Summers prime

I cant contain myself in summers prime 

Tuneless I hum my wonder songs into rhyme 

Mere scraps of what I think or feel or see 

Whil[e] sauntering narrow lanes – they are to me 

A heritage of happiness & yields 

Peace & calm joy from the refreshing fields

(Fragment)

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Reflective joy

Winter wrapt in her dismal forms

Cannot their happiness annoy

Cold days black nights & snowy storms

Inspire them with reflective joy

Old dob when sitting by the fire

Will often bid old judie ‘hark

‘I fear the wind is rising higher

‘And o the night is dismal dark’

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Delight my heart

The gatherers seeking entrance pause awhile

Ere they mount up the bank to climb the stile

Half wishing that a better road was nigh

Yet here mid [moss] strewn mornings autumn mild

While pleasing sounds & pleasing sights are bye

Things beautiful delight my heart to smile

Here underneath the stiles moss covered post

A little bunch of fern doth thrive & spring

Hid from the noisey wind & coming frost

Like late reared young neath the wood piegons wing

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Tedded grass or kine

As one who long in populous city pent

Wanders the summers breezes to inhale

Among the pleasant farms & dew plash'd bents

I wander through the winding vale

How sweet the smell of grain of tedded grass or kine

How sweet the days o summer in his prime

How sweet the hayfields with the shocks all clear

Soft as a feather bed to sit or lie

& short and green as bowling greens appear

While all above the beautiful clear sky

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All now is stript

White thorn wild cherry & 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

& yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue

The winter chill on his cold bed receives

Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue

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Long leaved mistletoe

Amidst the wreck of perishable leaves

How box or holly garden walks relieves

How fresh & fine appears the evergreen

How bright the ivy round the oak is seen

& on old thorns the long leaved mistletoe

While dark spurge laurel on the banks below

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Cottage made snug

My wish nows to sit in a cottage made snug

By a fire burning roozy and bright
With a Friend to make shorter short days by a Jug
And some Books for amusement at night
And could I enjoy such a peaceable lot
I'd ne'er cast on Fortune a frown
Nor would I possesing my Friend, Books, and Cott
Exchange 'em away for a — Crown!

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He painted in his words

Here is the scenes the rural poet made

So famous in his songs—the very scenes

He painted in his words that warm & shade

In winters wild waste & springs young vivid greens

Alcove & shrubbery—& the tree that leans

The peasants nest & fields of blossomed beans

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The pale sun

Shadows fall dark

Like black in the pale Sun

& lye the bleak day long

Like black stock under hedges

& bare wind rocked trees

Tis chill but pleasant

In the hedge bottom lined

With brown seer leaves — the last

Year littered there & left 

Mopes the hedge Sparrow

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A wishing eye

The clouds of purple & of crimson dye

Were huddled up together in a heap

& oer the scented wide worlds edge did lie

Resting as quiet as if lulled to sleep

I gazed upon them with a wishing eye

& longed but vainly for the painters power

To give existence to the mingling dye

& snatch a beauty from an evening hour

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Belovd by me

I 'gin to seek the[e] charming flower

Along each hedghrows mossy seat

Where dithering many a cold blee hour

Ive hugd my self in thy retreat

What makes me cherish such fond taste

What makes such raptures spring for thee

Is that thou lovst the dreary waste

Which is so well belovd by me

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Startld hare

Till now the rolling seasons through

Scard Solitude now bids adieu

& from the thicket dark & deep

The fluttering pheasant scared from sleep

While nearly trampld on her lair

Bobbing jerks the startld hare

& the squirrels agilty 

Sputters up the timber tree

There in safty on the grain

Wipes his face & peeps again

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Glad Christmass

Neighbours resume their anual cheer

Wishing wi smiles and spirits high

Glad christmass and a happy new year

To every morning passer bye

Milk maids their christmass journeys go

Accompanyd wi favourd swain

And childern pace the crumping snow

To taste their grannys cake again

Hung wi the ivys veining bough

The ash trees round the cottage farm

Are often stript of branches now

The cotters christmass hearth to warm

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Photo by my friend #RebeccaHawley

