The birch tree there

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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Muse in silence

When summer ceases to be green
& winter bare & blea—
Death may forget what I have been
But I must cease to be

When words refuse before the crowd
My Marys name to give
The muse in silence sings aloud
& there my love will live

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Dithering sit

The boy that scareth from the spiry wheat
The melancholy crow - in hurry weaves
Beneath an ivied tree his sheltering seat
Of rushy flags & sedges tied in sheaves
Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves
There he doth dithering sit & entertain
His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves
Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en
& wishing in his heart twas summer-time again

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In sheltered spots

Where slanting banks are always with the sun
The daisy is in blossom even now;
And where warm patches by the hedges run
The cottager when coming home from plough
Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set.
Thus ere the Christmas goes the spring is met
Setting up little tents about the fields
In sheltered spots.--Primroses when they get
Behind the woods old roots where ivy shields

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A merry throng

And singers too a merry throng
At early morn wi simple skill
Yet imitate the angels song
And chant their christmass ditty still
And mid the storm that dies and swells
By fits-in humings softly steals
The music of the village bells
Ringing round their merry peals

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Wreaths of snow

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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Hidden Treasures

For the "What can we get xxxxxx in your life"... a blatant suggestion... I still have copies of "Hidden Treasures'" (first published Aug 2016) for sale. The fruits of several years labour in the John Clare Archives - most of the poems/prose therin are published for the first time. £7.50 plus P&P.  Drop me a line… Find out for yourself what all the fuss is about!

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The winter chill

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
Blue headed titmouse now seeks maggots rare
Sluggish & dull the leaf strewn river flows

 

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Despoiled & bare

Hail scenes of Desolation & despair
Keen Winters over bearing sport & scorn
Torn by his Rage in ruins as you are
To me more pleasing then a summers morn
Your shatter'd scenes appear—despoild & bare
Stript of your clothing naked & forlorn
—Yes Winters havoc wretched as you shine
Dismal to others as your fate may seem
Your fate is pleasing to this heart of mine
Your wildest horrors I the most esteem.—
The ice-bound floods that still with rigour freeze
The snow clothd valley & the naked tree
These sympathising scenes my heart can please
Distress is theirs—& they resemble me

 

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Left alone

The sun shines wan & pale
Chill blows the northern gale
& odd leaves shake & 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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Melted mild

The sun lookd out the dreary scene to bless
Old winters grinning horrors forcful smild
His flinty bosom thawd wi tenderness
So fiercfull savages have melted mild
Neath the sweet looks of womans lovliness
So poesy thy witcheries so wild
Doth warm the chilly heart of wants distress
& forcful give a joy to natures child

 

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Friendship of nature

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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Give him welcome now

Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winter sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The hus wife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles

 

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Off to Scotland

Will ye gang wi' me to Scotland dear

Where the mountains touch the sky
& leave your humdrum labours here
& climb the hills sae high
Come leave your fowl your pigs a& kye 
& your mud-floor dwelling here
Come put your wheel & knitting bye
We'll be off to Scotland dear

 

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Christmas in the skies

In fancys infant ecstasy

Likening the snow to falling feathers

Climb up the window-seat with glee

& some to view the winter weathers

Laughing with superstitious love

Oer visions wild that youth supplies

Of people pulling geese above

& keeping Christmas in the skies

As tho the homestead trees were drest
In lieu of snow with dancing leaves
As tho the sun-dried martins nest
Instead of ickles hung the eaves
The children hail the happy day—
As if the snow were Aprils grass
& pleasd as neath the warmth of May
Sport oer the water froze to glass

 

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Numbd & clumpsing

The school boys still their morning rambles take
To neighbouring village school with playing speed
Loitering with pastimes leisure till they quake
Oft looking up the wild geese droves to heed

Making glib slides were they like shadows go

& off they start anew & hasty blow
Their numbd & clumpsing fingures till they glow
Then races with their shadows wildly run
That stride hugh jiants oer the shining snow
In the pale splendour of the winter sun

 

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Leafy luxury

The holly bush a sober lump of green
Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown & grey

& smiles at winter, be it e'er so keen
With all the leafy luxury of may
& o it is delicious when the day
In winters loaded garment keenly blows
& turns her back on sudden falling snows

 

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Hid in trees

 

Now almost hid in trees a little gate

 Cheats us into the darkness of the wood 

 We almost think the day is wearing late 

 So dreamy is the light that dwells around 

 & so refreshing is its sombre mood 

 We feel at once shut out from sun & sky 

 All the deliciousness of solitude 

 While sauntering noisless oer the leafy ground 

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I love thee nature

I love thee nature in my inmost heart
Go where I will thy truth seems from above
Go where I will thy landscape forms a part
Of heaven—e'en these fens where wood nor grove
Are seen—their very nakedness I love
For one dwells nigh that secret hopes prefer
Above the race of women—like the dove
I mourn her abscence—fate that would deter
My hate for all things—strengthens love for her

