from The Summons

Then the old man passed a prison
& in passing made a call
He thought the folks in such a place
Were knaves & robbers all
Yet he found to his supprise
What he knew not all his time
That those sent there for speaking truth
Exceeded those for crime

Greens daisies

& long my dear valleys long long may ye flourish
Though rush-beds & thistles make most of your pride
May showers never fail the greens daisies to nourish
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side
Your skies may be gloomy & misty your mornings
Your flat swampy valleys unwholesome may be
Still refuse of Nature without her adornings
Ye are dear as this heart in my bosom to me

Anna Maria

On the 2nd June, 1820 Anna Maria was born.  John and Patty had been married for less than 3 months, and were living back in the tiny cottage in Helpston with John’s mother and father.  In time it would become very crowded indeed.

My Anna summer laughs in mirth
& we will of the party be
& 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 & butterfly

& limpid brook that leaps along
Gilt with the summers burnished gleam
Will stop thy little tale or song
To gaze upon its crimping stream

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June

Image by my friend Carry Akroyd

The hay time butterflyes dance up and down
And gads that teaze like whasps the timid maid
And drive the herdboys cows to pond and shade
Who when his dogs assistance fails to stop
Is forcd his half made oaten pipes to drop
And start and halloo thro the dancing heat
To keep their gadding tumult from the wheat
Who in their rage will dangers overlook
And leap like hunters oer the pasture brook
Brushing thro blossomd beans in maddening haste
And stroying corn they scarce can stop to taste
Labour pursues its toil in weary mood
And feign woud rest wi shadows in the wood
The mowing gangs bend oer the beeded grass
Where oft the gipseys hungry journeying ass
Will turn its wishes from the meadow paths
Listning the rustle of the falling swaths

John Clare – The Shepherd’s Calendar (June - excerpt)

Bright June has come, and the barley's silken beard grows long and green, and on Lolham Bridge Field it nods and dances to every shifting whim of the wind.

From dawn to dusk the frantic bees wallow in fox-glove and bean flower as though no glut of labour or journeying could fill their store with honey enough for all. And from dawn to dusk, when the sun shines, the mowing teams are out upon Heath Field. The swish of their curved scythes is the sound of June breathing and the rasp of the whet-stones against the iron blades is the sound of June coughing. For sickness and health are as rain and shine, and all men know that for every week of fine weather there will be a debt to pay in slanting showers. And a closer look betrays the rotten teeth, the small-pox scars, the twisted spines, the swollen joints and all the curses that hard labour and a scant wage bring.

Parker Clare swings his blade in the mowing line, as ready as any though stiffer than some. From time to time he calls a halt to mop his face. Around him the cut swathes sweeten the air. Behind him the raking women turn and toss yesterday's labour and at the far end of the field the lifted hay-cocks wait upon the wain.

On Woodcroft Field Ann and Sophie Clare have been gathering and shelling beans with the other women in John Close's employ, Sophie's ears acute to the rise and fall of the gossip that surrounds her, gleaning what she can.

John has joined a shearing team, working his way from farm to farm these last five weeks.

Such is the timeless round of summer labour upon the face of the parish, an old, hard, familiar melody. But there is a new sound alongside the sighing of the scythe, the bleating of the sheep and the rising and falling of the talk. It is the sound of posts being hammered into the ground and measuring chains pulled tight between. The sound of ropes being stretched across fields and commons where new boundaries will fall, of men shouting from mark to mark where roads will be cut or streams straightened, of splashes of red paint being daubed onto trees that are to be felled. The Earl of Fitzwilliam has sent surveyors out to mark the lie of the land for enclosure. Slowly, from day to day, a new pattern of squares, fine as the web of a net or a snare, is set across the looping, winding limbs of the parish.

Hugh Lupton – The Ballad of John Clare (Chapter 4)

Buttercup heaven

How sweet when weary dropping on a bank

Turning a look around on things that be

Een feather headed grasses spindling rank

A trembling to the breeze one loves to see

& yellow buttercups where many a bee

Comes buzzing to its head & bows it down

& the great dragon flye wi gauzy wings

In gilded coat of purple green or brown

That on broad leaves of hazel basking clings

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Image by my friend #JohnAbbott

Strange scenes

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

Here every tree is strange to me
All foreign things where eer I go
Theres 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
& love took pains to keep her dry

