Grand sublimity

Who does not feel the grand sublimity

Of natures pictures touchd with endless skill

In endless changes that neer cease to be

Awakening wonder were we will page

The earths broad landscape varying every hour

In every beautious shape & varying on

In inscets of all hues & leaf & flower

Till fanceys power exaus'tless seems & done

& stretching plains & wood & wilderness

Were natures pencil spurns mans puney power

To imitate the grandeur they posses

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A splendid show

Een winter deemed so desolate a waste

Hath crowds of beautys to the man of taste

& oft he walks about on quiet days

Full many things to notice & to praise

Where oer the snow clad fields the little feet

Of hares are printed that betray their seat

& woods so still he een may hear the sound

Of small wrens footsteps oer the heaving ground

While trees & branches make a splendid show

Of lights & shadows hung in wreaths of snow

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Buried & overcast

Tis winter & the fields are bare & waste
The air one mass of ‘vapour clouds & storms’
The suns broad beams are buried & oercast
& chilly glooms the midday light deforms
Yet comfort now the social bosom warms
Friendship of nature which I hourly prove
Even in this winter scene of frost & storms
Bare fields the frozen lake & leafless grove
Are natures grand religion & true love

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Fallow fields glitter

The fallow fields glitter 

          Like water indeed

& gossamers twitter 

          Flung from weed unto weed

Hill tops like hot iron 

          Glitter hot i' the sun

& the Rivers were eyeing 

          Burn to gold as they run

Burning hot is the ground 

          Liquid gold is the air

Who ever looks round 

          Sees Eternity there

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Colors newly proud

A rainbow paints yon deep blue cloud  

Arching its colors newly proud 

In glossy hues of watery green 

& red & orange hues between 

While oer it in a faded hue 

Its fainting shadow dims the blue 

That in a moments breath decays

& shrinks to nothing ere we gaze

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Comfort crowns the cottage

Each house is swept the day before
& windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is beesomd from the door
& comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi its thorny pricks
& yew & box wi berrys small
These deck the unusd candlesticks
& pictures hanging by the wall

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Slender shade is by

The osiers slender shade is by

& bushes thickly spread

Again the ground is firm & dry

Nor trembles 'neath the tread

On this side ash or oak embowers

There hawthorns humbler grow

With goatsbeard wreath & woodbine flowers

That shade a brook below

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Wan & pale

The sun shines wan & pale
Chill blows the northern gale
& odd leaves shake and quiver on the tree
While I am left alone
Chilled as a mossy stone
& all the world is frowning over me

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Golden gems

The river flooded to the brim

The yellow trees the uplands grey

That in the light of heaven swim

Like rocks and vallies far away

The east is hung with golden gems

In crimson red and saphire blue

In gold and crystal fringed hems

The spiders lace is hung with dew

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Withered in the sun

Sweet chesnuts brown, like soleing leather turn, 

The larch trees, like the colour of the sun, 

That paled sky in the Autumn seem'd to burn. 

What a strange scene before us now does run, 

Red, brown, & yellow, russet black, & dun, 

White thorn, wild cherry, & the poplar bare, 

The sycamore all withered in the sun, 

No leaves are now upon the birch tree there.

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Sweet it is

Sweet it is to wind the rill

Sweet with thee to climb the hill

On whose lap the bullock free

Chews his cud most placidly

Or oer fallows bare and brown

Beaten sheep-tracks wander down

Where the mole unwearied still

Roots up many a crumbling hill

& the little chumbling mouse

Gnarls the dead weed for her house

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Clouds misted oer the hill

[So] full sweet it was to look

How clouds misted oer the hill

Rain drops how they dimpt the brook

Falling fast & faster still

While the gudgeons sturting bye

Cringd neath water grasses shade

Startling as each nimble eye

Saw the rings the dropples made

& upon the dripping ground

As the shower had ceasd again

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The work of Roman hands

These walls the work of Roman hands

How may conjecturing Fancy pore

As lonely here one calmly stands

On paths that age has trampled oer

The builders names are known no more

No spot on earth their memory bears

& crowds reflecting thus before

Have since found graves as dark as theirs

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The figure in the 1820s print is John Clare

Leafless trees repose

No leaves are now upon the birch tree there

All now is stript to the cold wintry air

See! not one tree but what has lost its leaves

& yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue

The winter chill on his cold bed receives

Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue

Naked & bare the leafless trees repose

Sluggish & dull the leaf strewn river flows

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Quiet many joys

It doth ones spirits good to go
Through beds of fern that fan below
The rustle that the branches make
While giving way to let me through,
The leaves that for a moment shake
As out a blackbird hasty flew—
Oh there is stillness in the noise
That brings to quiet many joys

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Image by my friend #AnnieLee

Down the lane

As the load joggd hom ward down the lane

When welcome night shut out the toiling day

His followings markt the simple hearted swain

Joying to listen on his homward way

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

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With admiring eyes

How oft he'll stoop inquisitive to trace

The opening beauties of a daiseys face

& often witness with admiring eyes 

The brooks sweet dimples oer the pebbles rise 

& often bent as oer some magic spell 

He’ll pause & [see] his shaped stone & shell

Raptures the while his inward powers inflame

& joys delight him which he cannot name

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Shoots streaking spars

There frost his quiet toil resumd 

Shoots streaking spars that wildly run

From weed to weed & shine illumnd

Like glittering stars before the sun

Were as one steps its oaken plank 

The hollow frozen sounding noise 

From flags & sedge beside the bank

The wild ducks brooding peace destroys

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Moody crows

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose

Crouching & sleeping neath its grassy lair

& scarcely startles tho the shepherd goes

Close by its home & dogs are barking there

The wild colt only turns around to stare

At passer by then knaps his hide again

& moody crows beside the road forbear

To fly tho pelted by the passing swain

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Ripened hues

A beauty on the scene attends

Ere autumn comes & summer ends

When summers glory first we see 

As stained with its mortality

Each morn wakes wan its sunlight wanes

On yellowing leaves & fading plains

Green fields no more the summer views

All sickened into ripened hues

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