Little Trotty Wagtail

Little trotty wagtail he went in the rain,
And twittering, tottering sideways he ne'er got straight again.
He stooped to get a worm, and looked up to get a fly,
And then he flew away ere his feathers they were dry.

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

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

from 'The Stranger'

His presence was a peace to all,
He bade the sorrowful rejoice.
Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
Health lived and issued from his voice.
He healed the sick and sent abroad
The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.

The blind met daylight in his eye,
The joys of everlasting day;
The sick found health in his reply;
The cripple threw his crutch away.
Yet he with troubles did remain
And suffered poverty and pain.

Yet none could say of wrong he did,
And scorn was ever standing bye;
Accusers by their conscience chid,
When proof was sought, made no reply.
Yet without sin he suffered more
Than ever sinners did before.

September 1824

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, and it seemed akin to nature and 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, and herdsmen all had their tales of its history, and it will be long ere its memory is forgotten.

An excerpt from ‘Remembrances’

Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one,
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on.
I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and forever far away.
Dear heart, and 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 and play
On its bank at “clink and bandy,” “chock” and “taw” and “ducking stone,”
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone.

The Shepherd's Calendar - September

[Carry Akroyd’s linocut illustrating September from “The Shepherd’s Calendar 2007” published by Carcanet Publications]

Anon the fields are wearing clear
And glad sounds hum in labours ear
When childern halo ‘here they come’
And run to meet the harvest home
Stuck thick with boughs and thronged with boys
Who mingle loud a merry noise
Glad that the harvests end is nigh
And weary labour nearly bye
Where when they meet the stack thronged yard
Cross bunns or pence their shouts reward

Then comes the harvest supper night
Which rustics welcome with delight
When merry game and tiresome tale
And songs increasing with the ale
Their mingled uproar interpose
To crown the harvests happy close
While rural mirth that there abides
Laughs till she almost cracks her sides

Ploughman Singing

Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,
And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye.
Woke early, I arose and thought that first
In winter time of all the world was I.
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst,
But joy just then was up and whistled bye
A merry tune which I had known full long,
But could not to my memory wake it back,
Until the ploughman changed it to the song.
O happiness, how simple is thy track.
--Tinged like the willow shoots, the east's young brow
Glows red and finds thee singing at the plough.

Young Jenny

The cockchafer hums down the rut-rifted lane
Where the wild roses hang and the woodbines entwine,
And the shrill squeaking bat makes his circles again
Round the side of the tavern close by the sign.
The sun is gone down like a wearisome queen,
In curtains the richest that ever were seen.

The dew falls on flowers in a mist of small rain,
And, beating the hedges, low fly the barn owls;
The moon with her horns is just peeping again,
And deep in the forest the dog-badger howls;
In best bib and tucker then wanders my Jane
By the side of the woodbines which grow in the lane.

On a sweet eventide I walk by her side;
In green hoods the daisies have shut up their eyes.
Young Jenny is handsome without any pride;
Her eyes (O how bright!) have the hue of the skies.
O 'tis pleasant to walk by the side of my Jane
At the close of the day, down the mossy green lane.

We stand by the brook, by the gate, and the stile,
While the even star hangs out his lamp in the sky;
And on her calm face dwells a sweet sunny smile,
While her soul fondly speaks through the light of her eye.
Sweet are the moments while waiting for Jane;
'T is her footsteps I hear coming down the green lane.

From 'Home Yearnings'

[Carry's 'Woodwalton Fen' in all its glory - click on the image for the full effect]

The sheep within the fallow field,
The herd upon the green,
The larks that in the thistle shield,
And pipe from morn to e'en--
O for the pasture, fields, and fen!
When shall I see such rest again?

I love the weeds along the fen,
More sweet than garden flowers,
For freedom haunts the humble glen
That blest my happiest hours.
Here prison injures health and me:
I love sweet freedom and the free.

[Woodwalton Fen from 'The Great Fen Project website]

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Examining this map in details shows that Carry's painting is rather more accurate a portrayal than most folk realise, and shows her wonderful way of capturing the nature of a place in a few brush-strokes. She is to be congratulated... I am sure that Clare would have approved.

The Fens (III)

Woodwalton Fen [Detail] – Carry Akroyd

Here's little save the river scene
And grounds of oats in rustling green
And crowded growth of wheat and beans,
That with the hope of plenty leans
And cheers the farmer's gazing brow,
Who lives and triumphs in the plough--
One sometimes meets a pleasant sward
Of swarthy grass; and quickly marred
The plough soon turns it into brown,
And, when again one rambles down
The path, small hillocks burning lie
And smoke beneath a burning sky.
Green paddocks have but little charms
With gain the merchandise of farms;
And, muse and marvel where we may,
Gain mars the landscape every day--
The meadow grass turned up and copt,
The trees to stumpy dotterels lopt,
The hearth with fuel to supply
For rest to smoke and chatter bye;
Giving the joy of home delights,
The warmest mirth on coldest nights.
And so for gain, that joy's repay,
Change cheats the landscape every day,
Nor trees nor bush about it grows
That from the hatchet can repose,
And the horizon stooping smiles
Oer treeless fens of many miles.
Spring comes and goes and comes again
And all is nakedness and fen.

