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

To Phoebe of the Scottish glen.

There never was a fairer thing
All Scotland's glens and mountains through.
The siller gowans of the Spring,
Besprent with pearls of mountain dew,
The maiden blush upon the brere,
Far distant from the haunts of men,
Are nothing half so sweet or dear
As Phoebe of the Scottish glen.

How handsome is her naked foot,
Moist with the pearls of Summer dew:
The siller daisy's nothing to 't,
Nor hawthorn flowers so white to view,
She's sweeter than the blooming brere,
That blossoms far away from men:
No flower in Scotland's half so dear
As Phoebe of the Scottish glen.

The Thrush's Nest

We watched a thrush yesterday skipping around the lawns, and around this time each year our 'house' thrush sits on the top-most branch at dusk and sings wonderfully to all who might listen.

Here is the results of Clare finding the thrush's nest:

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound
With joy; and, often an intruding guest,
I watched her secret toils from day to day--
How true she warped the moss, to form a nest,
And modelled it within with wood and clay;
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted-over shells of greeny blue;
And there I witnessed in the sunny hours
A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.