Her milking hour

The sun had grown on lessening day
A table large and round
And in the distant vapours grey
Seemed leaning on the ground
When Mary like a lingering flower
Did tenderly agree
To stay beyond her milking hour
And talk awhile with me

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Summer suns

Cheerd by the rural objects as we pass
To were trees shadows keepeth green the grass
Checking intrusions of the summer suns
There drop us down close were the river runs

In sight of rural sounds & pleasing strife

That warms the laughing landscape into life
& while in cheerfull mirth as we prepare
Our sporting things & bait our angles there
With flye or fish of artificial forms
To shun the anguish of the wreathing worms

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Can I carry your books?

O throw aside those carless ways
My conscous heart to move
Affected anger but betrays
Suspicous doubts of love
That face were frowns at will can dwell
Were cold deciet beguiles
May just as easy & as well
Dissemble while it smiles
Tis cruel when false smiles betrays
The heart into a snare
But crueler when slighting ways
Turns pleasures to despair

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Helpston in 1830

On the 24th July 1830 Sophia was born to Patty and John - the family then consisted then of 6 children, Anna (10), Eliza (8 ), Freddy (6) John (4), William (2), and baby Sophia. Grandfather Parker (70) and Ann (66) made up the crowded household of 10 all living in the tenement in Woodgate (a quarter of what is now called ‘Clare Cottage’). What a struggle it must have been, seeking to support such a family.

When with our little ones we spent

Each Sunday after tea,

And up the wood's dark side we went

Or pasture's rushy lea,

To look among the woodland boughs

To find the bird's retreat,

Or crop the cowslip 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 laugh'd the children's joys to view,

Who ran across the lea

At birds that from the rushes flew,

And many a wandering bee.

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Spirit of the woods

Spirit of the woods awake

In thy wildest dress appear
Trace with me the curdled brake
Sound thy wildness in my ear
Genius of the woods that dwells
Sweeping boughs & grains among
As I climb thy rough rude dells
Breath thy roughness in my song

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Image by my friend #AnnieLee

The old fox

He lay upon the furrow stretched for dead,
The old dog lay and licked the wounds that bled,
The ploughman beat him till his ribs would crack,
And then the shepherd slung him at his back;
And when he rested, to his dog's surprise,
The old fox started from his dead disguise;
And while the dog lay panting in the sedge
He up and snapt and bolted through the hedge.

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Liberty?

O england boasted land of liberty 

Wi strangers still thou mayst thy title own 

But thy poor slaves the alteration see 

Wi many a loss to them the truth is known 

Like emigrating bird thy freedoms flown 

While mongrel clowns low as their rooting plough 

Disdain thy laws to put in force their own 

& every village owns its tyrants now 

& parish slaves must live as parish kings alow

(1821)

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Image by my friend #AnnieLee 

Tracking fields

Now tracking fields where passenger appears 

As wading to his waist in crowding grain 

Where ever as we pass the bending ears 

Pat at our sides & gain their place again 

Then crooked stile with little steps that aids 

The climbing meets us—& the pleasant grass 

& hedgrows old with arbours ready made 

For weariness to rest in pleasant shades 

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Happy infancy

Often did I stop to gaze
On each spot once dear to me,
Known 'mong those remember'd days
Of banish'd, happy infancy:
Often did I view the shade
Where once a nest my eyes did fill,
And often mark'd the place I play'd
At "roly poly" down the hill.

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Sheets of snow

As curst improvment gan his fields inclose 

O greens & fields & trees farwell farwell 

His heart wrung pains his unavailing woes 

No words can utter & no tongue can tell 

When ploughs destroyd the green when groves of willows fell 

There once was springs when daises silver studs 

Like sheets of snow on every pasture spread 

There once was summers when the crow flower buds 

Like golden sunbeams brightest lustre shed 

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Flowers & Spring

& has the springs all glorious eye

No lesson to the mind

The birds that cleave the golden sky

Things to the earth resigned

Wild flowers that dance to every wind

Do they no memory leave behind

Aye flowers the very name of flowers

That bloom in wood & glen

Bring spring to me in winter hours

& childhoods dreams again

The primrose on the woodland lea

Was more than wealth & gold to me

The violets by the woodland side

As thick as they could snive

Ive talkd to them with childish pride 

As things that were alive

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The crowing coks

The crowing coks the morns for told
The Sun begins to peep
& Shepherds Wistling to the Fold
Sets free the Captive Sheep
Oer pathless plains at early hours
The Sleepy Rustic goes
The dews brushd off from Gras & flowers
Bemoists his hardend Shoes

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Nought guessing

And green lane traverse heedless where it goes
Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies
Rude battered finger post, that stooping shows
Where the snug mystery lies;
And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown,
Clears up the short surprise,

And shows a peeping town.

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Gipsies

To me how wildly pleasing is that scene

Which does present in evenings dusky hour
A Group of Gipsies center'd on the green
In some warm nook where Boreas has no power
Where sudden starts the quivering blaze behind
Short shrubby bushes nibbl'd by the sheep
That alway on these shortsward pastures keep
Now lost now shines now bending with the wind
And now the swarthy Sybil kneels reclin'd
With proggling stick she still renews the blaze
Forcing bright sparks to twinkle from the flaze
When this I view the all attentive mind
Will oft exclaim (so strong the scene prevades)

‘Grant me this life, thou spirit of the shades!’

