Bonny March

The bonny March morning is beaming

   In mingled crimson & grey

White clouds are streaking and creaming

   The sky till the noon of the day

The fir deal looks darker and greener

   And grass hills below look the same

The air all about is serener

   The birds less familliar and tame

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

Kine

Of poesy full many charms are thine

Green vales & tinkling brooks & pastures thronged with kine

& thy old woods as yet can claim & call

Thy native oak thy own that proudly towers

Boast of thy nation & the dread of all

& though the slighting sun & chilly showers

.

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Secluded haunts

Trees sheltering round it hide returning rooks
& twittering swallows seek its chimney nooks
In peace the sparrow chirps its joyous calls
& takes the feather to the crevisd walls
Nor fails the harmless robin & the wren
To seek such sweet secluded haunts agen
Beneath the eaves the martins still repair
& yearly build their mortard dwelling there

.

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Spring

Welcome gentle breathing spring
Now the birds begin to sing
Now the Swelling shade is seen
Putting forth its tender green
While the Suns extended way
Sweetly shows the lengthend day
O delightful Season hail
May my footsteps never fail
When Ive time to trample where
All thy beauties reappear

.

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Childhood

The primrose looks happy in every field
In strange woods the violets their odours will yield
& flowers in the sunshine all brightly arrayed
Will bloom just as fresh & as sweet in the shade
But the wild flowers that bring me most joy & content
Are the blossoms that glow where my childhood was spent

.

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Clouds

Clouds rack & drive before the wind 
In shapes & forms of every kind 
Like waves that rise without the roars 
& rocks that guard untrodden shores 
Now castles pass majestic bye 
& ships in peaceful havens lie 
These gone ten thousand shapes ensue 
For ever beautiful & new

.

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Chapbooks

Well here they are, ‘Mary Joyce’ to join ‘Patty’ to complete my 30 book John Clare series. I started the series with ‘Drinking with John Clare’ in 2017, so 8 years later we have the completion. My overall aim? Simply to provide inexpensive, but high-quality paperbacks covering the large variety of subjects Clare wrote extensively about. It’s been fun.  The cost? £7 incl (postage now costs £2.65)!  if you are not in the UK I can send you a pdf (Kindle) copy for a donation to a charity of your choice of a similar amount.

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Natures anthem

Sweet the birds did chant their songs

Blackbird linnet lark & thrush
Music from a many tongues
Melted from each dripping bush
Deafend echo on the plain
As the sunbeams broke the cloud
Scarce could help repeat the strain
Natures anthem flowd so loud

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Image by my friend #Carry Akroyd

Rich ecstasy

All in a moment stopt I watched in vain
The timid bird had left the hazel bush
& at a distance hid to sing again
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves
Rich Ecstasy would pour its luscious strain
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
To start less wild & scarce inferior songs
For while of half the year care him bereaves
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast
The nightingale to summers life belongs

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Meet the skies

To gild cares sable shroud

Their spirit through the gloom appears

As suns behind a cloud

Since thou didst meet my infant eyes

As through the fields I flew

Whose distance where they meet the skies

Was all the world I knew

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Image by my grandson #WilburSullivan

Beautiful mortals

Beautiful mortals of the glowing earth

And children of the season crowd together
In showers and sunny weather
Ye beautiful spring hours
Sunshine and all together
I love wild flowers

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A venerable tree

I never pass a venerable tree

Pining away to nothingness & dust
Ruins vain shades of power I never see
Once dedicated to times cheating trust
But warm reflection wakes her saddest thought
& views lifes vanity in cheerless light
& sees earths bubbles youth so eager sought
Burst into emptiness of lost delight

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Drooping daffodil

What time the dews unsullied drops

In burnishd gold distil

On crocus flowers unclosing tops

& drooping daffodil

To see thee come all hearts rejoice

& warm with feelings strong

With thee all Nature finds a voice

& hums a waking song

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Lifes lingering debt

Be where I may when death brings in his bill 

Demanding payment for lifes lingering debt 

Or in my native village nestling still 

Or tracing scenes Ive never known as yet 

O let one wish go where I will be mine 

To turn me back & wander home to dye 

Mong nearest friends my latest breath resign 

& in my church yard wi' my kindred lye

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By this bridge

For by this bridge my Mary sat 

& praised the screaming plover 

As first to hail the day—when I 

Confessed myself her lover 

& at that moment stooping down 

I pluckt a daisy blossom 

Which smilingly she called her own 

May garland for her bosom 

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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

The blackbird

The blackbird is a bonny bird

I love his mourning suit

& song in the spring mornings heard

As mellow as the flute

How sweet his song in April showers

Pipes from his golden bill

As yellow as the kingcup flowers

The sweetest ditty still

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Approach of spring

Dear heart I love to see the quiet spring

Come teaching first the little birds to sing

Then loitering in the sunny field & street

Like people telling stories when they meet

& often pausing in a showers delay

As if she feared some danger in the way

Sending her heralds forward one by one

To try the journey she herself is on

Now starts a daisy then a buttercup

& then a little primrose trembles up

& thus she comes like to a timid maid

Of ruffling winds & dirty roads afraid

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

A tale of spring

A cowslip peep will open faintly coy
Soon seen & gatherd by a wandering boy
A tale of spring around the distant haze
Seems muttering pleasures wi the lengthning days
Morn wakens mottld oft wi may day stains
& shower drops hang the grassy sprouting plains
& on the naked thorns of brassy hue
Drip glistning like a summer dream of dew
While from the hill side freshning forest drops
As one might walk upon their thickening tops
& buds wi young hopes promise seemly swells
Where woodman that in wild seclusion dwells

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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Bonny March

The bonny March morning is beaming 
In mingled crimson and grey
White clouds are streaking and creaming 
The sky till the noon of the day
The fir deal looks darker and greener
And grass hills below look the same
The air all about is serener
The birds less familiar and tame

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Like music

The brook goes winding like a snake
Through many crooks & turns
Loud are the gurgles which it makes
Like music— & then mourns
The thorn leans oer its mimic waves
That oer the pebbles run
The mimic foam in dark place raves
Then crimples in the sun

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