The Fens (II)

[Woodwalton Fen [Detail] – Carry Akroyd]

Among the tawny tasselled reed
The ducks and ducklings float and feed.
With head oft dabbing in the flood
They fish all day the weedy mud,
And tumbler-like are bobbing there,
Heels topsy turvy in the air.

The geese in troops come droving up,
Nibble the weeds, and take a sup;
And, closely puzzled to agree,
Chatter like gossips over tea.
The gander with his scarlet nose
When strife's at height will interpose;
And, stretching neck to that and this,
With now a mutter, now a hiss,
A nibble at the feathers too,
A sort of "pray be quiet do,"
And turning as the matter mends,
He stills them into mutual friends;
Then in a sort of triumph sings
And throws the water oer his wings.

Ah, could I see a spinney nigh,
A puddock riding in the sky
Above the oaks with easy sail
On stilly wings and forked tail,
Or meet a heath of furze in flower,
I might enjoy a quiet hour,
Sit down at rest, and walk at ease,
And find a many things to please.
But here my fancy's moods admire
The naked levels till they tire,
Nor een a molehill cushion meet
To rest on when I want a seat.

(tbc)

The Fens (I)

The Great Fen Project aims to restore over 3000 hectares of fenland habitat between Huntingdon and Peterborough. In doing so it will connect Woodwalton Fen National Nature Reserve with Holme Fen National Nature Reserve to create a very large site with conservation benefits for wildlife and socio-economic benefits for people. Woodwalton Fen is an internationally important site for its communities of wetland plants and animals and this is reflected in its designation as a Special Area of Conservation.

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[Image : Woodwalton Fen [Detail] – Carry Akroyd]

Clare too wrote extensively about the fens, which in his time reached almost to Helpston.

.

Wandering by the river's edge,
I love to rustle through the sedge
And 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,
Fear's moment ague quakes the blood,
While plop the snake coils in the flood
And, hissing with a forked tongue,
Across the river winds along.
In coat of orange, green, and 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
And in the gravel shallows lie.

Eddies run before the boats,
Gurgling where the fisher floats,
Who takes advantage of the gale
And hoists his handkerchief for sail
On osier twigs that form a mast--
While idly lies, nor wanted more,
The spirit that pushed him on before.

There's not a hill in all the view,
Save that a forked cloud or two
Upon the verge of distance lies
And into mountains cheats the eyes.
And as to trees the willows wear
Lopped heads as high as bushes are;
Some taller things the distance shrouds
That may be trees or stacks or clouds
Or may be nothing; still they wear
A semblance where there's nought to spare.

(tbc)

I Pluck Summer Blossoms

I pluck Summer blossoms,
And think of rich bosoms --
The bosoms I've leaned on, and worshipped, and won.
The rich valley lilies,
The wood daffodillies,
Have been found in our rambles when Summer begun.

Where I plucked thee the bluebell,
'T was where the night dew fell,
And rested till morn in the cups of the flowers;
I shook the sweet posies,
Bluebells and brere roses,
As we sat in cool shade in Summer's warm hours.

Bedlam-cowslips and cuckoos,
With freck'd lip and hooked nose,
Growing safe near the hazel of thicket and woods,
And water blobs, ladies' smocks,
Blooming where haycocks
May be found, in the meadows, low places, and floods.

And cowslips a fair band
For May ball or garland,
That bloom in the meadows as seen by the eye;
And pink ragged robin,
Where the fish they are bobbing
Their heads above water to catch at the fly.

Wild flowers and wild roses!
'T is love makes the posies
To paint Summer ballads of meadow and glen.
Floods can't drown it nor turn it,
Even flames cannot burn it;
Let it bloom till we walk the green meadows again.

Among the Green Bushes

Among the green bushes the songs of the thrushes
Are answering each other in music and glee,
While the magpies and 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,
And crop a white branch from the scented may tree,
Where the silver brook wimples and 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 and each other so blooming and 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;
There's nothing seems wakeful but you love and I.

Larks sleep in the rushes, linnets perch on the bushes,
While mag's on her nest with her tail peeping out;
The moon it reveals her, yet she thinks night conceals her,
Though birdnesting boys are not roving about.
The night winds won't wrong her, nor aught that belong her,
For night is the nurse of all Nature in sleep;
The moon, love, is keeping a watch o'er the sleeping,
And dews for real pleasure do nothing but weep.

