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

Poets see & understand

There is music without ere a bird

There is bloom without ere a flower

For eolean winds we oft have heard

& the grass blooms fresher every hour

The very rushes seem as flowers

That nod above the marshy grass

Through which the winds in summer hours

Whistle & winnow as they pass

The lark may leave the new ploughed land

& settle in another place

Yet poets see & understand

Sweet music in its russet face

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

These motley scenes

Now Autumns come adieu the pleasing greens
The charming landscape & the flowry plain
All have deserted from these motley scenes
With blighted yellow tingd & russet stain

Though desolation seems to triumph here
Yet this is Spring to what we still shall find
The trees must all in nakedness appear
'Reft of their foliage by the blustiy wind

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Deepening dye

The sinken sun is takin leave

& sweetly gilds the edge of eve

While purple [clouds] of deepening dye

Huddling hang the western skye

Crows crowd quaking oever head

Hastening to the woods to bed

Cooing sits the lonly dove

Calling home her abscent love

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Truth & Honesty

Been thinking again about how ordinary folk across the world have been let down again and again by our so-called 'leaders'.  A few years ago I uncovered and published this poem by the Romantic poet John Clare, written around 1827.  Does it not speak to us in 2024?

‘Gold is a general purchaser – buys all

‘From the high altar, palace, bench & hall

‘Down to the humble cottage hut or stall

‘Buys smiles or tears melts eyes or drys 'em – gold

‘Like Esops satire buys breath hot and cold

‘Makes out all wants & all defects supplies

‘Een the old wrinkled hag young courtier buys

‘Buys knaves an office traitors power & trust

‘High & low fliers bought with shining dust

‘Buys villany a mask hypocrisy paint

‘Buys inside devil the out side face o’ saint

‘Buys tyrants champions – cut throats, caps & knees

‘Buys lies & oaths, buys souls & consiences

‘What is it which that tempting ore cant buy

‘Buys everything but truth & honesty

(excerpt)

Fen sparrows chirp

At distance from the waters edge

On hanging thorn boughs farthest stretch

The more hen 'gins her nest of sedge

Safe from destroying boys to reach

Fen sparrows chirp & flye to fetch 

The witherd reed down rustling nigh

& by the sunny side the ditch

Prepare their dwelling warm & dry

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Tell my love

Can you ye breezes oaks or streem

Can you in thought in form or dream

A lovers herald prove

They wisper yes O precious scenes

I love your shades of various greens

Go truly tell my love

& first this flower shall be addrest

Perhaps the first by B[etse]y prest

When hither she does rove

O charming flower if ever she

Should press the velvet leaves like me

Neer fail to tell my love

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Moonlights infant hour

O how sweet I cannot tell

With thee at that hour to dwell

Peace & silence sits wi thee

& peace alone is heaven to me

While the moonlights infant hour

Faint gins creep to gild the bower

& the wattld hedge gleams round

Its diamond shadows oer the ground

O thou soothing solitude 

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Life’s mortal things

I never pass a venerable tree

Pining away to nothingness & dust
Ruins vain shades of power I never see
Once dedicated to times cheating trust
But warm reflection wakes her saddest thought
& views lifes vanity in cheerless light
& sees earths bubbles youth so eager sought
Burst into emptiness of lost delight
& all the pictures of lifes early day
Like evenings striding shadows haste away
Yet theres a glimmering of pleasure springs
From such reflections of earths vanity
That pines & sickens oer lifes mortal things
& leaves a relish for eternity

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Beautiful mortals

Beautiful mortals of the glowing earth

And children of the season crowd together
In showers and sunny weather
Ye beautiful spring hours
Sunshine and all together
I love wild flowers

The rain drops lodge on the swallows wing
Then fall on the meadow flowers
Cowslips and enemonies all come with spring
Beaded with first showers
The skylarks in the cowslips sing
I love wild flowers

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Gold tinted west

Come beautiful maiden while autumn delays
And the sunsets so sweet in the gold tinted west
While the fading beach tree sets the woods in a blaze
And the lark sings his song e're he sinks into rest

In Autumns gone by how fondly I press't thee
And loved thee sincerely, and so I do now
As I wandered along with thee ever near me
While the leaves they were fading on every bough

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A Bubble on the stream

What is Life?—an hour glass on the run

A mist retreating from the morning sun

A busy bustling still repeated dream

Its Length?—A minutes pause—a moments thought

& happines?—A Bubble on the stream

That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought—

Vain hopes what are they?—Puffing gales of morn

That of its charms divests the dewy lawn

& robs each flowret of its gem—& dies

A Cobweb hiding dissapointments thorn

Which stings more keener thro the thin disguise

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Neath the wind shaking tree

Emma my darling the summer is bye
The autumn is faded and cloudy the sky
The willows are changing—the hips and the hawe's
Now glow on the hedges—as red as birds claws

