Song sweet warbling thrush

Thrice Welcome to thy song sweet warbling thrush

May you be happy as you still have been
The present sunshine warms your covert bush
The future clouds you know not what they mean
Vain foolish thought & why should ye be sad
Why be like me with ills to come oprest
To pass the present bliss that may be had
& wait on sorrow as a welcome guest

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Photo by my friend #JohnAbbott

Among the sheaves

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

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Dizzy nauntling high and proud

 Where the steeples taper stretch

Tries the eye its length to reach

Dizzy nauntling high & proud

Top stone loosing in a cloud

Where the cross to time resignd

Creaking harshly in the wind

Crowning high the rifted dome

Points the pilgrims wisht for home

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Photo: Peterborough Cathedral, this inspiration for Clare’s lines.

Down the cool lanes

Lonely oer the heaths to ramble 

Mary thou my partner be 

 Down the cool lanes lind wi bramble 

 Mary wind the brook wi me 

 Tho before in glooms surrounded 

 When encircld in thy arms 

 Beating heart wi troubles wounded 

 Throbs to rest on Marys charms

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To kiss the rivers 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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Photo from my friend #JohnAbbott 

Winding ways

Theres somthing rich & joyful to the mind 

To view through close & field those crooked shreds 

Of footpaths that most picturesqly wind 

From  town to town or some tree hidden sheds 

Where lonely cottager lifes peace enjoys 

Far far from strife & all its troubled noise 

The pent up artizan by pleasure led 

Along their winding ways right glad employs

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Natures happiest hand

As rugged & as barren as it seems 

This heath too has its beauties 

So sweetly wild & perminant of hue 

& heaths low creeping in their pinky bloom 

& here beside the dead bents rustling tuft 

A blossom hides its beauties from the world 

& such a one as natures happiest hand

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A scarlet host display

The garish Summer comes with many tribes 

Of gay & gaudy flowers in bright array

But the hot sun the cloudy morning bribes

& dries all moisture with his scorching ray

Corn-poppies oft a scarlet host display

The oak woods green like rocky masses hing 

On wooded hills the willows waving grey

Hang mournful in the stream birds cease to sing

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Cool thy waters run

Sweet fountain neeth thy pendant boughs 

 May cool thy waters run 

While flocks of sheep & herds of cows 

 Seek shelter from the sun 

Unhead[ed] be thy willow ranks 

 Thy waters pure & clear 

For her I meet upon thy banks 

 Thou fountain thou art dear

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The plash of quiet kine

Ive often gazed with pleasure by the edge

Of the old meadow lake floodwashed and crookd 

The water-rat slow rustling in the sedge

The fish-ring wavering in the clear Ive 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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Photo by my friend #JohnAbbott yesterday.

Love makes the posies

Wild flowers and wild roses

'‘Tis love makes the posies
To paint Summer ballads of meadow & glen
Floods cantdrown it nor turn it
Even flames cannot burn it
Let it bloom till we walk the green meadows again

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A coy lover

The Moth a coy lover now ventures to creep

Out at night to steal kisses from flowers when asleep

But the Butterflye bold as the Bee for a plot

Kisses the flowers all the day whether willing or not

Now no longer able his sports to pursue

He lay neath a leaf to get out of the dew

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Along the baulk

How fond the rustics ear at leisure dwells

On the soft soundings of his village bells

As on a sunday morning at his ease

He takes his rambles just as fancys please

Down narrow baulks that interscet the fields

Hid in profusions that its produce yields

Long twining peas in faintly misted greens

& winged leaf multitudes of crowding beans

& flighty oatlands of a lighter hue

& speary barley bowing down with dew

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Homeward bends his weary way

The weary thresher leaves his barn
And emptys from his shoes the corn
That gatherd in them thro the day
And homward bends his weary way
The gardener he is sprinkling showers
From watering pans on drooping flowers
And set away his hoe and spade
While goody neath the cottage shade
Sits wi a baskett tween her knees
Ready for supper shelling peas

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Painting by #CarryAkroyd 

Their sweets are sweet to them alone

With Genius blest but like to thee

So With Genius blest but like to thee

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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Painting by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Starry gems and gold

Then lovley insect come away

Greet once more the sunny day

Oft Ive seen when warm and dry

'Mong the beanfields bosom high

Thee lightly skim from pea to pea

(Solitude for thee and me)

Then thy starry gems and gold

Admiration would unfold

For what insect is't can vie

With the lovley Butterflye

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Dark & deep the waters flow

Tis sweet at eventide to go

By rivers winding rim

Where dark & deep the waters flow

& shoals of fish do swim

A ramble by the rivers side

Is pleasant in the summer

Where dragon flies on gauze wings hide

& the bees a minstrel hummer

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Boats of Pleasure

Oft would I seek the steps in midday hour

When sol mounts high in full meredian power

To see its leaves that on the surface lie

Prove Boats of Pleasure to the dragon flye.

Ah scenes so happy void of all controul

Your seeming prospects heightens up my soul.

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Fluttering linnets

In distant trees—& nigh hand in the wood

That skirts its shadow oer my mossy seat

I love that pleasant russling noise to meet

That tells of happiness with more then me

Of fluttering linnets this years summer brood

That 'scaped the schoolboys eye & fly to greet

Their happy parent hasting home with food

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Painting by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Lone spots…

Lone spots to seek home leaving far behind

Were wildness rears her lings & teazle burs

& were last lingering of the flowery kind

Blue heath bells tremble neath the sheltering furze

Sweet was such walks on the half barren wild

Which ploughs leave quiet with their briars & brakes

Prospects of freedom pleasing from a child

To track the crookd pad which the rabbit makes

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Stalking solitary thing…

& mark the nimble swallow jerk and fling

Its flight oer new mown meadows happily

& cuckoo quivering upon narrow wing

Take sudden flitting from the neighbouring tree

& heron stalking solitary thing

Mount up into high travel far away

& that mild indecision hanging round

Skies holding bland communion with the ground

In gentlest pictures of the infant day

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Now the owl on wheaten wing

Till the evening wanes to grey

the boy with speach all hoarse

Mocking the echo in the wood

Brings the cows from their green close

That in the hovel chew their cud

Now the owl on wheaten wing

& white hood scowling oer his eyes

Jerking with a sudden spring

Through three-cornered barn hole flies

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Painting by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The dewdrop lives for half a day

Green fields no more the summer views

All sickened into ripened hues

Of brown & grey & darksome glooms

That mark the path where autumn comes

& in each woodlands buried way

The dewdrop lives for half the day

Dank mists oft creep 'twixt earth and sky

& dreaming dim the mornings eye

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The Workhouse Orphan

With Mary Lee the parish was my lot

& its cold bounty all the friends I got

Dragd from our childhoods pleasures & its plays

We pined in workhouse sorrows many days

Were many wants recievd their scan supply

Were pity never came to check the sigh

Save what laws force from tyrant overseers

Whose bitter gifts was purchased with our tears

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