Among the green bushes we'll sit with the thrushes,
And blackbirds and linnets, an hour or two long,
That are up at the dawning, by times in the morning,
To cheer thee when milking with music and song.
Then come at the eve, love, and where the banks lean, love,
By the brook that flows on in its dribbles of song;
While the moon looks so pale, love, and the trees look so hale,
love,
I will tell thee a tale, love, an hour or two long.

from 'Summer Images'

Rich music breathes in summer's every sound;
And in her harmony of varied greens,
Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around
Much beauty intervenes,
Filling with harmony the ear and eye;
While oer the mingling scenes
Far spreads the laughing sky.

The Shepherd’s Calendar - August

[Image from Carry Akroyd’s linocut illustrating August from “The
Shepherd’s Calendar 2007” published by Carcanet Publications]

The fields are all alive with sultry noise
Of labours sounds and insects busy joys
The reapers oer their glittering sickles stoop
Startling full oft the partridge coveys up
Some oer the rustling scythe go bending on
And shockers follow where their toils have gone
First turning swaths to wither in the sun
Where mice from terrors dangers nimbly run
Leaving their tender young in fears alarm
Lapt up in nests of chimbled grasses warm
And oft themselves for safty search in vain
From the rude boy or churlish hearted swain

The Fox

[Image: ‘Deep Solitude’ by Carry Akroyd]

The shepherd on his journey heard when nigh
His dog among the bushes barking high;
The ploughman ran and gave a hearty shout,
He found a weary fox and beat him out.
The ploughman laughed and would have ploughed him in
But the old shepherd took him for the skin.
He lay upon the furrow stretched for dead,
The old dog lay and licked the wounds that bled,
The ploughman beat him till his ribs would crack,
And then the shepherd slung him at his back;
And when he rested, to his dog's surprise,
The old fox started from his dead disguise;
And while the dog lay panting in the sedge
He up and snapt and bolted through the hedge.

He scampered to the bushes far away;
The shepherd called the ploughman to the fray;
The ploughman wished he had a gun to shoot.
The old dog barked and followed the pursuit.
The shepherd threw his hook and tottered past;
The ploughman ran but none could go so fast;
The woodman threw his faggot from the way
And ceased to chop and wondered at the fray.
But when he saw the dog and heard the cry
He threw his hatchet--but the fox was bye.
The shepherd broke his hook and lost the skin;
He found a badger hole and bolted in.
They tried to dig, but, safe from danger's way,
He lived to chase the hounds another day.

From "Home Yearnings"

[Image: 'Wide Fen' by Carry Akroyd]

O for the pasture, fields, and fen!
When shall I see such rest again?

I love the weeds along the fen,
More sweet than garden flowers,
For freedom haunts the humble glen
That blest my happiest hours.
Here prison injures health and me:
I love sweet freedom and the free.

Ronald Blythe reflects on the mysteries of man and plough

Folk present last Saturday at the Festival in Helpston will remember our President, Ronnie Blythe's, address -- "Ploughing and the ploughman" [my title]. Surprise, today in the Church Times, Ronnie's weekly piece "... reflects on the mysteries of man and plough."

Speaking to Ronnie during the afternoon last week, I asked if I might use his pieces in this way --- he replied "of course you may". But remember the original is on the back page of this week's CT newpaper under Ronnie's normal title, "Word from Wormingford".

He writes:

WHAT with weather, what with machinery, farmland soon becomes out of knowledge. I have two acres, and all the other acres grow around me. The contours stay mainly unchanged, yet at the same time mysterious. There is a slight amphitheatre-like rise above Lower Bottoms, and what must have been a Slough of Despond in the Top Field for many a plough.

The old horseman (East Anglian for ploughman) tells me how it was when he drew his first furrow, setting it against a holly bush in the distant hedge. Hedgers never levelled a holly, and I see them round the village still, many of them tall trees. “It would have been about February,” said the horseman. And I see the horseman as a slight, youthful figure hip-hopping along behind his Punches, the plough tipping and reeling, its share striking sparks from the everlasting flints.

In the late 19th century, during that nadir of English agriculture, when even the horsemen, the princes of the fields, were broken and half-beaten, Henry Rider Haggard, who farmed in the Waveney Valley, watched the February ploughing with humility, familiar as he was with it.

As during our present summer, it rained and rained, although with less eventual ruination of rural life. He had spent his 20s in South Africa, filling his head with the tales that would become King Solomon’s Mines and She (who-must-be-obeyed). Then it was back to Norfolk and this shocking sight of white men in the mud. His men, his demanding fields.

