One delicious green

Here is Carry's painting that illustrates the following lines. Incidentally, postcards of it (and a number of other paintings) are available from Carry by post. Try www.carryakroyd.co.uk

The one delicious green that now pervades
The woods and fields in endless lights and shades
And that deep softness of delicious hues
That overhead blends-softens-and subdues
The eye to extacy and fills the mind
With views and visions of enchanting kind
While on the velvet down beneath the swail
I sit on mossy stulp and broken rail
Or lean oer crippled gate by hugh old tree
Broken by boys disporting there at swee
While sunshine spread from an exaustless sky
Gives all things extacy as well as I
And all wood-swaily places even they
Are joys own tennants keeping holiday

 

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Image by my friend Carry Akroyd

Waking fond desire

And o'er the meadows gleams that slender spire
Reminding me of one & waking fond desire
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 absence fate that would deter
My hate for all things strengthens love for her

 

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The wind & trees

I love the song of tree & wind 
How beautiful they sing 
The licken on the beach tree rind 
Een beats the flowers of spring 

From the southwest sugh sugh it comes 
Then whizes round in pleasant hums 
It sings the spirit of the storm 
The trees with dancing waxes warm 

They dance and bow & dance again 
The very trunks each branch & grain 
Shake & dance & wave & bow 
In every form no matter how 

In every storm they dance on high 
The semblance of a stormy sky 
Then sob & roar & bend & swee 
The semblance of a stormy sea 

I love the song of wood & wind 
The sobs before its roar behind 
I love the stir of flood & tree 
Tis all of natures melody 

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Posies at even

T’was down in the cow pasture just at the gloaming
I met a young woman sweet tempered & mild,
I said “Pretty maiden say where are you roving?”
“I'm walking at even,” she answered & smiled
“Here my sweetheart & I gathered posies at even
Its eight years ago since they sent him to sea.
Wild flowers hung with dew are like angels from heaven
They look up in my face and keep whispering to me.”

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Summer Amusements

I love to hide me on a spot that lies 
In solitudes where footsteps find no track 
To make intrusions there to sympathize 
With nature often gazing on the rack 
That veils the blueness of the summer skies 
In rich varieties or o'er the grass 
Behold the spangled crowds of butterflies 
Flutter from flower to flower & things that pass 
In urgent travel by my still retreat
The bustling beetle tribes & up the stem 
Of bents see lady-cows with nimble feet 
Climb tall church-steeple heights or more to them
Till at its quaking top they take their seat
Which bows & off they fly fresh happiness to meet

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The insect world

The insect world amid the suns & dew 
Awake & hum their tiny songs anew
& climb the totter grass & blossoms stem 
As huge in size as mighty oaks to them
& rushy burnets on the pasture rise 
As tall as castles to their little eyes
Each leafs a town & the smooth meadow grass 
A mighty world whose bounds they never pass

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Image ‘Meadowsweet and Great Burnet’

by my friend John Abbott

The ramping kecks

Where beesom weed that high wind leaves 
Blossoms & blooms above the eaves 
The old cow-crib is mossed & green 
As if it just had painted been 
The ramping kecks in orchard gaps 
Shake like green neighbours in white caps 
On which the snail will climb & dwell 
For three weeks in its painted shell 
There the white nosed clock a clay
Red and black spot[t]ed sits all day

keck=cow parsley

Clock a clay=ladybird

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Scorching Ray

The garish Summer comes with many tribes

Of gay and gaudy flowers in bright array
But the hot sun the cloudy morning bribes
& dries all moisture with his scorching ray
Corn-poppies oft a scarlet host display
The oak woods green like rocky masses hing 
On wooded hills the willows waving grey
Hang mournful in the stream birds cease to sing
The sweetest poesy of the year is Spring!

