The drowking flower

& upon the dripping ground

As the shower had ceasd again
As the eye was wandering round
Trifling troubles causd a pain
Overtaken in the shower
Bumble-bees I wanderd by
Clinging to The drowking flower
Left without the power to fly

#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The tramp

He eats (a moment's stoppage to his song)

The stolen turnip as he goes along

& hops along & heeds with careless eye

The passing crowded stage coach reeling by

He talks to none but wends his silent way

& finds a hovel at the close of day

Or under any hedge his house is made

He has no calling & he owns no trade

An old smoked blanket arches oer his head

A wisp of straw or stubble makes his bed

#photography #poetry #environment

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 shade the sun did hide
Though twas hot it seemed sweet

#photography #poetry #environment

To naked fen they fly

The crow will tumble up & down

At the first sight of spring

& in old trees around the town

Brush winter from its wing

No longer flapping far away

To naked fen they fly

Chill fare as on a winters day

But field & valley nigh

#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Streamlet bubling bye

Flowrets sleeps within their hoods

Daisys button into buds

From soiling dew the butter cup

Shuts his golden jewels up

& the Rose & wood bine they

Wait again the smiles of day

Neath the willows wavy boughs

Nelly singing milks her cows

While the streamlet bubling bye

Joins in murmuring melody

#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Rude rags of nature

Swamps of wild rush beds & sloughs squashy traces

Grounds of rough fallows wi thistle & weed
Flats & low vallies of king cups & daiseys
Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed

Ye commons left free in the rude rags of nature
Ye brown heaths be cloathed in furze as ye be
My wild eye in rapture adores e'ery feature
Yere as dear as this heart in my bosom to me

#photography #poetry #environment

That map of boyhood overcast

#JohnClare

After long abscence how the mind recalls

Pleasing associations of the past

Haunts of his youth—thorn hedges & old walls

& hollow trees that sheltered from the blast

& all that map of boyhood overcast

With glooms & wrongs & sorrows not his own

That oer his brow like the scathed lightening past

That turned his spring to winter & alone

Wrecked name & fame & all—to solitude unknown

#photography #poetry #environment

Against ale (?)

The parson may preach

Against ale, and beseech

His church folks to head no such liquor

But in neat sanded rooms

With young girls in their blooms

Pray who'd ever think of the vicar?

Then leave that dull dunce

Let's have sandwich for lunch

And pull at the tankard or pitcher

#photography #poetry #environment

In glory run

#JohnClare

The scattered clouds lie calm and still,
And day throws gold on every hill;
Their thousand heads in glory run,
As each were worlds and owned a sun.
The rime it clings to everything,
It beards the early buds of spring;
The mossy pales, the orchard spray,
Are feathered with its silver-grey.

#photography #poetry #environment

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

#photography #poetry #environment

Tracing the lane path

#JohnClare

O simple nature how I do delight

To pause upon thy trifles—foolish things

So some woud call em—on the summer night

Tracing the lane path where the dog rose hings

Wi dew drops seathd while chickering cricket sings

My eye cant help but glance upon its leaves

Where loves warm beauty steals her sweetest blush

When sweet the while the even silence heaves

Her pausing breath just trembling thro the bush

#photography #poetry #environment

Their very nakedness I love

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

#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Sukey

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

#photography #poetry #environment

[Image: One of Lady Clementina Hawarden's lovely daughters, photographed around 1860]

Perfuming the garden of life

O woman sweet witchingly woman 

Amid the worlds bustle & strife 

Thourt the only sweet blossom thats blooming 

Perfuming the garden of life 

Thourt the only pure fountain thats given 

From whence all true pleasures doth flow 

The angels are unknowns of heaven 

But womans real angels below 

#photography #poetry #environment

Daisies

And oft the shepherd in his path will spye
The little daisey in the wet grass lye
That to the peeping sun enlivens gay
Like Labour smiling on an holiday
And where the stunt bank fronts the southern sky
By lanes or brooks where sunbeams love to lye

#photography #poetry #environment

Unbidden they are gone

Summers pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
& the cloudy days of autumn & of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart & eye & forever far away
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone

#photography #poetry #environment

Showy corn poppies

The partridge whirs up frit away from her nest 

& the hare with the morning dew yet on her breast 

Jumps away from his hustle & bustle & noise 

Which he makes in the midst of his rapture & joys

Now singing & tearing up weeds of all sorts 

Showy corn poppys shining like foxhunters coats 

& bluecaps & cockleflowers no matter what 

To make a gay garland to stick in his hat 

& now he struts out what a gesture he wears 

As proud of his colours as soldiers of theirs

#photography #poetry #environment

Poppies from my wildflower meadow

Leisure

I went in the fields with the leisure I got
The stranger might smile but I heeded him not
The hovel was ready to screen from a shower
& the book in my pocket was read in an hour
The bird came for shelter but soon flew away
The horse came to look & seemed happy to stay
He stood up in quiet & hung down his head
& seemed to be hearing the poem I read

#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

My illness was love

I peeled bits o straws and I got switches too
From the grey peeling willow as idlers do
And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
Till my flesh, blood & marrow wasted to the dry bone;

My illness was love though I knew not the smart
But the beauty o love was the blood o my heart

#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Willows over a stream on Dartmoor

Reveal the day

No single hour can stand for nought

No moment hand can move
But calenders a aching thought
Of my first lonely love

Where silence doth the loudest call
My secrets to betray
As moonlight holds the night in thrall
As suns reveal the day

#photography #poetry #environment

Lovely things

They are such lovely things
And make the very seasons where they come
The nightingale is smothered where she sings
Above their scented bloom
O what delight the cuckoo music brings
I love wild flowers

#photography #poetry #environment

Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Joy or despair

Peggy ye might bin my death wi yer scorning 

Im sure tis yer pleasure to do as ye may 

For ere sin I helpd ye to milk in the morning 

Yeve 'ployd all my thoughts for the rest of the day 

Yer sweet slender body so light & so jimping 

Yer arms so well shapd & yer brown curley hair 

Yer gait so belady like spoilt wi no limping 

Left ye the power to gi joy or despair 

(from Hodges Confession)

#photography #poetry #environment

Sweet Mary

How could I how should I — that loved her so early
Forget when I've sung of her beauty in song
How could I forget what I've worshiped so dearly
From boyhood to manhood and all my life long
As leaves to the branches in summer comes daily
& blossoms will bloom on the stalk & the tree
To her beauty I'll cling & i'll love her as truly
& think of sweet Mary wherever I be

#photography #poetry #environment

The photo is of Glinton Church where Mary was buried 3 years before Clare wrote the poem.

The nettle

Tall grows the nettle by the hedgeway side

& bye the old barn end they shade the wall
In sunshine nodding to the angry tide
Of winds that winnows bye—these one & all
Makes up the harmony of Spring—& all
That passes feel a sudden love for flowers
They look so green—& when the soft showers fall
They grow so fast—Dock Burdocks Henbane—all
Who loves not wild flowers bye the old stone wall

#photography #poetry #environment

The dew falls

The Dew falls on the weed & on the flower
The rose & thistle bathe their heads in dew
The lowliest heart may have its prospering hour
The saddest bosom meet its wishes true
E'en I may joy love happiness renew
Though not the sweets of my first early days
When one sweet face was all the loves I knew
& my soul trembled on her eyes to gaze
Whose very censure seemed intended praise

#photography #poetry #environment

Our footsteps

To sip of the dew the worm pep[t] from his den

But dreading our footsteps soon vanishd agen

& numbers of creatures apeard in our sight

That live in the silence & sweetness of night

Climbing up the tall grasses or scaling the bough

But these were all namless unoticd till now

& we listnd well pleasd at the guggles & groans

The water made passing the pebbles & stones

& then we turnd up by the rut rifted lane

& sought for our cot & the village again

#photography #poetry #environment

Like gold minted new

I see the wild flowers in their summer morn
Of beauty feeding on joys luscious hours
The gay convolvulus wreathing round the thorn
Agape for honey showers
& slender kingcup burnished with the dew
Of mornings early hours
Like gold minted new

#photography #poetry #environment

Image : detail from my wildflower meadow

Old Heath

I love to see the old heaths withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze & ling

I love to see the old heaths withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze & ling
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow & flaps his melancholy wing
& oddling crow in idle motions swing
The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn
& for the awe round fields & closen rove

& coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
& hang on little twigs & start again

#photography #poetry #environment