Bluebells
Bowed oer green moss & pearled in morning dew
Shedding a shower of pearls as soon as shook
In every wood hedgegap theyre shineing through
Smelling of spring & beautifully blue
Childhood & Spring how beautifully dwells
Their memories in the woods we now walk through
O balmy days of spring in white thorn dells
How beautifull are woods & their bluebells
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Startled from slumber
The crows & ravens even cease to croak
The little birds sit chittering on the thorn
The pies scarce chatter when they leave the oak
Startled from slumber by the woodmans stroke
The milk maids song is drownd in gloomy care
& while the village chimneys curl their smoke
She milks & blows & hastens to be there
& nature all seems sad & dying in despair
The little birds sit chittering on the thorn
The pies scarce chatter when they leave the oak
Startled from slumber by the woodmans stroke
The milk maids song is drownd in gloomy care
& while the village chimneys curl their smoke
She milks & blows & hastens to be there
& nature all seems sad & dying in despair
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd
Stand & show
& smooth spruce visage that can hide a lie
In fairest speech & meditate a wrong
Under prayers masking—put that covering bye
That hid thy speckled snakes thy whole life long
Here truth reigns absolute—nay pass not bye
That mask must off—& thy deformity
In nakedness of deeds must stand & show
The hypocrite that seemed a saint below
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Sadder than tears
Flowers shall hang upon the pawls
Brighter than patterns upon shawls
& blossoms shall be in the coffin lids
Sadder than tears on griefs eyelids
Garlands shall hide pale corps faces
When beauty shall rot in charnel places
Spring flowers shall come in dews of sorrow
For the maiden goes down to her grave tomorrow
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Wealthy thieves
A saying thats in season at all times
Or why should the poor sinning starving clown
Meet jail & hanging for a stolen crown
While wealthy thieves with knaverys bribes endued
Plunder their millions & are not pursued
Nay at the foot of Tyburns noted tree
They do deserving deeds & still go free
Where others suffer for some pigmy cause
They all but murder & escape the laws
Skulking awhile in briberys dirty den
Then start new gilt & pass as honest men
Daily #JohnClare posts
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White necks peering
Then drop & nestle in the stubble ground
The wild swan hurries high & noises loud
With white necks peering to the evening cloud
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone
With length of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree & leaves the distant crow
While small birds nestle in the hedge below
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd
Heavy winged kite
& there came the linnet with wool in its bill
To build its new nest in the hedge or the thorn
& there I could see the black sails of the mill
& the spire in the gray sleeping light of the morn
& there came the heavy-wingd kite oer the lea
& the old hens they calld for their chickens aloud
& there the black crow came & perchd on the tree
& the lark hid itself in the black bosomd cloud
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd
Tis spring
Tis Spring my love 'tis Spring
& the birds begin to sing
If 'twas Winter left alone with you
Your bonny form & face
Would make a Summer place
& be the finest flower that ever grew.
Tis Spring my love 'tis Spring
Tis Spring my love 'tis Spring
& the hazel catkins hing
While the snowdrop has its little blebs of dew
But thats not so white within
As your bosoms hidden skin--
That sweetest of all flowers that ever grew
While the snowdrop has its little blebs of dew
But thats not so white within
As your bosoms hidden skin--
That sweetest of all flowers that ever grew
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Accursed Wealth
Clare’s famous words, expunged from his first published book when his rich supporters realised what they meant. But, still true today.
Now all laid waste by Desolations hand
Whose cursed weapons level half the land
O who could see my dear green willows fall
What feeling heart but dropt a tear for all
Accursed Wealth oer-bounding human laws
Of every evil thou remainst the cause
Victims of want those wretches such as me
Too truly lay their wretchedness to thee
Thou art the bar that keeps from being fed
& thine our loss of labour & of bread
Thou art the cause that levels every tree
& woods bow down to clear a way for thee
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Warm gorse blossoms
& trembles in the dead grass oer the heath
The silver rain pearls in the wild flowers bosoms
& moistens minute flowers of moss beneath
There i' the morning dew I early ramble
What time beneath the fern the weary moth
Hides from the sun in dew drops hangs the bramble
As down the rabbit track I venture forth
The silver rain pearls in the wild flowers bosoms
& moistens minute flowers of moss beneath
There i' the morning dew I early ramble
What time beneath the fern the weary moth
Hides from the sun in dew drops hangs the bramble
As down the rabbit track I venture forth
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Sheltering tree
& hourly whiten oer the lea
Yet when from clouds the sun is free
& warms the learning bird to sing
Neath sloping bank & sheltering tree
Tis sweet to watch the creeping spring
Though still so early one may spy
& track her footsteps every hour
The daisy with its golden eye
& primrose bursting into flower
Daily #JohnClare posts
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Mice
When all around have sunk to sleep
To feast on what the cotter leaves
Mice are not reckoned greater thieves
They take away as well as eat
& still the housewifes eye they cheat
In spite of all the folks that swarm
In cottage small & larger farm
They through each key-hole pop & pop
Like wasps into a grocers shop
With all the things that they can win
From chance to put their plunder in