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Weeds obscure

The finest flower beneath the sky

& like to thee lives many a swain

With Genius blest—but like to thee

So humble lowly mean & plain

No one will notice them nor me

So like to thee they live unknown

Wild weeds obscure—& like to thee

Their sweets are sweet to them alone

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Cobwebs glitter

Up to the very clouds again 
That sprinkle scuds of coming rain
That fly & drizzle all the day 
Till dripping grass is turned to grey
The various clouds [now] move or lie 
Like mighty travellers in the sky
All mountainous & ridged and curled
That may have travelled round the world. 
When the rain at midday stops
Spangles glitter in the drops
& as each thread a sunbeam was
Cobwebs glitter in the grass

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Thy enchanted spire

Glinton thy taper spire predominates
over the landscape and the mind
musing the pleasing picture contemplates
like elegance of beauty much refined
by taste that almost defies and elevates
once admiration making common things
around it glow with beauty not their own
Thus all around the earth superior things
those struggling trees though lonely seem not lone
but in thy presence wear superior power
and e’en each mossed and melancholy stone
gleaning cold memories round oblivions bower
seems types of fair eternity & hire
a lease from fame by thy enchanting spire

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The path brushes nigh

The bushes that rustle & catch at thy gown

The trees that thy pathway envelopes in leaves

The grass smooth as velvet runs green up and down

& from the young morning a rapture receives

& from the green hedge that the path brushes nigh

The flight of a bird shakes the rain in the place

& the blackbird frit off from her nest rushing bye
Shakes a shower on the path that will sprinkle thy face

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Artless vanity

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

Were on bridge wall or rail or trees smooth bark

The passing eye is often stopt to mark

The artless vanity of village swains

Who spend a leisure hour with patient pains

& put to sculptors purposes the knife

To spin a cobweb for an after life

Nicking the letters of their little names

In rudest forms that untaught science frames

Pleasd with the feeblest shadow of renown

That warms alike the noble and the clown

‘clown’ = agricultural labourer

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Full of mirth

Right happy bird so full of mirth 
Mounting & mounting still more high 
To meet morns sunshine in the sky 

Ere yet it smiles on earth 

How often I delight to stand 
Listening a minutes length away 
Where summer spreads her green array 
By wheat or barley land 

To see thee with a sudden start 
The green & placid herbage leave 
& in mid air a vision weave 
For joys delighted heart

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Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers go in many a thumming spring
& now to stalks of tasseled sow-grass cling
That shakes & swees awhile but still keeps straight
While arching oxeye doubles with his weight
Next on the cat-tail-grass with farther bound
He springs that bends until they touch the ground

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Image by my friend Carry Akroyd

My love she is a modest girl

Another amazing Clare poem from his Asylum years.  Again, not in any collection I can find.  Love the internal rhymes.

My love she wore a muslin cap & trim[m]ed wi' ribbons blue 
What time the trees were full o' sap & meadows cowslips new 
In meadows & on meadow banks in baulks & clover too 
The white horse daisys stand in ranks all silvered wi' the dew 

My love she wore a pleasant gown & owned a rosy face 
The prettiest girl o' half the town the finest i' the place 
Her waist was sweet & sweet her size fleshy & fair not tall

Bright as the milkmaids were her eyes her neck white as the wall 

A muslin cap my love had on & trimmed wi' ribbons blue 
When grass was green to look upon & steamed wi' morning dew 
Her face was like the cabbage rose her bosom lilly white 
Her lips are red her mild eye glows like evens dewy light 

My love she is a modest girl a pleasant gown she wears 
Her teeth are like two rows O' pearl & glossy brown her hair 
I feel transported by her smile & by her frown undone 
I'll meet her by the awthorn stile where both will seem as one

(line 8 ‘Milkmaids’ = ladysmock)

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Image by my friend Annie Lee

The rose

Why this deceptively simple poem has never figured in any collection is hard to understand.  Such beauty in 16 lines.  I could swim in it for hours.