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Crimmocking Cow

I've got an ould crimmocking Cow
And a Dairy for butter I ween
Three hens that lays eggs just enow
To boil one for Roger at een
A rusty flick hangs i' the neuk
All sooty and salt to the bone
A Frying pan ready to cook
When Roger comes courting alone

 

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

The rustle of thy Sunday gown

I often longed, when wandering up and down,

To hear the rustle of thy Sunday gown;
And when we met, I passed, and let thee go,
And felt I loved, but dare not tell thee so:
Snares are so thickly spread on woman's way,
The common ballad teaches, men betray.
I thought and felt it rudeness if I tried,
And well-meant kindness might be misapplied

 

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Image by my friend #AnnieLee

Climate Catastrophe?

Clare writing 200 years ago, but strangely prophetic.

The pleasant hues of woods & fields was past

& natures beautys had enjoyd their last

The colord flower the green of field & tree

What they had been forever ceasd to be

Grass shriveld brown in miserable hues

& showers of fire dryd up the hissing dews

Leaves crumbld ashes in the airs hot breath

& all awaited universal death

The sleeping birds scard from their mossy nest

Beat through the evil air in vain for rest

& many a bird the withering shades among

Wakend to perish oer its brooded young

 

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Childhood’s happy hour

O'er its green hills I've often stray'd 
In childhood's happy hour, 
Oft sought the nest along the shade 
& gather'd many a flower; 
& there, with playmates often join'd 
In fresher sports to plan; 
But now increasing years have coin'd 
Those children into man.

 

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Superstition

O superstition terryfying power 

Thou dithering agent of Nights solemn hour 

How (when pitch darkness glooms the awful night) 

Thy dithering terrors rush upon the sight 

Then the grim terrors of thy haunting train 

Swim thro the gloom & stalk along the plain

 

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

 

Landscapes

The landscapes stretching view that opens wide
With dribbling brooks & rivers wider floods
& hills & vales & darksome lowering woods
With grains of varied hues & grasses pied
The low brown cottage in the shelter'd nook
The steeple peeping just above the trees
Whose dangling leaves keep rustling in the breeze

 

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The little wren

Within a closes nook beneath a shed

Nigh to the stack where stock in winter fed

Where black thorn thickets crowded close behind

& shielded cows & maidens from the wind

Two maidens sat free from the pasture sloughs

& told each other as they milked their cows

Their evening thoughts of love—while over head

The little Wren from its new dwelling fled

 

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How calm…

How calm is the even down in the narrow lane 

Where white thorn & woodbine & dog roses meet 

How bright is the dew on the dog rose again 

While grey mist creeps over like the days winding sheet 

O beautiful the silver mist will hang on flowers 

& pearl oer the freckles O the fox glove bell 

How sweet is the stillness O eventide hours 

When in the green oak leaves ring doves do dwell 

 

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Whistle like the birds

I've often tried, when tending sheep and cow,

With bits of grass and peels of oaten straw,

To whistle like the birds. The thrush would start

To hear her song, and pause, and fly away;

The blackbird never cared, but sang again;

The nightingale's fine song I could not try;

And when the thrush would mock her song, she paused,

And sang another song no bird could do!

 

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The heron trails

The day is dull the heron trails
On flapping wings like heavy sails
And oer the mead so lowly swings
She fans the herbage with her wings

 

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Every tree is strange

Here every tree is strange to me

All foreign things where ere I go

There none where boyhood made a swee

Or clambered up to rob a crow

No hollow tree or woodland bower

Well known when joy was beating high

Where beauty ran to shun a shower

& love took pains to keep her dry

 

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Stream a silver streak

While glides the stream a silver streak between

As glides the shaded clouds along the sky

Brightning & deep'ning loosing as they're seen

In light & shade—so when old willows lean

Thus their broad shadow—runs the river bye

With tree & bush repleat a wilderd scene

& mossd & Ivyd sparkling on my eye—

O thus wild musing am I doubly blest

My woes unheeding—& my heart at rest

 

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Mouldering wall

Yon nettles where theyre left to spred

There once a garden smild

& lovly was the spot to view

Tho now so lost & wild

& where the sickly eldern loves

To top the mouldering wall

& Ivys kind encroaching care

Delayd the tottering fall

 

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The meadow flags

The meadow flags now rustle bleached & dank
& misted oer with down as fine as dew
The sloe & dewberry shine along the bank
Where weeds in blooms luxuriance lately grew
Red rose the sun & up the morehen flew
From bank to bank the meadow arches stride
Where foamy floods in winter tumbles through
& spread a restless ocean foaming wide
Where now the cowboys sleep nor fear the coming tide

 

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Rut rifted lane

The cockchafer hums down the rut-rifted lane
Where the wild roses hang and the woodbines entwine,
And the shrill squeaking bat makes his circles again
Round the side of the tavern close by the sign.
The sun is gone down like a wearisome queen,
In curtains the richest that ever were seen.

 

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One continued song

Then thread the sunny valley laced with streams,
Or forests rude, and the oershadowed brims
Of simple ponds, where idle shepherd dreams,
And streaks his listless limbs;
Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long,
Where joy's wild impulse swims
In one continued song.

 

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd