The Flitting (penultimate)

I love the verse that, mild and bland,
Breathes of green fields and open sky,
I love the muse that in her hand
Bears flowers of native poesy;
Who walks nor skips the pasture brook
In scorn, but by the drinking horse
Leans o'er its little brig to look
How far the sallows lean across.

And feels a rapture in her breast
Upon their root-fringed grains to mark
A hermit moor-hen's sedgy nest
Just like a naiad's summer bark.
She counts the eggs she cannot reach,
Admires the spot and loves it well,
And yearns, so nature's lessons teach,
Amid such neighbourhoods to dwell.

I love the muse who sits her down
Upon the mole-hill's little lap,
Who feels no fear to stain her gown
And pauses by the hedgerow gap;
Not with that affectation, praise
Of song, to sing and never see
A field flower grow in all her days
Or e'en a forest's aged tree.

E'en here my simple feelings nurse
A love for every simple weed,
And e'en this little shepherd's purse
Grieves me to cut it up; indeed
I feel at times a love and joy
For every weed and every thing,
A feeling kindred from a boy,
A feeling brought with every spring.

(tbc)

The Flitting (V)

No, pasture mole-hills used to lie
And talk to me of sunny days,
And then the glad sheep resting by
All still in ruminating praise
Of summer and the pleasant place;
And every weed and blossom too
Was looking upward in my face
With friendship's welcome ‘How do ye do?’

All tenants of an ancient place
And heirs of noble heritage,
Coeval they with Adam's race
And blest with more substantial age.
For when the world first saw the sun
These little flowers beheld him too,
And when his love for earth begun
They were the first his smiles to woo.

There little lambtoe bunches springs
In red-tinged and begolden dye
For ever, and like China kings
They come but never seem to die.
There may-bloom with its little threads
Still comes upon the thorny bowers
And ne'er forgets those pinky heads
Like fairy pins amid the flowers.

And still they bloom as on the day
They first crowned wilderness and rock,
When Abel haply wreathed with may
The firstlings of his little flock,
And Eve might from the matted thorn
To deck her lone and lovely brow
Reach that same rose that heedless scorn
Misnames as the dog rosey now.

Give me no high-flown fangled things,
No haughty pomp in marching chime,
Where muses play on golden strings
And splendour passes for sublime,
Where cities stretch as far as fame
And fancy's straining eye can go,
And piled until the sky for shame
Is stooping far away below.

(tbc)

The Flitting (IV)

Strange scenes mere shadows are to me,
Vague impersonifying things;
I love with my old haunts to be
By quiet woods and gravel springs,
Where little pebbles wear as smooth
As hermits' beads by gentle floods,
Whose noises do my spirits soothe
And warm them into singing moods.

Here every tree is strange to me,
All foreign things where'er I go,
There's none where boyhood made a swee
Or clambered up to rob a crow.
No hollow tree or woodland bower
Well known when joy was beating high,
Where beauty ran to shun a shower
And love took pains to keep her dry.

And laid the sheaf upon the ground
To keep her from the dripping grass,
And ran for stooks and set them round
Till scarce a drop of rain could pass
Through; where the maidens they reclined
And sung sweet ballads now forgot,
Which brought sweet memories to the mind,
But here no memory knows them not.

There have I sat by many a tree
And leaned o'er many a rural stile,
And conned my thoughts as joys to me,
Naught heeding who might frown or smile.
'Twas nature's beauty that inspired
My heart with raptures not its own,
And she's a fame that never tires;
How could I feel myself alone?

(tbc)

The Flitting (III)

The hawthorns here were hung with may,
But still they seem in deader green,
The sun e'en seems to lose its way
Nor knows the quarter it is in.
I dwell on trifles like a child,
I feel as ill becomes a man,
And still my thoughts like weedlings wild
Grow up to blossom where they can.

They turn to places known so long
I feel that joy was dwelling there,
So home-fed pleasures fill the song
That has no present joys to heir.
I read in books for happiness,
But books are like the sea to joy;
They change—as well give age the glass
To hunt its visage when a boy.

For books they follow fashions new
And throw all old esteems away,
In crowded streets flowers never grew,
But many there hath died away.
Some sing the pomps of chivalry
As legends of the ancient time,
Where gold and pearls and mystery
Are shadows painted for sublime.

But passions of sublimity
Belong to plain and simpler things,
And David underneath a tree
Sought when a shepherd Salem's springs,
Where moss did into cushions spring,
Forming a seat of velvet hue,
A small unnoticed trifling thing
To all but heaven's hailing dew.

And David's crown hath passed away,
Yet poesy breathes his shepherd-skill,
His palace lost—and to this day
The little moss is blooming still.

(tbc)

The Flitting (II)

I walk adown the narrow lane,
The nightingale is singing now,
But like to me she seems at loss
For Royce Wood and its shielding bough.

I lean upon the window-sill,
The trees and summer happy seem;
Green, sunny green they shine, but still
My heart goes far away to dream
Of happiness, and thoughts arise
With home-bred pictures many a one,
Green lanes that shut out burning skies
And old crook'd stiles to rest upon.

Above them hangs the maple tree,
Below grass swells a velvet hill,
And little footpaths sweet to see
Go seeking sweeter places still,
With by and by a brook to cross
O'er which a little arch is thrown:
No brook is here, I feel the loss
From home and friends and all alone.

The stone pit with its shelvy sides
Seemed hanging rocks in my esteem;
I miss the prospect far and wide
From Langley Bush, and so I seem
Alone and in a stranger scene,
Far, far from spots my heart esteems,
The closen with their ancient green,
Heaths, woods, and pastures' sunny streams.

The Flitting (I)

I've left my own old home of homes,
Green fields and every pleasant place;
The summer like a stranger comes,
I pause and hardly know her face.
I miss the hazel's happy green,
The bluebell's quiet hanging blooms,
Where envy's sneer was never seen,
Where staring malice never comes.

I miss the heath, its yellow furze,
Mole-hills and rabbit tracks that lead
Through besom-ling, and teazle burrs
That spread a wilderness indeed;
The woodland oaks and all below
That their white-powdered branches shield,
The mossy paths: the very crow
Croaks music in my native field.

I sit me in my corner chair
That seems to feel itself from home,
And hear bird music here and there
From hawthorn hedge and orchard come;
I hear, but all is strange and new:
I sat on my old bench in June,
The sailing puddock's shrill ‘peelew’
On Royce Wood seemed a sweeter tune.

(tbc)

Native Scenes

O native scenes for ever, ever dear
So blest so happy where I long have been
So charmd with nature in each varied scene
To leave ye all is cutting & severe

Ye hanging bushes that from winds woud screen
Where oft I've shelterd from an april's shower
In youths past bliss in Childhoods happy hour
Ye Woods I've wanderd searching out the nest

Ye Meadows gay that reard me many a flower
Culling my cow slips I've been doubly blest
Huming gay fancies As I bound the prize
O Fate unkind beloved scenes adieu
Your vanishd pleasures crowd my swimming eyes
& makes this wounded heart to bleed anew

May

Image: 'The Shepherd's Calendar ~ May' by Carry Akroyd

Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise

The winter time is over love

The winter time is over love
White thorns begin to bud
& brown & green of freshness love
Enlivens all the wood
Theres white clouds got agen the sun
One daisey open on the green
The primrose shows its sulphur bud
Just where the hazel stulps are seen
& ere the april time is out
Along the ridings gravel walk
The bedlam primrose blooms about
Wi' twenty blossoms on a stalk
How happy seems the drop of dew
That nestles in the daiseys eye
How blest the cloud seems in the blue
That near the sun appears to lie
How happy does thy shadows seem
That stretches oer the morning grass
They seeims to walk as in a dream
I know their shadows as they pass
The primrose over withered leaves
Now beautifully shines

Mary, Mary, charming Mary

[Image: ‘Wet Meadow’ by Carry Akroyd]

Mary, Mary, charming Mary
Now the sun has sunk to rest
& the even breeze so airy
Tries to bare thy snowy breast —
How I love wi thee to wander
Mary O how sweet wi thee,
Dusky meadows to meander
Where no soul can hear or see.

As we pause by lake or fountain
On thy bosom bending free
Ah how sweet sensations counting
When I know each throbs for me —
As thy face turns on the azure
Looking where the moon may dwell,
As I fold thy beauty’s treasure
Wheres the kiss can taste so well.

As the hour of even closes
& my lingering wi thy charms
Plants thy cheek wi maiden roses
& thy modesty alarms —
Who sweet girl could not adore thee
& tho beauty thee has blest,
When that modesty comes o’er thee
Prove that virtue pleases best.

The Swallow

Pretty swallow, once again
Come and pass me in the rain.
Pretty swallow, why so shy?
Pass again my window by.

The horsepond where he dips his wings,
The wet day prints it full of rings.
The raindrops on his [........] track
Lodge like pearls upon his back.

Then again he dips his wing
In the wrinkles of the spring,
Then oer the rushes flies again,
And pearls roll off his back like rain.

Pretty little swallow, fly
Village doors and windows by,
Whisking oer the garden pales
Where the blackbird finds the snails;

Whewing by the ladslove tree
For something only seen by thee;
Pearls that on the red rose hing
Fall off shaken by thy wing.

On that low thatched cottage stop,
In the sooty chimney pop,
Where thy wife and family
Every evening wait for thee.

Land of perpetual summer, Italy

Land of perpetual summer, Italy
Land of the golden City of the sun
Cradle of Europe’s Empire — but for thee
The rest were darkness & perpetual dun
Celestial clime & garden of the sun

Country of Virgil Hessiod — once the free
Latium & Greece both kingdoms of the sun
Their infant cradles rocked by Liberty
& still the sunniest Land is Italy

Greece Land of Homer & the muses fire
How nations read & kindle at thy name
The freeman’s sword the poet’s native lyre
Have filled thy history with a classic fame
& is not Greece, that Land of Isles, the same?

The sun shines o’er its freedom & wars cease
The despot’s chains near made it stoop to shame
Its hills & classic skys repose in peace
& freedom owns it as the soil of Greece

An early Northampton Asylum poem from 1842
(for Simona in Ancona, in the “Land of perpetual summer”)

Early Nightingale

When first we hear the shy-come nightingales,
They seem to mutter oer their songs in fear,
And, climb we eer so soft the spinney rails,
All stops as if no bird was anywhere.
The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin
Let curious eyes to search a long way in,
Until impatience cannot see or hear
The hidden music; gets but little way
Upon the path--when up the songs begin,
Full loud a moment and then low again.
But when a day or two confirms her stay
Boldly she sings and loud for half the day;
And soon the village brings the woodman's tale
Of having heard the newcome nightingale.

A Special Posting... via YouTube

The Dying Child
"He could not die when trees were green,
For he loved the time too well.
His little hands, when flowers were seen,
Were held for the bluebell,
As he was carried oer the green."

His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee;
He knew those children of the Spring:
When he was well and on the lea
He held one in his hands to sing,
Which filled his heart with glee.

"Infants, the children of the Spring!
How can an infant die
When butterflies are on the wing,
Green grass, and such a sky?
How can they die at Spring?"

"He held his hands for daisies white,
And then for violets blue,
And took them all to bed at night
That in the green fields grew,
As childhood's sweet delight."

And then he shut his little eyes,
And flowers would notice not;
Birds' nests and eggs caused no surprise,
He now no blossoms got:
They met with plaintive sighs.

"When Winter came and blasts did sigh,
And bare were plain and tree,
As he for ease in bed did lie
His soul seemed with the free,
He died so quietly."

The reunitying of two poets

On a day of quite exceptional political shenanigans came the quiet statement that Ted Hughes is to be memorialised in Poets’ Corner. He and I took part in a wonderful event there: the inclusion of John Clare, this country’s finest rural voice.

It was in 1989, and the Abbey was filled with writers. Ted read Clare’s “The Nightingale’s Nest”, and I described his life. The stone was next to that of Matthew Arnold.

In March 1820, Clare had stood there on his first visit to London. His first book of poems had been published and he was fêted. Never again. A marvellous range of poetry would succeed it, but he himself would be out of sight. The tragi-triumph of his existence makes a famous story.

But at this moment in 1989, Ted and I are with Dean Mayne, and full of gratitude for his making this event possible.

Michael Mayne and I had met in Cambridge when he was Vicar of Great St Mary’s and liked to have writers preach at evensong. And Ted and I had met at the Roundhouse when we gave readings, I of Thomas Hardy and he of his own work. We used to have coffee at the ice-cream shop afterwards.

When Michael left Cambridge for Westminster Abbey, I would sometimes stay with him and Alison, and he would use the ancient Jerusalem Chamber for poetry readings. He was a genius who brought a fresh “literary” spirituality into the Abbey, both with his own writing and with George Herbert, etc.

On the day we celebrated Clare’s entrance to Poets’ Corner, I made what the children of Helpston, his Northamptonshire village, called a Midsummer Cushion. This was a square of turf stuck with wild flowers. I took it from the Stour Valley to Westminster Deanery in a carrier bag. It weighed a ton.

The Helpston schoolchildren brought flowers that had descended from those the great poet would have seen. And Ted drew the veil from the carved stone. And we all sang Clare’s sad hymn, “A stranger once did bless the Earth”. It would seem to speak of the vagabondage of Christ. Clare was homeless in “homes” for the mad.

Ted’s work is infused with natural history, and when he read Clare’s “The Nightingale’s Nest”, a poem in which a correct ornithology is fed into his own youthful experience on nesting, and the abandonment of such unkindness, he did so quite unforgettably. No one ever forgot a Ted Hughes reading — the rich voice, the perfect inflection.

And now his name calls out near Clare’s. Or soon will do. When I was with Michael, all the wall and floor-space had been used up by writers, and they had taken to the windows, where some missed-out poets, Oscar Wilde and Robert Herrick, were engraved.

This corner in the south transept is probably the most popular in the Abbey. A Tudor undergraduate started it. Wandering around, he had come across a pile of bones, dust, and armorials, all in a heap, and was shocked to find that they were Geoffrey Chaucer’s. So he reinterred them in the beautiful Purbeck marble altar-tomb, paying for it himself. Edmund Spenser would soon follow, and then nearly all Eng. Lit.

Clare’s body lies in Helpston churchyard. On 13 July, his birthday, it is carpeted with Midsummer Cushions. Once, when asked where he got his poetry, he said he kicked it out of the fields.

Ronald Blythe
Word from Wormingford
Church Times ~ 1st April 2010

April

Image: 'The Shepherd's Calendar ~ April’ by Carry Akroyd

The infant april joins the spring
And views its watery skye
As youngling linnet trys its wing
And fears at first to flye
With timid step she ventures on
And hardly dares to smile
The blossoms open one by one
And sunny hours beguile
But finer days approacheth yet
With scenes more sweet to charm
And suns arive that rise and set
Bright strangers to a storm
And as the birds with louder song
Each mornings glory cheers
With bolder step she speeds along
And looses all her fears
In wanton gambols like a child
She tends her early toils
And seeks the buds along the wild
That blossom while she smiles
And laughing on with nought to chide
She races with the hours
Or sports by natures lovley side
And fills her lap with flowers

(lines 1-24)

Spring (two versions)

SPRING (a)
Welcome gentle breathing Spring
Now the birds are heard to sing
And the budding tree is seen
Putting forth her tender green
O delightful season hail
May my footsteps never fail
When time permits to visit thee
And view thy new born scenery

SPRING (b)
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 I've time to trample where
All thy beauties reappear

Child Harold (again)

The Paigles Bloom In Shower's In Grassy Close
How Sweet To Be Among Their Blossoms Led
& Hear Sweet Nature To Herself Discourse
While Pale The Moon Is Bering Over Head
& Hear The Grazeing Cattle Softly Tread
Cropping The Hedgerows Newly Leafing Thorn
Sounds Soft As Visions Murmured Oer In Bed
At Dusky Eve Or Sober Silent Morn
For Such Delights Twere Happy Man Was Born

(Lines 966-974)

Ballad

I have been researching poems for the Festival in July, and have rediscovered this lovely song, part of the long series of 1841 Clare entitled "Child Harold". It dates from early in that year as the scholars tell us that at that time Clare was capitalising every word in his manuscript(s), no-one knows why. It's only title is 'Ballad'... my current favourite.

The Blackbird Has Built In The Pasture Agen
& The Thorn Oer The Pond Shows A Delicate Green
Where I Strolled With Patty Adown In The Glen
& Spent Summer Evenings & Sundays Unseen

How Sweet The Hill Brow
& The Low Of The Cow
& The Sunshine That Gilded The Bushes So Green

When Evening Brought Dews Natures Thirst To Allay
& Clouds Seemed To Nestle Round Hamlets & Farms
While In The Green Bushes We Spent The Sweet Day
& Patty, Sweet Patty, Was Still In My Arms

The Love Bloom That Redded Upon Her Sweet Lips
The Love Light That Glistened Within Her Sweet Eye
The Singing Bees There That The Wild Honey Sips
From Wild Blossoms Seemed Not So Happy As I

How Sweet Her Smile Seemed
While The Summer Sun Gleamed
& The Laugh Of The Spring Shadowed Joys From On High

While The Birds Sung About Us & Cattle Grazed Round
& Beauty Was Blooming On Hamlets & Farms
How Sweet Steamed The Inscence Of Dew From The Ground
While Patty Sweet Patty Sat Locked In My Arms

(lines 1108-1129 : Child Harold)

A Hunt for Dobin or the Force of Love

(lines 222-235)

The old deep pond where the coy morehen lyes
Where on whose side the turfy hillocks rise
Where the broad flag and fuzy bulrush grows
Curving adown to the least wind that blows
And where surrounding bushes form a shade
As wild as ever was by nature made
The oaken folliage shaken by the wind
The dark green ivy round their trunks entwind
With all the mingling many shaded greens
That decorate the woodlands mixing scenes
These are the haunts & these the scenes so wild
Which are so dear to Natures every child
To sport in wildness nature dearly loves
And all her Children of her taste approves