The rose in full bearing there is no other blossom 
So sweet & so flushing as that bonny flower 
It shines the delight O the young maidens bosom 
Its ever the sweetest in summers warm hour 
The beautiful rose tree how sweet its leaves blushes 
With dew drops like silver pearls hung on its leaves 
The sun light O summer its bonny bloom flushes 
How sweet is its blossom on midsummer eaves 
Tis as sweet as the breath O the midsum[m]er morning 
Where bees oer the hay fiel[d]s are singing all day 
When dews like white diamonds its leaves are adorning 
How sweet is the full blowing rose on the spray 
The maiden she loves it the beautiful maiden 
That goes i' the meadows a milking the kye 
She sees the heath brere with its roses oer laden 
& puts a rose bud in her bosom for joy

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Image?  

My ‘ballerina’ rambling rose growing up one of our apple trees

Glides the stream

Where winding gash wirls round its wildest scene 
On this romantic bend I sit me down 
On that side view the meads their smoothing green 
Edgd with the peeping hamlets checkering brown 
Here the steep hill as dripping headlong down 
While glides the stream a silver streak between 
As glides the shaded clouds along the sky 
Brightning & deepning loosing as theyre 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 John Abbott

Hay-making

Fair was the morn & Summer in its prime
For whats more lovlier than hay-making time
When sweet perfumes from every flower arise
& sweeter still from swaths that withering lyes
When work folks stript appear in every ground
&  thronging waggons ever rattling round
& Cows & Sheep as full as they can snive
In grounds made clear where shepherds all alive

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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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A monarch here

Ive oft been glad at heart to see 
A footpath winding through the grass 
Oer narrow stiles neath spreading tree 
Not wide enough for two to pass 
But now no ownership I fear 
Nor path to keep nor stile to climb 
I feel myself a monarch here 
My very fancies grow sublime

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Image by my friend Jane Air

Throwing a stone

Here is final poem in Clare’s story of Roger’s romantic adventures.  In the end Roger meets a visiting Scot (a drover’s daughter?) and finds in her something he seemed not to be able to find in the local Northamptonshire lasses.  The Kirk at Upton, incidentally is very much worth a visit.  The church (photo above) is virtually unchanged from Clare’s time, and the little village a reminder of how much of the county used to be.

Coy Maidens o' Drysail bonny Girls o' Buckhiven
Young beauty's o' Largo bonny Lasses o' Leven
I loved them the gether I loved one alone
And the rest followed with her Else I'd made her my own

Nay stop there auld Sodger Yo're nae kin o' her kind
She belongs to young Rodger our Shepherd—sae mind
Her voice shouted Rodger like throwing a stone
Sae gae on oud Sodger and let her alane

The voice it gaed through me like throwing a stone
And sair did it rue me knocking at my breast bone
Gae awa' wi' yer Rodger young Man do I see
If you'r then auld Sodger you may march on wi' me

Sae I went with the Maiden over heath and o'er plain
And when Sunday was come too I saw her again
I saw her and courted the sun from the West
And left my last kiss on the mole of her breast

I kissed and were married and bedded and a'
And the auld Kirk at Upton the green Wedding saw
For the grass it was green and our years was the same
And frae morning to E'en Nane ca'd us to blame

“Her voice shouted Rodger like throwing a stone” – as I child my mother, often in the late afternoon, would call me in for tea.  I could have been anywhere as we lived in the country, so she shouted my name at the top of her voice – I have experience of what ‘the voice it gaed through me’ sounds like.  The volume, the inflection… even the memory makes shudder just a little!

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Crimmocking Cow

My favourite poem from this whole little series, I read “Crimmocking Cow” to a church full of Clare Society members at Upton Church a few years ago.  Upton being the farthest extremity of Emmonsales Heath, on what would have been the old Roman Road King Street, if it did not take a sharp right turn at Langley Bush. 