It was 1898 when farmworkers, even the noble horsemen, were all lumped together in the popular mind as labourers, skill-less creatures whose duty it was simply to toil. While Haggard was shocked by their servitude, he began to see their art; for their work was nothing less. He wanted to destroy the huge social barriers that cut him off from his men, but it was not only impossible, but unthinkable.

In an Egyptian pyramid, he had seen a beautiful fresco of a king and his harvesters all rejoicing in a field together, the corn shining in their arms. If only Norfolk could be like this! If only his labourers would speak to him! He could afford to pay them twice their wage, but it would put Norfolk’s economy out, of course. So he told the world how they worked, with what brilliance, with what strength.

“Ploughing is one of those things that look a great deal easier than they are, like the writing of romances. The observer, standing at a gate to watch a man with a pair of horses strolling up and down a hill for hours on end . . . is apt to conclude that, beyond the physical endurance involved, the difficulties are small. Let him take the pair of horses, however, and plough for, say, 40 minutes, and he will come away with a greatly increased respect for the ploughman.”

As boys, we watched Captain Cardy’s plough surge to the headland like a tall, clomping horse-wave, wheel, and flood back. He had fought on the Western Front, and I always imagined to myself the jingling of the horse-brasses with the jingling of his medals. He did not call out to us.

The irony was that when all the young men fled the collapsing farms for the glory of soldiering, they were set to digging trenches — vast ditches made with spades by regimented labourers. The horsemen rode. Nobody dared beat their bayonets into ploughshares. Everyone dreamed of their own church bells and forgot their own ditches and bush-draining. From No-man’s-land they dreamed of Someone’s-land.

When I went to see Passchendaele some years ago, it was drizzling, but the mud was unlike the mud here. It was silvery in the trodden grass.

“Word from Wormingford” -- Church Times [20th July 2007]

A fragment....

[Image: "Fenscape Edge" by Carry Akroyd]

Now the meadow water smokes
And hedgerows dripping oaks
Fitter patter all around
And dimple the once dusty ground
The spinners threads about the weeds
Are hung with little drops in beads
Clover silver green becomes
And purple blue surrounds the plumbs
And every place breaths fresh and fair
When morning pays her visit there

The day is dull the heron trails
On flapping wings like heavy sails
And oer the mead so lowly swings
She fans the herbage with her wings

From "November"

[Image - "Hares Chasing" by Carry Akroyd]

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, though the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, though pelted by the passing swain;
Thus day seems turned to night, and tries to wake in vain.

.

What a wonderful Festival we enjoyed in sunny Helpston over the weekend. The highlights for me were Ronnie Blythe's talk on 'Clare the Plowman' and Richard Mabey on Clare's botanical sensibilities. Greetings to all members... see you next year?

"All Flesh is Grass"

"The contract farmer has left a bit of the big field to do what it likes; so it has grown a grass crop, which by dint of tallness has held itself up. It waves. It seeds. “We are the True Fescues,” it says. “We are perennial. We shall come again.” Ryegrass, darnel, meadow grass, sweet grass, quaking grass — here we sway.

I remember the patch of quaking grass in the peggle field near Chilton Hall when we were children, how it “went” with bulldaisies. And lying in deep, deep grass in a kind of ceilingless grassy room, and listening to the cows chomping near by — which is what the poet John Clare did when he wanted to write without being seen.

I gather some Common Quaking Grass, the worse for wear, owing to the rain. I look it up in my grass Who’s Who, in which the grassy language is a kind of faintly understood vocabulary that always makes me want several lives, this particular one for learning botany proper. Oh, to speak “Briza media”*, with its beautiful “long and wide, oval to heart-shaped, pendulous, blunt, boat-shaped with shiny keels … flowering June-July” in my track!

Ronald Blythe
(Church Times – 6th July 2007)

*Briza Media -- A perennial grass, also known as Common Quaking Grass because of the gentle rustling sound it makes when disturbed by a breeze.


Finally, for this will be the last post before the Festival on Saturday, a verse from Clare's “I am” :

I long for scenes where man has never trod --
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept --
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

See you at Clare’s graveside on Friday afternoon for the children of the John Clare Primary School’s annual Midsummer Cushions Ceremony, this year actually on his birthday.

"Sacred to the Memory of John Clare, the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet.
Born July 13, 1793. Died May 20th, 1864.
A Poet is born, not made."

(Roger R)

From "The Sailor's Return"

Leading up to the John Clare Society Festival in Helpston on Saturday 14th July, (with associated events on the 13th and 15th), a short series of excerpts, through Clare’s eyes, of the heaths, fields and fens around his home.

This year not only is Ronald Blythe giving his much anticipated annual President’s Address, but also Richard Mabey is giving a Keynote Address on “Clare – Botanist or Flower Arranger”. See you there?

