Sudden

The cat runs races with her tail the dog

Leaps oer the orchard hedge & knarls the grass
The swine run round & grunt & play with straw
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack
Sudden upon the elmtree tops the crow
Unceremonious visit pays & croaks
Then swops away from mossy barn the owl
Bobs hasty out wheels round & scared as soon
As hastily retires the ducks grow wild
& from the muddy pond fly up & wheel
A circle round the village & soon tired
Plunge in the pond again the maids in haste
Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizzled clothes
& laughing hurry in to keep them dry

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Croaking joy

How peaceable it seems for lonely men
To see a crow fly in the thin blue sky
Over the woods & fealds o'er level fen
It speaks of villages or cottage nigh
Behind the neighbouring woods when March winds high
Tear off the branches of the huge old oak
I love to see these chimney sweeps sail by
& hear them o'er gnarled forest croak
Then sosh askew from the hid woodmans stroke
That in the woods their daily labours ply
I love the sooty crow nor would provoke
Its march day exercises of croaking joy
I love to see it sailing to & fro
While feelds & woods & waters spread below

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Wi’ rattling sound

Cocks wake the early morn wi' many a Crow
Loud ticking village clock has counted four
The labouring rustic hears his restless foe
& weary bones & pains complaining sore
Hobbles to fetch his horses from the moor
Some busy 'gin to team the loaded corn
Which night throng'd round the barns becrouded door
Such plentious scenes the farmers yards adorn
Such busy bustling toils now mark the harvest morn
The birdboy's pealing horn is loudly blow'd
The waggons jostle on wi' rattling sound
& hogs & geese now throng the dusty road
Grunting & gabbling in contension round
The barley ears that litter on the ground—
What printing traces mark the waggons way
What busy bustling wakens echo round
How drives the suns warm beams the mist away
How labour sweats & toils & dreads the sultry day

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Plash of quiet kine

Ive often gazed with pleasure by the edge 
Of the old meadow lake floodwashed & crookd
The water-rat slow rustling in the sedge
The fish-ring wavering in the clear I've looked 
In rapture on the mellow summer shine 
Of the still water gleaming in the sun
Just wrinkled by the plash of quiet kine 
Who knee-deep in the flags would drink & done

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Image from my friend #JohnAbbott

The narrow lane

I walk adown the narrow lane
The nightingale is singing now
But like to me she seems at loss
For Royce Wood & its shielding bough
I lean upon the window sill
The trees & summer happy seem
Green sunny green they shine but still
My heart goes far away to dream

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Fairy bowers

Mere withered stalks & fading trees
& pastures spread with hills & rushes
Are all my fading vision sees
Gone gone are raptures flooding gushes
When mushrooms they were fairy bowers
Their marble pillars overswelling
& Danger paused to pluck the flowers 
That in their swarthy rings were dwelling

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Of moles… and the Enclosures

When I see the little mouldywharps hang sweeing to the wind 
On the only aged willow that in all the field remains 
& nature hides her face where theyre sweeing in their chains 
& in a silent murmuring complains 
Here was commons for their hills where they seek for freedom still 
Though every commons gone & though traps are set to kill 
The little homeless miners—O it turns my bosom chill 
When I think of old “sneap green” puddocks nook & hilly snow 
Where bramble bushes grew & the daisy gemmed in dew 
& the hills of silken grass like to cushions to the view 
Where we threw the pissmire crumbs when we'd nothing else to do 
All leveled like a desert by the never weary plough 
All vanished like the sun where that cloud is passing now

(mouldywharps, miners = moles)

(sweeing = swinging)

(puddocks = red kites)

(pissmire = ant)

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Autumn

The thistledowns flying though the winds are all still
On the green grass now lying now mounting the hill
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot

The ground parched & cracked is like overbaked bread
The greensward all wracked is bents dried up & dead
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed
& gossamers twitter flung from weed unto weed

Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun
& the rivers were eying burn to gold as they run
Burning hot is the ground liquid gold is the air
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there

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O love is but a butterfly

                                 (A Meadow Brown or Gatekeeper]

.

