The snowdrop


The snowdrops in the orchard grass
As white as clumps of snow
Drooping—tell thee lovely lass
That winters strife must go
With all his snow storms drifting deep
No longer to trepan
The snowdrop wakes the hive bees sleep
& I love Mary Ann

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Bluebells


Bluebells how beautifull & bright they look
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

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Mistress shrew


‘Go wipe your shoes’ says mistress shrew

To Hodge who up for's dinner drew
‘'Tis'n't fitting that such hogs as you
‘Shou'd come into a house’
‘Why not’ says hodge—‘if thats the case
‘I cant come in a better place
‘For surely there is no disgrace
‘For hogs to herd wi' Sows’

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Startled from slumber


The woods how gloomy in a winters 
morn
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

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Stand & show


Go vile hypocrisy with subtle tongue  
& 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 

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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

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Wealthy thieves


But tis well known that justice winks at crimes
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

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Ribbons gay


& when its past a merry crew

Bedeckt in masks and ribbons gay
The 'Morrice danse' their sports renew
& act their winter evening play
The clown-turnd-kings for penny praise
Storm wi the actors strut and swell
&  harlequin a laugh to raise
Wears his hump back and tinkling bell

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White necks peering


The larks like thunder rise & suther round
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

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Heavy winged kite


While the hazel-bush sheltered my seat from a storm
& 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

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Little selfsown flowers


Ere yet the year is one month old

In spite of frost & wind & snow
Bare-bosomed to the quaking cold
Springs little selfsown flowers will blow
& ever kin to early hours
Peep aconites in cups of gold
With frilled leaves muffled round their flowers
Like tender maidens shunning cold

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Welcome pale primrose


Welcome pale primrose starting up between

Dead matted leaves of oak & ash that strew
The every lawn the wood & spinney through
Mid creeping moss & ivys darker green
How much thy presence beautifies the ground
How sweet thy modest unaffected pride
Glows on the sunny bank & wood's warm side
 
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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
& 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
 
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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
 
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Fame


I would not wish the burning blaze

Of fame around a restless world
The thunder & the storm of praise
In crowded tumults heard & hurled.
I would not be a flower to stand
The stare of every passer-bye
But in some nook of fairyland
Seen in the praise of beautys eye 

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Warm gorse blossoms


The
sharp wind shivers in the 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

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Sheltering tree


Though snow-storms clothe the mossy wall
& 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

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Mice


Unperceived through key-holes creep
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

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Peace & calm joy


I cant contain myself in summers prime 
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’)

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

The crow


The crow will tumble up and 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
Where swains are stirring out to plough
& woods are just at hand
They seek the uplands sunny brow
& strut from land to land

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

I oped each gate…


I oped each gate with idle swing
& 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

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

The paths of spring


The stranger striding down 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

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Old ivyied oaks


Where the old ivyied Oaks rude mossy arms
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

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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

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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

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Sweet the birds


Sweet the birds did chant their songs
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

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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.

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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

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One eternal green


Far spread the moory ground a level scene
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

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Langley bush as it is today


One summers day in happiest mood
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

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Image by my friend #MarcusThompson


A palace green


How beautifull this hill of fern swells on
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

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Sweet cares rest


This twilight seems a veil of gause & mist
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

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

from Child Harold


Say What Is Love—To Live In Vain
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

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