Grand sublimity

Who does not feel the grand sublimity

Of natures pictures touchd with endless skill

In endless changes that neer cease to be

Awakening wonder were we will page

The earths broad landscape varying every hour

In every beautious shape & varying on

In inscets of all hues & leaf & flower

Till fanceys power exaus'tless seems & done

& stretching plains & wood & wilderness

Were natures pencil spurns mans puney power

To imitate the grandeur they posses

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A splendid show

Een winter deemed so desolate a waste

Hath crowds of beautys to the man of taste

& oft he walks about on quiet days

Full many things to notice & to praise

Where oer the snow clad fields the little feet

Of hares are printed that betray their seat

& woods so still he een may hear the sound

Of small wrens footsteps oer the heaving ground

While trees & branches make a splendid show

Of lights & shadows hung in wreaths of snow

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Buried & overcast

Tis winter & the fields are bare & waste
The air one mass of ‘vapour clouds & storms’
The suns broad beams are buried & oercast
& chilly glooms the midday light deforms
Yet comfort now the social bosom warms
Friendship of nature which I hourly prove
Even in this winter scene of frost & storms
Bare fields the frozen lake & leafless grove
Are natures grand religion & true love

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Fallow fields glitter

The fallow fields glitter 

          Like water indeed

& gossamers twitter 

          Flung from weed unto weed

Hill tops like hot iron 

          Glitter hot i' the sun

& the Rivers were eyeing 

          Burn to gold as they run

Burning hot is the ground 

          Liquid gold is the air

Who ever looks round 

          Sees Eternity there

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Colors newly proud

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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Comfort crowns the cottage

Each house is swept the day before
& windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is beesomd from the door
& comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi its thorny pricks
& yew & box wi berrys small
These deck the unusd candlesticks
& pictures hanging by the wall

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Slender shade is by

The osiers slender shade is by

& bushes thickly spread

Again the ground is firm & dry

Nor trembles 'neath the tread

On this side ash or oak embowers

There hawthorns humbler grow

With goatsbeard wreath & woodbine flowers

That shade a brook below

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Wan & pale

The sun shines wan & pale
Chill blows the northern gale
& odd leaves shake and quiver on the tree
While I am left alone
Chilled as a mossy stone
& all the world is frowning over me

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Golden gems

The river flooded to the brim

The yellow trees the uplands grey

That in the light of heaven swim

Like rocks and vallies far away

The east is hung with golden gems

In crimson red and saphire blue

In gold and crystal fringed hems

The spiders lace is hung with dew

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Withered in the sun

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, & yellow, russet black, & dun, 

White thorn, wild cherry, & the poplar bare, 

The sycamore all withered in the sun, 

No leaves are now upon the birch tree there.

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Sweet it is

Sweet it is to wind the rill

Sweet with thee to climb the hill

On whose lap the bullock free

Chews his cud most placidly

Or oer fallows bare and brown

Beaten sheep-tracks wander down

Where the mole unwearied still

Roots up many a crumbling hill

& the little chumbling mouse

Gnarls the dead weed for her house

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Clouds misted oer the hill

[So] full sweet it was to look

How clouds misted oer the hill

Rain drops how they dimpt the brook

Falling fast & faster still

While the gudgeons sturting bye

Cringd neath water grasses shade

Startling as each nimble eye

Saw the rings the dropples made

& upon the dripping ground

As the shower had ceasd again

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The work of Roman hands

These walls the work of Roman hands

How may conjecturing Fancy pore

As lonely here one calmly stands

On paths that age has trampled oer

The builders names are known no more

No spot on earth their memory bears

& crowds reflecting thus before

Have since found graves as dark as theirs

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The figure in the 1820s print is John Clare

Leafless trees repose

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

& yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue

The winter chill on his cold bed receives

Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue

Naked & bare the leafless trees repose

Sluggish & dull the leaf strewn river flows

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Quiet many joys

It doth ones spirits good to go
Through beds of fern that fan below
The rustle that the branches make
While giving way to let me through,
The leaves that for a moment shake
As out a blackbird hasty flew—
Oh there is stillness in the noise
That brings to quiet many joys

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Down the lane

As the load joggd hom ward down the lane

When welcome night shut out the toiling day

His followings markt the simple hearted swain

Joying to listen on his homward way

As rests warm rapture rousd the rustics lay

The thread bare ballad from each quavering tongue

As ‘peggy bond’ or the ‘sweet month of may’

As how he joyd to hear each ‘good old song’

That on nights pausing ear did echo loud & strong

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With admiring eyes

How oft he'll stoop inquisitive to trace

The opening beauties of a daiseys face

& often witness with admiring eyes 

The brooks sweet dimples oer the pebbles rise 

& often bent as oer some magic spell 

He’ll pause & [see] his shaped stone & shell

Raptures the while his inward powers inflame

& joys delight him which he cannot name

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Shoots streaking spars

There frost his quiet toil resumd 

Shoots streaking spars that wildly run

From weed to weed & shine illumnd

Like glittering stars before the sun

Were as one steps its oaken plank 

The hollow frozen sounding noise 

From flags & sedge beside the bank

The wild ducks brooding peace destroys

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