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Peace & calm joy
Tuneless I hum my wonder songs into rhyme
Mere scraps of what I think or feel or see
While sauntering narrow lanes – they are to me
A heritage of happiness & yields
Peace & calm joy from the refreshing fields
(A Clare ‘unpublished fragment’)Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #RachelBurch
The crow
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
Where swains are stirring out to plough
& woods are just at hand
They seek the uplands sunny brow
& strut from land to land
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd
I oped each gate…
& stood to listen ploughmen sing
While cracking whip & jingling gears
Recalld the toils of boyish years
When like to them I took my rounds
Oer elting moulds of fallow grounds—
With feet nigh shoeless paddling through
The bitterest blasts that ever blew
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott
The paths of spring
Will turn half round a stooping man to see
& wonder why a man so old should sing
Humming along as bums the bumble bee
For though so old a merry man is he
& where he goes right merry is the way
You hear him ere you see him down the grain
As sings the skylark at the peep of day
Or trudging on the narrow crooked lane
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott
Old ivyied oaks
Hangs oer the pond in Pictur[e]sque decay
Where full of life the flaggy water swarms
There would I sit and loiter life away
Or closly hid in some sequesterd nook
Where dead Grass rustles to the fanning gale
Pass the lone minutes with a storied Book
& read in rapture each deligh[tful] tale
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott
Work is done
Welcome red & roundy sun
Dropping lowly in the west
Now my hard days work is done
Im as happy as the best
Joyful are the thoughts of home
Now Im ready for my chair
So till morrow-mornings come
Bill & mittens lie ye there
Though to leave your pretty song
Little birds it gives me pain
Yet to-morrow is not long
Then Im with you all again
Little birds it gives me pain
Yet to-morrow is not long
Then Im with you all again
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Martinmass
Tis martinmass from rig to rig
Ploughed fields & meadow lands are blea
In hedge & field each restless twig
Is dancing on the naked tree
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
The crowds of lapwings load the air
With buzes of a thousand wings
There flocks of starnels too repair
When morning oer the valley springs
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd
Sweet the birds
Blackbird linnet lark & thrush
Music from a many tongues
Melted from each dripping bush
Deafnd echo on the plain
As the sunbeams broke the cloud
Scarce coud help repeat the strain
Natures anthem flowd so loud
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd
from ‘The Dream’
The sleepy birds, scared from their mossy nest,
Beat through the evil air in vain for rest;
And many a one, the withering shades among,
Wakened to perish o'er its brooded young.
The cattle, startled with the sudden fright,
Sicken'd from food, and madden'd into flight;
And steed and beast in plunging speed pursued
The desperate struggle of the multitude.
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Sweet love
Sweet love I see the gales o’ Spring
Are wanton wooing with thy hair
The missle thrush begins to sing
The sloe tree shews its blossoms fair
The white thorn bush is shewing leaf
The path is printed down the lane
The grass is green the shower brief
Come love now let us meet again
Daily #JohnClare postings
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One eternal green
Bespread with rush & one eternal green
That never felt the rage of blundering ploughmans
Though centuries wreathed spring blossoms on its brow
Autumn met plains that stretched them far away
In unchecked shadows of green brown & grey
Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene
No fence of ownership crept in between
To hide the prospect from the gazing eye
Its only bondage was the circling sky
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Langley bush as it is today
I sat beside old Langley Bush
& oer the furze in Hanglands Wood
I listened at the singing thrush
Naught did my idle mind engross
The tiny flixweeds only flower
Was there & little beds of moss
Swelled pleaching to the sunny hour
I passed it in a sicker day
The golden furze-blooms burnt the wind
With sultry sweets—& there I lay
Tormented with the saddest mind
The little hill did naked lie
The old old bush was broke & gone
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #MarcusThompson
A palace green
So beautifull the chappel peeps between
The hornbeams—with its simple bell—alone
I wander here hid in a palace green
Mary is abscent—but the forest queen
Nature is with me—morning noon & gloaming
I write my poems in these paths unseen
& when among these brakes & beeches roaming
I sigh for truth & home & love & woman
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Sweet cares rest
Trees seem dark hills between the earth & sky
Winds sob awake & then a gusty hist
Fanns through the wheat like serpents gliding bye
I love to stretch my length 'tween earth & sky
& see the inky foliage oer me wave
Though shades are still my prison where I lie
Long use grows nature which I easy brave
& think how sweet cares rest within the grave
Daily #JohnClare postings
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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott
from Child Harold
To Live & Die & Live Again
Say What Is Love—Is It To Be
In Prison Still & Still Be Free
Or Seem As Free—Alone & Prove
The Hopeless Hopes of Real Love
Does Real Love On Earth Exist
Tis Like A Sun beam On The Mist
That Fades & No Where Will Remain
& Nowhere Is Oertook Again
Say What Is Love—A Blooming Name
A Rose Leaf On The Page Of Fame
That Blooms Then Fades—To Cheat No More
& Is What Nothing Was Before
Say What Is Love—What E'er It be
It Centre's Mary Still With Thee
Daily #JohnClare postings
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