T’was down in the cow pasture, just at the gloaming,
I met a young woman sweet tempered and mild,
I said “Pretty maiden, say, where are you roving?”
“I'm walking at even,” she answered, and smiled.
“Here my sweetheart and I gathered posies at even;
It's eight years ago since they sent him to sea.
Wild flowers hung with dew are like angels from heaven:
They look up in my face and keep whispering to me.”

From 'The Village Minstrel' (3)

Leading up to the John Clare Society Festival in Helpston on Saturday 14th July, (with associated events on the 13th and 15th), a short series of excerpts, through Clare’s eyes, of the heaths, fields and fens around his home.

This year not only is Ronald Blythe giving his much anticipated annual President’s Address, but also Richard Mabey is giving a Keynote Address on “Clare – Botanist or Flower Arranger”. See you there?

And long, my dear valleys, long, long may ye flourish,
Though rush-beds and thistles make most of your pride!
May showers never fail the green's daisies to nourish,
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side!
Your skies may be gloomy, and 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.

The Shepherd's Calendar - July

[Image from Carry Akroyd’s linocut illustrating July from “The

Shepherd’s Calendar 2007” published by Carcanet Publications]

.

Loud is the summers busy song
The smalles breeze can find a tongue
Where insects of each tiney size
Grow teazing with their melodys
Till noon burns with its blistering breath
Around and day dyes still as death
The busy noise of man and brute
Is on a sudden lost and mute
The cuckoo singing as she flies
No more to mocking boy replys
Even the brook that leaps along
Seems weary of its bubbling song
And so soft its waters creep
Tired silence sinks in sounder sleep
The cricket on its banks is dumb
The very flies forget to hum

From 'The Village Minstrel' (2)

Leading up to the John Clare Society Festival in Helpston on Saturday 14th July, (with associated events on the 13th and 15th), a short series of excerpts, through Clare’s eyes, of the heaths, fields and fens around his home.

This year not only is Ronald Blythe to give his much anticipated annual President’s Address, but also Richard Mabey is giving a Keynote Address on “Clare – Botanist or Flower Arranger”. See you there?

O native endearments! I would not forsake ye,
I would not forsake ye for sweetest of scenes:
For sweetest of gardens that Nature could make me
I would not forsake ye, dear valleys and greens:
Though Nature ne'er dropped ye a cloud-resting mountain,
Nor waterfalls tumble their music so free,
Had Nature denied ye a bush, tree, or fountain,
Ye still had been loved as an Eden by me.

From ‘The Village Minstrel’ (1)

Leading up to the John Clare Society Festival in Helpston on Saturday 14th July, (with associated events on the 13th and 15th), a short series of excerpts, through Clare’s eyes, of the heaths, fields and fens around his home.

This year not only is Ronald Blythe to give his much anticipated annual President’s Address, but also Richard Mabey is giving a Keynote Address on “Clare – Botanist or Flower Arranger”. See you there?

Swamps of wild rush-beds and sloughs' squashy traces,
Grounds of rough fallows with thistle and weed.
Flats and low valleys of kingcups and daisies,
Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed:
Ye commons left free in the rude rags of nature,
Ye brown heaths beclothed in furze as ye be,
My wild eye in rapture adores every feature,
Ye are dear as this heart in my bosom to me.

To a Primrose

Welcome, pale primrose, starting up between
Dead matted leaves of oak and ash, that strew
The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through,
'Mid creeping moss and ivy's darker green!
How much thy presence beautifies the ground!
How sweet thy modest, unaffected pride
Glows on the sunny bank and wood's warm side!
And where thy fairy flowers in groups are found
The schoolboy roams enchantedly along,
Plucking the fairest with a rude delight,
While the meek shepherd stops his simple song,
To gaze a moment on the pleasing sight,
O'erjoyed to see the flowers that truly bring
The welcome news of sweet returning Spring.

Young Jenny

The cockchafer hums down the rut-rifted lane
Where the wild roses hang and the woodbines entwine,
And the shrill squeaking bat makes his circles again
Round the side of the tavern close by the sign.
The sun is gone down like a wearisome queen,
In curtains the richest that ever were seen.

The dew falls on flowers in a mist of small rain,
And, beating the hedges, low fly the barn owls;
The moon with her horns is just peeping again,
And deep in the forest the dog-badger howls;
In best bib and tucker then wanders my Jane
By the side of the woodbines which grow in the lane.

On a sweet eventide I walk by her side;
In green hoods the daisies have shut up their eyes.
Young Jenny is handsome without any pride;
Her eyes (O how bright!) have the hue of the skies.
O 'tis pleasant to walk by the side of my Jane
At the close of the day, down the mossy green lane.

We stand by the brook, by the gate, and the stile,
While the even star hangs out his lamp in the sky;
And on her calm face dwells a sweet sunny smile,
While her soul fondly speaks through the light of her eye.
Sweet are the moments while waiting for Jane;
'T is her footsteps I hear coming down the green lane.

