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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A green wood side

I wandered down a green wood side
On Sunday noon in spring
Where little birds their dwellings hide
& Thrushes sweetly sing
The moss so green round Hazel roots
The Primrose by its side
That in its brimstone livery shoots
In bunches far and wide

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My illness was love

I peeled bits o straws & I got switches too
From the grey peeling willow as idlers do
& I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
Till my flesh blood & marrow wasted to the dry bone

My illness was love though I knew not the smart
But the beauty o love was the blood o my heart

Willow switches I broke & I peeled bits o straws
Ever lonely in crowds in natures own laws

My ballroom the pasture my music the bees
My drink was the fountain my church the tall trees
Whoever would love or be tied to a wife
When it makes a man mad all the days of his life

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The summer adorning

Sweet are the blossoms the summer adorning

Shed in profusion oer meadow & lea
Deckt wi the charms of the dew bedded morning
Ere the suns spangles dry blossom & tree

While as I wander by wood bank & fountain
Hushing my sorrows wi moments decline
Many selections of blossoms I’m counting
To trace in their beauty some likeness of thine

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Keep their sabbaths

The shepherds & the herding swains

Keep their sabbaths on the plains
For them the church bells vainly call
Fields are their church & house & all
Theyll lie & catch the passing sound
That comes from steeples shining round

Enjoying in the service time
The happy bells delightful chime
& if they sit on rising ground,
To view the landscape spreading round

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Sweet the fragrance

A beanfield full in blossom smells as sweet
As Araby or groves of orange flowers
Black-eyed & white & feathered to ones feet
How sweet they smell in mornings dewy hours
When seething night is left upon the flowers
& when morns sun shines brightly oer the field
The bean bloom glitters in the gems of showers
& sweet the fragrance which the union yields
To battered footpaths crossing oer the fields

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Refuse of Nature

Long my dear valleys long long may ye flourish
Though rush-beds & thistles make most of your pride
May showers never fail the greens daisies to nourish
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side
Your skies may be gloomy & misty your mornings
Your flat swampy valleys unwholesome may be
Still refuse of Nature without her adornings
Ye are dear as this heart in my bosom to me

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Weeds of all sorts

The partridge whirs up frit away from her nest 

& the hare with the morning dew yet on her breast 

Jumps away from his hustle & bustle & noise 

Which he makes in the midst of his rapture & joys

Now singing & tearing up weeds of all sorts 

Showy corn poppys shining like foxhunters coats 

& bluecaps & cockleflowers no matter what 

To make a gay garland to stick in his hat 

& now he struts out what a gesture he wears 

As proud of his colours as soldiers of 

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Droning bee

When it comes a summer shower

It still will go from flower to flower

Then underneath the rushes—

It sees the silver daisy flower

& there it spends a little hour

Then hides among the bushes

But whence they come from where they go

None but the wiser schoolboy's know

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The gay flowret

As oer the gay pasture went rocking a clown 

A gay gaudy buttercups gold fringed gown 
Engaged his attention as passing her bye 
& rudly to gain her he stooped adown 
Its beauty so dazzld his eye 

By outside appearance the sensless are caught 
& beautys gay triumph is foolish & short 
With nothing to gain the attention beside 
Possession soon sickens—& fleet as a thought 
Beauty slips us forgotten aside 

As snufting & snufting the clodhopper goes 
& finding no sweetness for charming his nose 
Frail beauties delusion soon wearied his eye 
& away the gay flowret he heedlessly throws 
To wither unnotis'd & dye

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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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Freedoms throne

Ive loved thy being from a boy

The highland hills was once my joy

Then morning mists did round them lie

Like sunshine in the happiest sky

Her hills & valleys seemed my own

When our land was freedoms throne

Her fruitful vales her mountain thrones

Are ruled by natures laws alone

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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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Hopeless Agony & Hell

My Mind Is Dark & Fathomless & Wears

The Hues Of Hopeless Agony & Hell

No Plummet Ever Sounds The Souls Affairs

There Death Eternal Never Sounds The Knell

There Love Imprisoned Sighs The Long Farewell

& Still May Sigh In Thoughts No Heart Hath Penned

Alone In Loneliness Where Sorrows Dwell

& Hopeless Hope Hopes On & Meets No End

Wastes Without Springs & Homes Without A Friend

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Charming Mary

Mary mary charming mary
Now the sun has sunk to rest
& the even breeze so airy
Tries to bare thy snowy breast
How I love wi thee to wander
Mary o how sweet wi thee
Dusky meadows to meander
Where no soul can hear or see

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Child Harold

Another tragic poem from Clare's 'Child Harold', written in the autumn of 1841 when Clare was back in Northborough and vainly seeking Mary Joyce.  My Chapbook 'Child Harold' is the only published book with all of Clare's poems under that title.  Nearly all written in the year of two asylums, 1841.

Available from me this weekend at the Festival of course.

Song

I think of thee at early day

& wonder where my love can be

& when the evening shadows grey

O how I think of thee

Along the meadow banks I rove

& down the flaggy fen

& hope my first & early love

To meet thee once agen

I think of thee at dewy morn

& at the sunny noon

& walks with thee—now left forlorn

Beneath the silent moon

I think of thee I think of all

How blest we both have been—

The sun looks pale upon the wall

& autumn shuts the scene

I can't expect to meet thee now

The winter floods begin

The wind sighs through the naked bough

Sad as my heart within

I think of thee the seasons through

In spring when flowers I see

In winters lorn & naked view

I think of only thee

While life breaths on this earthly ball

What e'er my lot may be

Wether in freedom or in thrall

Mary I think of thee

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