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(A Clare ‘unpublished fragment’)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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Fame

Fame blazed upon me like a comets glare

Fame waned & left me like a fallen star
Because I told the evil what they are
& truth & falshood never wished to mar
My Life hath been a wreck — & I've gone far
For peace & truth — & hope — for home & rest
— Like Edens gates — fate throws a constant bar —
Thoughts may o'ertake the sunset in the west
— Man meets no home within a womans breast

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Buds wi March

Soon as the spring its earliest visit pays

& buds wi march & (the) lengthend days

Of mingld suns & shades & snow & rain

Forcing the crackling frost to melt again

I mark the widow & her orphan boy

In preparation for their old employ

The same lorn figures as they usd to be

Rags pinchd with hungry care from poverty

The cloak & hat that had for seasons past

Repelld the rain & buffeted the blast

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Mire & sludge

O for a pleasant book to cheat the sway

Of winter—where rich mirth with hearty laugh

Listens & rubs his legs on corner seat

For fields are mire & sludge—& badly off

Are those who on their pudgy paths delay

There striding shepherd seeking driest way

Fearing nights wetshod feet & hacking cough

That keeps him waken till the peep of day

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A venerable tree

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

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Many a tinted hue

To tastes warm bosom & to healths flusht cheek

Morns flushing face peeps out her first fond smile

Crimsoning the east in many tinted hue

The horison round as edgd with brooding mist

Penc'ling its seeming circle round so uniform

In ting[e] of faintly blue—how lovly then

The streak which matchless nature skirting sweet

Flushes the edges of the arching sky

& melting draws the hangings of the morn

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The gipsy camp

The snow falls deep the Forest lies alone

The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes
Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back
The Gipsy knocks his hands & tucks them up
& seeks his squalid camp half hid in snow
Beneath the oak which breaks away the wind
& bushes close, with snow like hovel warm

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Winter floods

On Lolham Brigs in wild & lonely mood

Ive seen the winter floods their gambols play
Through each old arch that trembled while I stood
Bent oer its wall to watch the dashing spray
As their old stations would be washed away
Crash came the ice against the jambs & then
A shudder jarred the arches—yet once more
It breasted raving waves & stood agen

To wait the shock as stubborn as before

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Needy Labour

Toiling in the naked fields
Where no bush a shelter yields
Needy Labour dithering stands
Beats & blows his numbing hands
& upon the crumping snows
Stamps in vain to warm his toes
Leaves are fled that once had power
To resist a summer shower

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Dazzling light

I love the snow, the crumpling snow
That hangs on everything,
It covers everything below
Like white dove's brooding wing,
A landscape to the aching sight,
A vast expanse of dazzling light

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Morning invites

The morning invites us to walk come along 

Tis so sweet that the sparrow een tries at a song 

The dews are all gone save amid the dark glooms 

Neath the woods crowded leaves were the sun never comes 

Nor need we regret that the dews linger there 

For brambles defye us to come if we dare

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The wild swan hurries

The crowds of starnels whizz & hurry by

& darken like a cloud the evening sky

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

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Despoild & bare

Hail scenes of Desolation & despair

Keen Winters over bearing sport & scorn

Torn by his Rage in ruins as you are

To me more pleasing then a summers morn

Your shatterd scenes appear—despoild & bare

Stript of your clothing naked & forlorn

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Blowing his fingers

& foddering boys sojourn again
By ryhme hung hedge & frozen plain
Shuffling thro the sinking snows
Blowing his fingers as he goes
To where the stock in bellowings hoarse
Call for their meals in dreary close
& print full many a hungry track
Round circling hedge that guards the stack

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Jostling reeds

The slender rush in idle motion bows

With meek obedience to the floods below

Were jostling reeds & willows dangling boughs

Impede their gurgling progress as they flow

On the thorn bush that overhangs the streams

The morehen slumbers in her nest of sedge

While the shrill dormouse in its summer dreams

Chitters unceasing from the waters edge

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Wealth far richer

Then village childern seeking after toys

Their clownish hearts & ever heedless eyes

Find  nought in nature they as wealth can prize

With them self interest & the thoughts of gain

Are natures beautys all beside are vain

But he the man of science & of taste

Sees wealth far richer in the worthless waste

Where bits of lichen & a sprig of moss

Will all the raptures of his mind engross

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