Summer Evening

The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past,--and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
And drops again when no more noise it hears.
Thus nature's human link and endless thrall,
Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.

Bonnie Lassie O !

O the evening's for the fair, bonny lassie O!
To meet the cooler air and join an angel there,
With the dark dishevelled hair,
Bonny lassie O!

The bloom's on the brere, bonny lassie O!
Oak apples on the tree; and wilt thou gang to see
The shed I've made for thee,
Bonny lassie O!

'T is agen the running brook, bonny lassie O!
In a grassy nook hard by, with a little patch of sky,
And a bush to keep us dry,
Bonny lassie O!

There's the daisy all the year, bonny lassie O!
There's the king-cup bright as gold, and the speedwell never cold,
And the arum leaves unrolled,
Bonny lassie O!

O meet me at the shed, bonny lassie O!
With the woodbine peeping in, and the roses like thy skin
Blushing, thy praise to win,
Bonny lassie O!

I will meet thee there at e'en, bonny lassie O!
When the bee sips in the beau, and grey willow branches lean,
And the moonbeam looks between,
Bonny lassie O!

To Jenny Lind

I cannot touch the harp again,
And sing another idle lay,
To cool a maddening, burning brain,
And drive the midnight fiend away.
Music, own sister to the soul.
Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale;
And sweet her joys and sorrows roll
When sings the Swedish Nightingale.

* * * * *

I cannot touch the harp again;
No chords will vibrate on the string;
Like broken flowers upon the plain,
My heart e'en withers while I sing.
Aeolian harps have witching tones,
On morning or the evening gale;
No melody their music owns
As sings the Swedish nightingale.

from The Haymaker's Story

Stopt by the storm, that long in sullen black
From the south-west stained its encroaching track,
Haymakers, hustling from the rain to hide,
Sought the grey willows by the pasture-side;
And there, while big drops bow the grassy stems,
And bleb the withering hay with pearly gems,
Dimple the brook, and patter in the leaves,
The song or tale an hour's restraint relieves.
And while the old dames gossip at their ease,
And pinch the snuff-box empty by degrees,
The young ones join in love's delightful themes,
Truths told by gipsies, and expounded dreams;
And mutter things kept secrets from the rest,
As sweethearts' names, and whom they love the best;
And dazzling ribbons they delight to show,
And last new favours of some veigling beau,
Who with such treachery tries their hearts to move,
And, like the highest, bribes the maidens' love.

The Shepherd’s Calendar - June

Now summer is in flower and natures hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never done
Wi' glittering dance and reeling in the sun
And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee
Are never weary of their melody
Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine
Large bindweed bells wild hop and streakd woodbine
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers
Agape for dewfalls and for honey showers
These round each bush in sweet disorder run
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun.

from "Summer Images"

And wind-enamoured aspin--mark the leaves
Turn up their silver lining to the sun,
And list! the brustling noise, that oft deceives,
And makes the sheep-boy run;
The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers,
He thinks the rain begun,
And hastes to sheltering bowers.

from "Song's Eternity"

"Tootle tootle tootle tee" --
Can it be
Pride and fame must shadows be?
Come and see --
Every season own her own;
Bird and bee
Sing creation's music on;
Nature's glee
Is in every mood and tone
Eternity.

Clare the naturalist

May 25 1825
I watched a bluecap or blue titmouse feeding her young, whose nest was in a wall close to an orchard. She got caterpillars out of the blossoms of the apple trees and leaves of the plum. She fetched 120 caterpillars in half an hour. Now suppose she only feeds them four times a day, a quarter of an hour each time, she fetched no less than 480 caterpillars.

Love of Nature

I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens? There lives happiness for me!

My pulse beats calmer while His lightnings play!
My eye, with earth's delusions waxing dim,
Clears with the brightness of eternal day!
The elements crash round me! It is He!
Calmly I hear His voice and never start.
From Eve's posterity I stand quite free,
Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart.

Love is not here. Hope is, and at His voice--
The rolling thunder and the roaring sea--
My pulses leap, and with the hills rejoice;
Then strife and turmoil are at end for me.
No matter where life's ocean leads me on,
For Nature is my mother, and I rest,
When tempests trouble and the sun is gone,
Like to a weary child upon her breast.

from November

Another of Clare's trees...

.

At length it comes among the forest oaks,
With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high;
The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks,
And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly,
While the blue hawk hangs oer them in the sky.--
The hedger hastens from the storm begun,
To seek a shelter that may keep him dry;
And foresters low bent, the wind to shun,
Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher's muttering gun.

The Shepherd's Tree

I'm sure we all know such wonderful trees as the elm that Clare here immortalises in verse in this early poem:

Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred,

Like to a warrior's destiny!