'Till fieldfairs come from far far away
And carry off berries and hips all the day
Winds sing in the hedges like notes of a bird
And the sedges they cut like the edge of a sword

The hedges will shelter my Emma and me
As we walk down the wood neath the wind shaking tree
The seugh through the hedges, the swop of black crows
How the bushy tops dance, and how swift the mill goes

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As desolate as hell

Fierce raged destruction sweeping oer the land
& the last counted moment seemed at hand

As scales near equal hang the earnest eyes
In doubtful balance which shall fall or rise
So in the moment of that crashing blast
Eyes hearts & hopes paused trembling for the last
Loud burst the thunders clap & yawning rents
Gashed the frail garments of the elements
Then sudden whirlwinds winged with purple flame
& lightnings flash in stronger terrors came
Burning all life & nature where they fell
& leaving earth as desolate as hell

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Wild Gwash

Upon thy winding side wild gwash I lie 

Viewing with curious eye the silver bream 

Taking vaunting springs to trap the thoughtless flye 

That heedless dances on thy gentle stream 

The black snail wakens from the swoons of day 

& from the boughs that nestle by thy side 

The light wing'd moths steal out again to play 

Crossing with hasty wing thy rippling tide

How sweet the blackbird chaunts her evening song

While the shrill larks in twittering chorus join

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Cold & blealy blew

I love thee well & often when a child

Have roamd the bare brown heath a flower to find

& in the moss clad vale & wood bank wild

Have cropt the little bell flowers paley blue

That trembling peept the sheltering bush behind

When winnowing north winds cold & blealy blew

How have I joyd wi dithering hands to find

Each fading flower & still how sweet the blast

Woud bleak novembers hour restore the joy thats past

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Drenchd in dew

Though long grass all the day is drenchd in dew

& splashy pathways lead me oer the greens

Though naked fields hang lonely on the view

Long lost to harvest & its busy scenes

Yet in the distance shines the painted bough

Leaves changed to every colour ere they die

& through the valley rivers widen now

Once little brooks which summer dribbled dry

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I am left alone

The photo is the famous one taken in the early 1860s of Clare, by J. Taylor & Sons of Northampton.  I guess, but only a guess, the Taylor of ‘Taylor & Hessey’ Clare’s publishers?  The faded, signed photo is my own prized possession, the second an unfaded copy from the internet.  I’ve no idea how many of these prints were produced, but I have seen three (including mine) over the years; and yes, that is Clare’s signature.  The poem?  Another little known, this time late poem from his ‘captivity’.

 

Left in the world alone
Where nothing seems my own
& everything is weariness to me
'Tis a life without an end
'Tis a world without a friend
& everything is sorrowful I see

Theres the crow upon the stack
& other birds all black
While novembers frowning wearily
& the black clouds dropping rain
Till the floods hide half the plain
& everything is weariness to me

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

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Peaceful windings

Wereover many a stile neeth willows grey
The winding footpath leaves the public way
Free from the dusty din & ceasless chime
Of bustling waggons in the summer time
Crossing a brook—were braving storms in vain

Two willows fell & still for brigs remain
Corn field & clover closes leading down
In peacful windings to the neighbouring town

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Verses on life

Seems strange when, from the various manuscripts, Clare seemed to spend a great deal of time on ‘Verses of life’, and yet it remained unpublished until the Tibbles included it in their two-volume collection in 1935; since then, nothing.  It dates from the middle of his voluminous output, and perhaps it simply just got forgotten.  Must admit, I do find it not only a good description of the human condition, but it contains a glimmering of hope too.  IMHO a masterpiece.

 

Verses on life

 

Life was & is & still will be

Of cares the endless history

By hopes conceived by trouble penned

Which joys began & sorrows end

 

If at the first a smile appears

'Tis but the prologue unto tears

Where each leaf is when turned oer

The echo of those turned before

 

Life was & is & will be on

A ruin with its glory gone

A wreck that braves the storms in vain

For calms it neer shall know again

 

A dream enjoyed with fancys eyes

Where hope awakes without a prize

A path whose starting all admire

That leads to naught but thorn & brier

 

Life is a game where thousands choose

To hazard even all & lose

A lottery where millions pawn

Their chance though blanks are death when drawn

 

One prize is all & they are wise

Who let their reason choose that prize

The gem of life it proves when got

& poor are they who have it not

 

Its value at the last shall be

A passport for eternity

Without bush or tree

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon
& if the sun looks through tis with a face
Beamless & pale & round as if the moon
When done the journey of her nightly race
Had found him sleeping & supplied his place
For days the shepherds in the fields may be
Nor mark a patch of sky -- blindfold they trace
The plains that seem without a bush or tree
Whistling aloud by guess to flocks they cannot see

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Faded leaves away

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 cottage smoke 
Curl upwards through the trees
The pigeons nestled round the cote 
On November days like these
The cock upon the dunghill crowing
The mill sails on the heath a-going

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