Wood Rideings

How pleasant these wood rideings with the sward closely cut along through the underwood that seems so entangld that you woud wonder how the tall bracken contrives to get through it      brown & yellow leaves litter the greensward & rustles under the feet      the autumn tempest or winds sweeps through the vollying trees like the long mutterings of continud thunder or rollings of artillery a long way distant & yet the trees seem in no violent motion but this low muttering thunder seems be the sylvan voice of autumn     

In walking through a wood even what may be called a calm day for the season we may gennerally hear thee same huzzing rumbling noise in the woods which to me is as agreeable as music.     the stone pits on the heath   with the stone piled up & the rubbish thrown in heaps    covered in places with weeds & wild flowers growing rank & luxuriant    looks very pleasing among the dark furze      here are heather bells of a bright blue bowing for shelter close by the cart ruts where the wind can scarcely come at them    sheltered as if they had a house of their own      & in the woodrides are some dark purple flowers of Devils bit 

(October 1841)

Although Clare was confused about virtually everything in 1841 - the year of two asylums - his clarity of thought, as he wandered through the woods that autumn, is remarkable.  The prose thoughts of a gifted poet.

(Spacing and paragraphs inserted to assist readers - Clare rarely used either)

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