I love To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward,

And hear the laugh of summer leaves above;

Or on thy buttressed roots to sit, and lean

In careless attitude, and there reflect

On times, and deeds, and darings that have been --

Old castaways, now swallowed in neglect;

While thou art towering in thy strength of heart,

Stirring the soul to vain imaginings,

In which life's sordid being hath no part.

The wind of that eternal ditty sings,

Humming of future things, that burn the mind

To leave some fragment of itself behind.

The Ants

What wonder strikes the curious, while he views

The black ant's city, by a rotten tree,

Or woodland bank! In ignorance we muse:

Pausing, annoyed, -- we know not what we see,
Such government and thought there seem to be;
Some looking on, and urging some to toil,
Dragging their loads of bent-stalks slavishly:
And what's more wonderful, when big loads foil
One ant or two to carry, quickly then
A swarm flock round to help their fellow-men.
Surely they speak a language whisperingly,
Too fine for us to hear; and sure their ways
Prove they have kings and laws, and that they be
Deformed remnants of the Fairy-days.

Excerpt from "The Village Minstrel"

O who can tell the sweets of May-day's morn,
To waken rapture in a feeling mind,
When the gilt East unveils her dappled dawn,
And the gay wood-lark has its nest resigned,
As slow the sun creeps up the hill behind;
Moon reddening round, and daylight's spotless hue,
As seemingly with rose and lily lined;
While all the prospect round beams fair to view,
Like a sweet Spring flower with its unsullied dew.

Ah, often, brushing through the dripping grass,
Has he been seen to catch this early charm,
List'ning to the "love song" of the healthy lass
Passing with milk-pail on her well-turned arm,
Or meeting objects from the rousing farm--
The jingling plough-teams driving down the steep
Waggon and cart, and shepherd dog's alarm,
Raising the bleatings of unfolding sheep,
As o'er the mountain top the red sun 'gins to peep.

The Shepherd's Calendar - May

[Image from Carry Akroyd’s linocut illustrating May from “The Shepherd’s Calendar 2007” published by Carcanet Publications]

My wild field catalogue of flowers
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers
Tedious and long as they may be
To some, they never weary me

The wood and mead and field of grain
I coud hunt oer and oer again
And talk to every blossom wild
Fond as a parent to a child

And cull them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls

And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower

And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs

Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move

Oft making 'love knotts' in the shade
Of blue green oat or wheaten blade
And trying simple charms and spells
That rural superstition tells

They pull the little blossom threads
From out the knapweeds button heads
And put the husk wi many a smile
In their white bosoms for awhile

Who if they guess aright the swain
That loves sweet fancys trys to gain
Tis said that ere its lain an hour
Twill blossom wi a second flower

And from her white breasts hankerchief
Bloom as they ne'er had lost a leaf
When signs appear that token wet
As they are neath the bushes met

The girls are glad wi hopes of play
And harping of the holiday

The Village Minstrel

LVI.
And he could tell how the shy squirrel far'd,
Who often stood its busy toils to see;
How against winter it was well prepar'd
With many a store in hollow root or tree,
As if being told what winter's wants would be:
Its nuts and acorns he would often find,
And hips and haws too, heaped plenteously
In snug warm corner that broke off the wind;
With leafy nest made nigh, that warm green mosses lin'd.

LVII.
'Twas thus his fond inquiry us'd to trace
Through nature's secret with unwearied eye,
And watch the shifting seasons' changing grace;
Spring's first wild flower, and summer's painted sky,
The insect creeping, and the birds that fly;
The autumn's dying breeze; the winter-wind,
That bellow'd round his hut most mournfully:
And as his years increas'd his taste refin'd,
And fancy with new charms enlighten'd up his mind.

Ploughman Singing

Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,
And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye.
Woke early, I arose and thought that first
In winter time of all the world was I.
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst,
But joy just then was up and whistled bye
A merry tune which I had known full long,
But could not to my memory wake it back,
Until the ploughman changed it to the song.
O happiness, how simple is thy track.
--Tinged like the willow shoots, the east's young brow
Glows red and finds thee singing at the plough.

Sudden Shower

Black grows the southern sky, betokening rain,

And humming hive-bees homeward hurry bye:

They feel the change; so let us shun the grain,

And take the broad road while our feet are dry.

Ay, there some dropples moistened on my face,

And pattered on my hat--tis coming nigh!

Let's look about, and find a sheltering place.

The little things around, like you and I,

Are hurrying through the grass to shun the shower.

Here stoops an ash-tree--hark! the wind gets high,

But never mind; this ivy, for an hour,

Rain as it may, will keep us dryly here:

That little wren knows well his sheltering bower,

Nor leaves his dry house though we come so near.