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The old fox

Among the taller wood with ivy hung

The old fox plays & dances round her young

She snuffs & barks if any passes by

& swings her tail and turns prepared to fly

They get all still & lie in safety sure

& out again when everythings secure

& start & snap at blackbirds bouncing by

To fight & catch the great white butterfly

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Zig zag lane

O now the crimson east its fire streak burning

Tempts me to wander neath the blushing morn

Winding the zig zag lane turning & turning

As winds the crooked fences wilderd thorn

O wheres the eye can gaze upon the dawn

That flushes yon blue sky of cloudless heaven

& gilds the prospect round below—what eye

Can look upon the beautys morn has given

& look unmovd, sure neer a soul thats living

The soul must be extinct who passes bye

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

I love the muse

I love the verse that mild & bland
Breathes of green fields & open sky
I love the muse that in her hand
Bears flowers of native poesy
Who walks nor skips the pasture brook
In scorn but by the drinking horse
Leans o'er its little brig to look
How far the sallows lean across

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

With shadows tost

I am yet what I am none cares or knows
My friends forsake me like a memory lost
I am the self consumer of my woes
They rise & vanish in oblivious host
Like shades in love & deaths oblivion lost
& yet I am & live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise
Into the living sea of waking dreams
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys
But the vast shipwreck of my lifes esteems
& een the dearest — that I loved the best —
Are strange — nay rather stranger than the rest

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Christmas offer...

I will post reminders each week until Christmas, but I am putting my whole catalogue up for sale on a 3 for 2 basis (post free) up to Christmas. My books cover a large range of Clare topics, hardbacks, paperbacks and chapbooks, including much that has not previously been published. Either send me a message below, or drop me an email on arborfield (dot) gmail (dot) com - and I'll do the rest.

Checkout the whole lists, and descriptions here:

https://arboureditions1.blogspot.com

I sleep with thee

I sleep with thee & wake with thee 

& yet thou art not there 

I fill my arms with thoughts of thee 

& press the common air — 

Thy eyes are gazing upon mine 

When thou art out of sight 

My lips are always touching thine 

At morning noon & night

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Image by my friend #AnneLee

Autumns pencil

The summer flower has run to seed

& yellow is the wood land bough

& every leaf of bush & weed

Is tipt wi autumns pencil now

& I do love the varied hue

& I do love the browning plain

& I do love each scene to view

Thats markd wi beauties of her reign

The wood bine trees red berries bare

That clustering hang upon the bower

While fondly lingering here & there

Peeps out a dwindling sickly flower

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Beauty in despair

Now autumns sorrows meet the faded leaf

& sick & faint resumes her hopless care

No flower or minstrel bird consoles her grief

Silent & wan as beauty in despair

Still autumn do I love thy faded face

Thy sad still musings on the dying year

Thy downcast eye thy solemn suited pace

Holds each a charm as beauty with her tear

Thy mournful sighs that wake the woods despair

Thy fading dress that leaves thy bosom bare

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Far from strife

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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O silly love !

O silly love! O cunning love!
An old maid to trepan:
I cannot go about my work
For loving of a man
I cannot bake, I cannot brew,
And, do the best I can
I burn the bread and chill the mash,
Through loving of a man

Shrove Tuesday last I tried, and tried,
To turn the cakes in pan
And drop’t the batter on the floor
Through thinking of a man
My mistress screamed, my master swore,
Boys cursed me in a troop
The cat was all the friends I had
Who helped to clean it up

Last Christmas eve, from off the spit
I took the goose to table
Or should have done, but teasing Love
Did make me quite unable
And down slip’t dish, and goose, and all
With din and clitter-clatter
All but the dog fell foul on me
He licked the broken platter

Although I'm ten years past a score
Too old to play the fool
My mistress says I must give o'er
My service for a school
Good faith! What must I do, and do
To keep my service still
I'll give the winds my thoughts to love
Indeed and so I will

And if the wind my love should lose
Right foolish were the play
For I should mourn what I had lost
And love another day
With crosses and with losses
Right double were the ill
So I'll e'en bear with love and all
Alack, and so I will

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Fairy forests

Grey lichens mid thy hills of creeping thyme

Grow like to fairy forests hung with rime

& fairy money-pots are often found

That spring like little mushrooms out of ground

Some shaped like cups & some in slender trim

Wineglasses like that to the very rim

Are filled with little mystic shining seed

We thought our fortunes promising indeed

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Crimson & yellow

Crimson & yellow bloch'd 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

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The kite pelews

Under the old edge bank or hugh mossed oak

Claspt fast with Ivy there the rabbit breeds

Where the Kite pelews & the Ravens croak

& hares & Rabbits at their leisure feed

So varying Autumn thro her changes runs

Season of sudden storms & brillient suns

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Leaning dotterel head

Flags in the dykes are bleached & brown

Docks by its sides are dry & dead

All but the ivy bows are brown

Upon each leaning dotterels head

Crimsoned with awes the awthorns bend

Oer meadow dykes & rising floods

The wild geese seek the reedy fen

& dark the storm comes oer the woods

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Image by my friend #AnnieLee