Among the flowers

Do wild flowers love I think they do

& often stooping down

I hear them talk to shower and dew

On many a lovely mound

I often see thy fairy form

In springs bee singing hours

Light stepping on in fancy warm

As love among the flowers

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Lesser weeds

The bulrush bows in graceful art 

To kiss the rivers lesser weeds

& flags in many a merry start 

Rustling whisper to the reeds

Shall  things inanimate agree 

To love unmoving thee & me

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Weeds along the fen

O for the pasture fields & fen

When shall I see such rest agen

I love the weeds along the fen

More sweet then garden flowers

Freedom haunts the humble glen

That blest my happiest hours

Here prisons injure health & me

I love sweet freedom & the free

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Wild 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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The nettle

Tall grows the nettle by the hedgeway side

& bye the old barn end they shade the wall
In sunshine nodding to the angry tide
Of winds that winnows bye—these one & all
Makes up the harmony of Spring—& all
That passes feel a sudden love for flowers
They look so green—& when the soft showers fall
 They grow so fast—Dock Burdocks Henbane—all
Who loves not wild flowers bye the old stone wall

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The blushing morn

O now the crimson east its fire streak burning 


Tempts me to wander neath the blushing morn 


Winding the zig zag lane turning & turning 


As winds the crooked fences wilderd thorn 


O wheres the eye can gaze upon the dawn 
 

That flushes yon blue sky of cloudless heaven 


& gilds the prospect round below—what eye 


Can look upon the beautys morn has given 


& look unmovd, sure neer a soul thats living 


The soul must be extinct who passes bye 


I cannot pass the very bramble weeping 


Neath dewy tear drops that its spears surround 


Like harlots mockery on the wan cheek creeping 


Gilding the poison that is meant to wound 


I cannot pass the bent ere gales have shaken 


Its transient crowning off each point adorning 


But all the feelings of my soul awaken 


To own the witcheries of most lovley morning

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A motley crew

The fields now claim them where a motley crew
Of old & young their daily tasks pursue
The barleys beard is grey & wheat is brown
& wakens toil betimes to leave the town
The reapers leave their beds before the sun
& gleaners follow in the toils begun
To pick the littered ear the reaper leaves
& glean in open fields among the sheaves

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Farewell to the cornfield

Farewell to the cornfield & meadow so green
Farewell to the white thorn & willow & Jean
Farewell to the haunts O' her childhood & mine
Where green banks had peace & my Jean looked divine
Were parted & may be for ever we part
Still Jeanie shall be the choice girl of my heart

Farewell to the cornfield & meadow so green
Farewell to the white thorn & willow & Jean
The meadows will be just as green when Im gone
To the eyes o' my Jean while my heart like a stone
Lies cold in my breast while the scene I survey
To think of to morrow that bears me away

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The Lineian arrangement

 

A Ploughmans skill at Classification after the Lineian arrangement

‘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

Friend take my advice...

Friend take my advice would you do yourself good,

& get your house custom & peace?

Take down from that doorpost the billet of Wood

& hang up your Wife in its place.

A Simile

A mushroom its goodness but shortly endures

Decaying as soon as its peeping —

Woman much like them — for its known very Well

That they seldom get better by keeping

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Harvest home

As rests warm rapture rousd the rustics lay
The thread bare ballad from each quavering tongue
As ‘peggy bond’ or the ‘sweet month of may’
As how he joyd to hear each ‘good old song’
That on nights pausing ear did echo loud & strong
The muse might sing too for he well did know
The freaks & plays that harvest home doth end
How the last load is crownd wi boughs & how
Wi floating ribbons diznd at their end
The swains & maids wi fork & rake attend
& how the children on the load delight
Wi shouts of harvest home their throats to rend
& how the dames peep out to mark the sight
& all the feats that crown the harvest supper night

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Ducks & Ducklings

Among the tawny tasselled reed 
The ducks & ducklings float and feed
With head oft dabbing in the flood 
They fish all day the weedy mud
& tumbler-like are bobbing there
Heels topsy-turvy in the air
Then up and quack and down they go
Heels over head again below

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Photo by my friend John Abbott

Farwell

Farwell thou favorite spot farwell
Since every efforts vain
All I can do is still to tell
Of thy delightful plain
But that pro[v]es short—increasing years
That did my youth presage
Will now as each new day appears
Bring on declining age

Reflection pierces deadly keen
While I the moral scan
As are the changes of the green
So is the life of man
Youth brings age with faultering tongue
That does the exit crave
Theres one short scene presents the throng
Another shows the grave

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What is Life

& what is Life an hour-glass on the run
A mist retreating from the morning sun
A busy bustling still repeated dream
Its length a minutes pause a moments thought
& happiness a bubble on the stream
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought

What are vain Hopes the puffing gale of morn
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn
& robs each floweret of its gem & dies
A cobweb hiding disappointments thorn
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise

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Burning

Love though it is not chill & cold
But burning like eternal fire
Is yet not of approaches bold
Which gay dramatic tastes admire
Oh timid love more fond than free
In daring song is ill pourtrayed
Where as in war the devotee
By valour wins each captive maid

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Winding away

A green of all colours yellow brown & dark grey
While the footpaths all darkly goes winding away
Creeping onto a foot-brig that crosses a brook
Or a gate or a stile & how rustic they look
Some leaning so much that the maidens will go
Lower down with their buckets & try to creep through
There is nothing more sweet in the fields & the sun
Than those dear little footpaths that oer the fields run

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Music & glee

Among the green bushes the songs of the thrushes
Are answering each other in music & glee
While the magpies & rooks  in woods hedges near brooks
Mount their Spring dwellings on every high tree
There meet me at eve love we'll on grassy banks lean love
& crop a white branch from the scented may tree
Where the silver brook wimples & the rosy cheek dimples
Sweet will the time of that courting hour be

We'll notice wild flowers love that grow by thorn bowers love
Though sinful to crop them now beaded with dew
The violet is thine love the primrose is mine love
To Spring & each other so blooming & true
With dewdrops all beaded the feather grass seeded
The cloud mountains turn to dark woods in the sky
The daisy bud closes while sleep the hedge roses
Theres nothing seems wakeful but you love & I

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Insect tribes

Then crooked stile with little steps that aid

The climbing meets us & the pleasant grass

& hedgerows old with arbours ready made

For weariness to rest in pleasant shade

Surround us & with ecstasy we pass

Wild flower & insect tribes that ever mate

With joy & dance from every step we take

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Lovley Butterflye

Then thy starry gems & gold

Admiration would unfold

For what insect is't can vie

With the lovley Butterflye

Lo! the arching heav'nly bow

Does all his dyes on thee bestow

Crimson Blue & watry Green

Mixd with Azure shade between

These are thine—thou first in place

Queen of all the insect race

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Flies in the window

Some of John Clare’s prose on flies.

"These little window dwellers in cottages and halls were always entertaining to me     after dancing in the window all day from sunrise to sunset they would sip of the tea     drink of the beer & eat of the sugar & be welcome all summer long     They look like things of mind or fairies & seem pleased or dull as the weather permits     In many clean cottages & genteel houses they are allowed every liberty to creep fly or do as they like & seldom or ever do wrong     In fact they are the small or dwarfish portion of our own family & so many fairy familiars that we know & treat as one of ourselves”

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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

Fallen friends

I hate to see mans strength employ’d
To desolate the wood
To see a favourite tree destroy’d
That has for ages stood
To see the stript oak stretch’d its length
A mournful thought the scene attends
Those seem thats left still green in strength
To mourn their fallen friends

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Sophia

On the 24th July 1830 Sophia was born to Patty and John - the family then consisted then of 6 children, Anna (10), Eliza (8 ), Freddy (6) John (4), William (2), and baby Sophia. Grandfather Parker (70) and Ann (66) made up the crowded household of 10 all living in the tenement in Woodgate (a quarter of what is now called ‘Clare Cottage’). What a struggle it must have been, seeking to support such a family.

When with our little ones we spent

Each Sunday after tea,

& up the woods dark side we went

Or pastures rushy lea

To look among the woodland boughs

To find the birds retreat

Or crop the cowslip for the cows

Then sat to rest the little feet

In many a pleasant place

& see the lambs who tried to bleat

Come first in every race

Then laughd the childrens joys to view

Who ran across the lea

At birds that from the rushes flew

& many a wandering bee

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The daisy button

The daisy button tipped wi' dew 

     Green like the grass was sleeping
On every thing 'neath heaven blue 

     In moonlight dew was weeping
In dark wood sung the Nightingale 

     The moon shone round above me
My arms were clasped round Mary Gale 

     My dearest do you love me
Her head a woodbine wet wi' dew 

     Held in the moonlight sleeping
& two in one together grew 

     Wi' daisy buds a weeping
O' Mary Gale sweet Mary Gale 

     How round and bright above thee
The moon looks down on grassy vale 

     My dearest can you love me
How sweet the moonlight sleeps and still 

     Firdale & hedge row brere
The mole wharps mound & distant hill 

     Is moonlight every where

The totter grasses pendalums 

     Are still as night above me
The bees are gone and nothing hums 

     My dearest do you love me
The moonlight sleeps o'er wood & wall 

     Sweet Mary While you'r nigh me
Can any charm O' courtship fail 

     & any joy pass by me
The gossamer all wet wi' dew 

     Hung on the brere above me
She leaned her cheek & said ‘I do’ 

     & ever mean to love thee

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