularity

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Image ‘November’, by my friend #CarryAkroyd 

Loving thee

To words vain words no power is given 

The torments of my soul to tell 

I slept & had a dream of heavn 

I woke & felt the pangs of hell 

Yet I woud not forget thee – No! 

Tho thou had witherd hope in me 

Nor for a world of joys forego 

The one sweet joy of loving thee

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Image by my friend #AnnieLee

Childhoods happy hour

In youths past bliss in Childhoods happy hour
Ye Woods Ive wanderd searching out a nest
Ye Meadows gay that reard me many a flower
Culling my cow slips Ive been doubly blest
Huming gay fancies As I bound the prize
O Fate unkind beloved scenes adieu
Your vanishd pleasures crowd my swimming eyes
& makes this wounded heart to bleed anew

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Image from my friend #JohnAbbott

Clouds

Clouds rack & drive before the wind 

In shapes & forms of every kind 

Like waves that rise without the roar 

& rocks that guard an untrodden shore 

Now castles pass majestic by 

& ships in peaceful havens lie 

These gone ten thousand shapes ensue 

For ever beautiful and new 

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