O Love is but a Butterfly
Fond of Green fields and the blue sky

Aye, love is fond of liberty
Green valleys and bright flowers
Sings seeking honey with the bee
For all the summer hours
A silent solitary thing
That lives within itself
You only see his azure wing
That flies from pride and pelf*

O Love is like a Butterfly
Fond of green fields and purple sky

This love's a very tender thing
That withering fades from crime
A singing bee without a sting
A flower in frost and rime
More tender then the simple maid
Who from seduction flies
More fair then flowers that love can braid
The birth of Paradise

(* pelf, OE 'riches)

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Ruin of the past

“Took a walk in the fields saw an old wood stile taken away from a familiar spot which it had occupied all my life    the posts were overgrown with ivy & it seemed akin to nature & the spot where it stood as though it had taken it on lease for an undisturbed existence      it hurt me to see it was gone for my affections claim a friendship with such things but nothing is lasting in this world        

last year Langley Bush was destroyed an old white thorn that had stood for more than a century full of fame     the gipsies shepherds & herdsmen all had their tales of its history & it will be long ere its memory is forgotten”

Summers pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
& the cloudy days of autumn & of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart & eye & forever far away
Dear heart & can it be that such raptures meet decay
I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay
I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout & play
On its bank at “clink and bandy” “chock” & “taw” & “ducking stone”
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone.

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Ten thousand shapes

Clouds rack & drive before the wind
In shapes & forms of every kind
Like waves that rise without the roar
& rocks that guard an untrodden shore
Now castles pass majestic by
& ships in peaceful havens lie
These gone ten thousand shapes ensue
For ever beautiful & new

The scattered clouds lie calm & still
& day throws gold on every hill
Their thousand heads in glory run
As each were worlds & owned a sun
The rime it clings to everything
It beards the early buds of spring
The mossy pales the orchard spray
Are feathered with its silver-grey

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Little trotty wagtail

Little trotty wagtail he went in the rain
& tittering tottering sideways he neer got straight again
He stooped to get a worm & looked up to get a fly
& then he flew away ere his feathers they were dry

Little trotty wagtail he waddled in the mud
& left his little footmarks trample where he would
He waddled in the water-pudge & waggle went his tail
& chirrupt up his wings to dry upon the garden rail

Little trotty wagtail you nimble all about
& in the dimpling water-pudge you waddle in & out
Your home is nigh at hand & in the warm pig-style
So little Master Wagtail I'll bid you a good-bye

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A mighty spell

Along the road were coupld maid & swain
& dick from dolly now for gifts did sue
Hed gen her ribbons & he deemd again
Some kind return as nothing but his due
& he told things as ploughmen rarely knew
Bout breaking hearts & pains—a mighty spell
Her sunday clo'hs might damage wi the dew
She quite forgot them while he talkd so well
She gave the contest up at last to what no words dare tell

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The rivers edge

Wandering by the rivers edge
I love to rustle through the sedge
& through the woods of reed to tear
Almost as high as bushes are
Yet turning quick with shudder chill
As danger ever does from ill
Fears moment ague quakes the blood
While plop the snake coils in the flood

& hissing with a forked tongue
Across the river winds along
In coat of orange green & blue

Now on a willow branch I view
Grey waving to the sunny gleam
Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
For little fish that nimble bye
& in the gravel shallows lie

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Image from my friend Carry Akroyd

The wilderd dell

A little excerpt from my favourite, ‘Solitude’:

Solitude I love thee well 
Brushing thro the wilderd dell 
Picking from the ramping grass 
Namless blossoms as I pass

Which the dews of eve bedeck 
Sweet as pearls on womans neck 
Marking shepherds rou[s]d from sleep 
Blundering off to fold their sheep 
& the swain wi toils distrest 
Hide his tools to seek his rest 
While the cows wi hobbling strides 
Switching slow their flye bit hides 
Rubs the pastures creaking gate 
Milking maids & boys to wait 
As the sunshine leaves the skye 
As the day light shuts her eye 
O wi thee to meet the breeze 
Neath the shade of awthorn trees

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Autumns come

The autumns come again

& the clouds descend in rain
& the leaves they are falling from the wood
The summers voice is still
Save the clacking of the mill
& the lowly muttered thunder of the flood

Theres nothing in the mead
But the rivers muddy speed
& the willow leaves all littered by its side
Sweet voices all are still
In the vale & on the hill
& the summers blooms are withered in their pride

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Sweet witchingly woman

O woman sweet witchingly woman 


Amid the worlds bustle & strife 


Thourt the only sweet blossom thats blooming 


Perfuming the garden of life 


Thourt the only pure fountain thats given 


From whence all true pleasures doth flow 


The angels are unknowns of heaven 


But womans real angels below 


Our lives woud be lives of vexation 


Our days woud be days of despair 


Wi out the sweet jems of creation 


Soft women to sweeten our care 


& powers that formd beauty protect us 


If weaknesses cant be conseald 


Shoud we view heavens joys as conjectures 


& women as heaven reveald

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