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

For Roger's a handsome young Man
And I am his sweetheart Kate
I give him a kiss when I can
And spend a few hours at the gate
When the sparrows go bed in the eves
And to roost goes the three speckled hens
I turn down my cotton drab sleeves
And go to kiss Roger agen

He lovs me for dearly I ken
And kisses my cheek on his breast
And dearly I love him my sen
While in his fond arms I am prest
The bee seeks the hole i' the wall
In the eves the ould sparrows go bed
To night Roger sed he would call
And fix on the day we should wed

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Baiting the trap

I’m afraid the squire proved too much of a temptation, poor Roger has had his doubts, but now has been ousted from Jenny’s affections.

The heavy thick mist hangs over the sun
The grass is all wet wi the dew
I cannot come out to thee roger till noon
Fear o' spoiling my sealskin shoe
No mists need to tarry my jenny till noon
The mist simmers thin on the hill
Sun beams getting yellow will master him soon
& ye may walk out if ye will

But she a new ribbon put on at the time
Which roger neer bought for her brow
& tho he neer knew of his jenny a crimem
Fears jealousy wisperd it now
& she had a mantle all fringed wi silk
& a new gown as smart as coud be
Far too fine for the hassard of going to milk
Full o tucks even up to the knee

& shed a green purse which a gold tassel drew
& gold in it plenty beside
Such tokens spoke more then hard labour coud do
Rich rivals had gen her the pride
So rogers fears dreamt & his dreams to pursue
To green bowers in ambush he hies
Where jane like a lady soon hazards the dew

—He wishd twas a dream of his eyes

Jane lightly skipt by wipd away the bower briar
Where roger conseald from the view
& who shoud be shooting hard by but the squire
That provd rogers dreamings too true

They kissd & they toyd upon loves pleasant lap
& thought roger true at the end
But he like a fox saw em baiting the trap
& never sought jenny agen

EP II 428

Again from the amazing 1819-20 period when Clare was, shall we say, “baiting the trap” in “loves pleasant lap” with Patty.

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‘I’m driving my hogs to a market’

Roger now has another suitor to worry about.  All’s fair in love and war they say, but he didn’t expect to be ousted by Tim Teg.

Oh me muther a'l'ays keeps running her rigs on
& s a'l'ays tongue banging poor meg
& calling one nicknames ‘base baggage’ & fixon
Becaus' Im in love wi tim teg

Caus' shes an old mizer & hes a poor codger
& I am her on'y wench meg
But she may keep mouthing bout money & roger
Ill neer turn my back on tim teg

She tells me Im driving my hogs to a market
That'll scarce buy me matches to beg
That she wornt gi me sixpence for being so forked
But Ill hazard all wi tim teg

She leads me a life like a toad neath a harrow
The deuce tak' her bother thinks meg
She prophesies nothing but trouble & sorrow
& Ill suffer all wi tim teg

& tho I may come to want salt to my porridge
& tramp out wi matches & beg
Tho a squire string his purse wi the proffers of marriage
Ill neer turn my back on tim teg

From the quite wonderful second volume of the OUP Clarendon Early Poems (my favourite of the 9 volumes) : EP II 278 (Pet MS B2 p232a-233)

Think what we would lose if this wonderful slice of Helpstone rustic life was ‘translated’ into ‘proper’ English.  I am unequivocally on the side of leaving Clare’s words exactly as he wrote them.  Priceless.

Incidentally, I wonder if Clare invented the wonderful proverb / aphorism “I’m driving my hogs to a market”?  So expressive…

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Bunting we him

Another little known 'dialect' Clare poem from the 1818-20 period, here printed exactly as Clare wrote it.  Love the Clare words... tung, claumpt, cockt and nockt, braken, mun... and that's only the first 8 lines!  Line 16 is interesting in its use of 'bunting' - this is what Professor Robinson has to say on the word, "since a bunter is a low street-woman this probably means, in a vulgar way, courting".

Jemmy might think he's won, but Roger is lurking...

Ere the church bell i the morn had tung four

Fudging old Jemmy claumpt over the moor
He cockt up his beaver & nockt at the door
& up wi ye Jenney bawls he
Deuce take him god knows I een wisht him neck braken
But mizerdly dad & old mam was awaken
Who telld me take chance when it is to be taken
So jemmys fair drudge I mun be

Tho Id promisd roger full late i' the even
& hed pledgd his honor of fairings being given
Besides invitations from ten or eleven
All better then droning old Jim
But parents full often nick love full of crosses
Old jim he coud brag of his waggons & horses
Obey 'em I mun or abide by the losses
I forcd to go bunting wi him

& pleasd wer his heart & his pockets wer lind too
& fairings he bought me what ere Id a mind too
But sly rascal roger shuffd close up behind too
& gave me a lear from his eye
Old jemmy poor lad all in vain he might bother
Hed taen me too far from the reach of my mother
I humourd him till I got loosd from my tether
Then wi roger I bid him good bye

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A dodging pace

Gaunt grey hounds now their coursing sports impart 
Wi long legs stretchd on tip toe for the chase 
& short loose ear & eye upon the start 
Swift as the wind their motions they unlace 
When bobs the hare up from her hiding place 
Who in its furry coat of fallow stain 
Squats on the lands or wi a dodging pace 
Tryes its old coverts of wood grass to gain 
& oft by cunning ways makes all their speed in vain

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John Bumkins Lucy

Clare having a bit of fun with the Northamptonshire dialect of his day.  Most of us are used to having a glossary of Northamptonshire words and phrases when we read almost any of Clare's work, but the four verses of 'John Bumkins Lucy' almost need a glossary of their own.  I particularly like lines 7 & 8 in the second verse.

"How-so-miver she beets all the wenches I kno

An' hur big-roundy bosom is witer then sno"

Well stop bill wi' dogging me so oer an' oer

I've told yah hur name—what and now summot more?
Gosh boy but thats hardish to tell yah wi out—hur
Hur looks an hur tallnes an all things about—hur

—La' us see whot is like to tha straitness of hur
Theres summot cums near to't d' yah see yender fur
Well then do yah mind me she's straiter then that
An' hur eye's an' hur hair is az blak az my hat
     O' my pritty deer Lucy az I am a sinnur
Hite op wi' old byard go on
     I'll zartinly do all I can for to win hur
     Ha az shure az my crisn'd name's jon

Hur face is not like to yahr kitts i' the town
Nor fine coking jinny's so roozy an' brown
No if yah did kno hur yah'd think em a site
Its so wite an' red sumhow I cant tell yah rite
But I think if tha rosey an' may grow'd togither
'Tw'd be summot like-it but not so fine nither
How-so-miver she beets all the wenches I kno
An' hur big-roundy bosom is witer then sno
     O' my pritty deer lucy az I am a sinnur
Hite op wi old byard go on
     I'll zartinly do all I can for to win hur
     Ha az shure az my crisn'd name's jon

Now Ive told yah about hur az much az I can
How to get hur bill-boy is the next thing to plan
Well that I can deel wi' an' soon yah shal see
Jon Bumkin a shentleman fine oz can be
An' now then to tell yah a bit o' my pride
This greezey old smokfrok I'll fost thro aside
Nex I'll change this old crap for a fine beaver hat
Drest about wi a blak ribbin bo' an' all that
     Then so wastly fine bill-boy az I am a sinnur
Hite op wi' old byard go on
     'T'will zartinly be a good shilling to win hur
     Ha oz shure oz my crisn'd name's jon

Then there'll be the waiscot an' briches an' cote
An' lite shoo's an stokin's wi' all tha' best sote
Then old women will chatter an' say ‘he looks neet
‘From tha crown of his hed to tha sole of his feet’
But I shal think more wen they cum to be mine
That better then neetnes they'll look very fine
How-so-miver it sing-i-fys nothink to me
If thee will but noistish an' do but agree
     Wi' my pritty deer Lucy—for az I am a sinnur
Hite op wi' old byard go on
     I'll zartinly do all I can for to win hur
     Ha az shure oz my crisn'd name's jon

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