To Anna Three Years Old (2)

Thou’lt leave my hand with eager speed
The new discovered things to see--
The old pond with its water weed
And danger-daring willow tree,
Who leans an ancient invalid
O’er spots where deepest waters be.

In sudden shout and wild surprise
I hear thy simple wonderment,
As new things meet thy childish eyes
And wake some innocent intent;

As bird or bee or butterfly
Bounds through the crowd of merry leaves
And starts the rapture of thine eye
To run for what it ne’er achieves.

But thou art on the bed of pain,
So tells each poor forsaken toy.
Ah, could I see that happy hour
When these shall be thy heart's employ,
And see thee toddle oer the plain,
And stoop for flowers, and shout for joy.

To Anna Three Years Old (1)

My Anna, summer laughs in mirth,
And we will of the party be,
And leave the crickets in the hearth
For green fields' merry minstrelsy.

I see thee now with little hand
Catch at each object passing bye,
The happiest thing in all the land
Except the bee and butterfly.

And limpid brook that leaps along,
Gilt with the summer’s burnished gleam,
Will stop thy little tale or song
To gaze upon its crimping stream.

The Shepherd's Daughter

How sweet is every lengthening day,
And every change of weather,
When Summer comes, on skies blue grey,
And brings her hosts together,
Her flocks of birds, her crowds of flowers,
Her sunny-shining water!
I dearly love the woodbine bowers,
That hide the Shepherd's Daughter--
In gown of green or brown or blue,
The Shepherd's Daughter, leal and true.

How bonny is her lily breast!
How sweet her rosy face!
She'd give my aching bosom rest,
Where love would find its place.
While earth is green, and skies are blue,
And sunshine gilds the water,
While Summer's sweet and Nature true,
I'll love the Shepherd's Daughter--
Her nut brown hair, her clear bright eye,
My daily thought, my only joy.

She's such a simple, sweet young thing,
Dressed in her country costume.
My wits had used to know the Spring,
Till I saw, and loved, and lost 'em.
How quietly the lily lies
Upon the deepest water!
How sweet to me the Summer skies!
And so's the Shepherd's Daughter--
With lily breast and rosy face
The sweetest maid in any place.

My singing bird, my bonny flower,
How dearly could I love thee!
To sit with thee one pleasant hour,
If thou would'st but approve me!
I swear by lilies white and yellow,
That flower on deepest water,
Would'st thou but make me happy fellow,
I'd wed the Shepherd's Daughter!
By all that's on the earth or water,
I more than love the Shepherd's Daughter.

Love's Riddle

"Unriddle this riddle, my own Jenny love,
Unriddle this riddle for me,
And if ye unriddle the riddle aright,
A kiss your prize shall be,
And if ye riddle the riddle all wrong,
Ye're treble the debt to me:

I'll give thee an apple without any core;
I'll give thee a cherry where stones never be;
I'll give thee a palace, without any door,
And thou shalt unlock it without any key;
I'll give thee a fortune that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take from thee."

"How can there be apples without any core?
How can there be cherries where stones never be?
How can there be houses without any door?
Or doors I may open without any key?
How can'st thou give fortunes that kings cannot give,
When thou art no richer than me?"

"My head is the apple without any core;
In cherries in blossom no stones ever be;
My mind is love's palace without any door,
Which thou can'st unlock, love, without any key.
My heart is the wealth, love, that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take it from thee.

So there are love's riddles, my own Jenny love,
Ye cannot unriddle to me,
And for the one kiss you've so easily lost
I'll make ye give seven to me.
To kiss thee is sweet, but 't is sweeter by far
To be kissed, my dear Jenny, by thee.

Come pay me the forfeit, my own Jenny love;
Thy kisses and cheeks are akin,
And for thy three sweet ones I'll give thee a score
On thy cheeks, and thy lips, and thy chin."
She laughed while he gave her, as much as to say,
"T'were better to lose than to win."

The Shepherd's Calendar - April

[Detail from Carry Akroyd’s linocut illustrating April from “The Shepherd’s Calendar 2007” published by Carcanet Publications]

The shepherds on thy pasture walks

The first fair cowslip finds

Whose tufted flowers on slender stalks

Keep nodding to the winds

And tho thy thorns withold the may

Their shades the violets bring

Which childern stoop for in their play

As tokens of the spring

The time when daiseys bloom divine

With thy calm hours begun

And crowflowers blazing blooms are thine

Bright childern of the sun

Along thy woodlands shaded nooks

The primrose wanly comes

And shining in thy pebley brooks

The horse bleb gaily blooms

The long lost charm of sparkling dew

Thy gentle birth receives

And on thy wreathing locks we view

The first infolding leaves

And seeking firstling buds and flowers

The trials of thy skill

Were pastimes of my infant hours

And so they haunt me still