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Low fly the barn owls

The dew falls on flowers in a mist o' small rain 
& beating the hedges low fly the barn owls 
The moon wi her horns is low peeping again 
& deep in the forest the dog badger howls 
In best bib and tucker then wanders my Jane 
By the side o' the woodbines which grow in the lane 
On a sweet summer Eve tide I walk by her side 
In green hood the daiseys have shut up their eyes 
Young Jenny is handsome wi'out any pride 
Her eyes oh how bright have the hue o' the skies

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Memory of love

Her face to me was memory for life
Her looks her ways in winning forms would steal
& left a pain I never ceased to feel
Her very voice would memory’s partner be
& music lingered in the sound with me
Her troubling form was long about my sight
O’er day dreams dozing or in sleep by night
My dreams wore constantly that pleasing pain
The face of her I loved & could not gain

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Fox

The happy time of singing birds is come
& loves lone pilgrimage now finds a home
Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove
& the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love
The foxes play around their dens & bark 
In joys excess mid woodland shadows dark
The flowers join lips below the leaves above
& every sound that meets the ear is love

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Wild flower in the dells

She sees the wild flower in the dells 
That in my rambles shine 
The sky that oer her homstead dwells 
Looks sunny over mine 
The cloud that passes where she dwells 
In less then half an hour 
Darkens around these orchard dells 
Or melts a sudden shower

The wind that leaves the sunny south 
& fans the orchard tree 
Might steal the kisses from her mouth 
& waft her voice to me

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To the Butterflye

Lovley insect haste away 
Greet once more the sunny day
Leave o leave the mirky barn 
Ere trapping spiders thee discern
If they do they will beset 
Thy golden wings in filmy net
Then alls in vain to set thee free 
Hopes all lost for Liberty 

Soon theyl drag thee in the wall 
Suck thy downy form and all
Murder tho a base employ 
Tis the spiders only joy 
Then lovley insect haste away 
Greet once more the sunny day
Never think that I belie
Never fear a [summer] skie

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The Rose of the World

The Rose Of The World Was Dear Mary To Me
In The Days Of My Boyhood & Youth
I Told Her In Songs Where My Heart Wished To Be
& My Songs Were The Language of Truth
I Told Her In Looks When I Gazed In Her Eyes
That Mary Was Dearest To Me

I Told Her In Words & The Language Of Sighs
Where My Whole Hearts Affections Would Be
I Told her in love that all nature was true
I convinced her that nature was kind
But love in his trials had labour to do
Mary would be in the mind

Mary met me in spring where the speedwell knots grew
& the king cups were shining like flame
I chose her all colours red yellow & blue
But my love was one hue & the same
Spring summer & winter & all the year through
In the sunshine the shower & the blast
I told the same tale & she knows it all true
& Mary's my blossom at last

Lines 1139-1158 of 'Child Harold' - Spring 1841 in High Beech, Epping) - The poem where Clare stopped capitalising every word – no-one knows why he started, nor why he ceased, doing so.

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A walk on High Beech, Loughton

I loved the Forest walks and beechen woods,
Where pleasant Stockdale showed me far away
Wild Enfield Chase, and pleasant Edmonton;
While Giant London, known to all the world,
Was nothing but a guess among the trees,
Though only half a day from where we stood.
Such is ambition! only great at home,
And hardly known to quiet and repose.
I loved the Forest walk, and often stood
To hear boys halloo to their wilder sheep;
While quiet Turner sat upon a hill,
And gentle Howard cut his sticks and sang.
The Sticker trailed her faggot on the ground,
And all the Forest seemed to live with joy

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Nell

The sun was low sinking behind the far trees
& crossing the path humming home were the bees
& darker & darker it grew by degrees
& crows they flockd quawking to rest
When unknown to her parents Nell slove on her hat
& oer the fields hurried - scarce knew she for what
But her sweetheart in taking advantage & that
Had kissd & had promisd the best

Poor maidens of husbands so much they conceit
The daisy scarce touchd rose unhurt from her feet
So eager she hastend her lover to meet
As to make him to wait was unjust
On the wood dim discovers she fixed her eyes
Such a queer spot to meet in suspicions might rise
But the fond word “a sweetheart” such goodness implies
Ah who would a lover distrust

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A pansy

It does me good thou flower of spring

Thy blossoms to behold
Thou bloomst when birds begin to sing
In purple & in gold
Along the garden-beds so neat
Thy flowers their blooms display
When sparrows chirp & lambkins bleat
& hopes look up for May

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Politicians lies

In politics & politicians lies
The modern farmer waxes wondrous wise
Opinionates with wisdom all compact
& een could tell a nation how to act
Throws light on darkness with excessive skill
Knows who acts well & whose designs are ill
Proves half the members nought but briberys tools
& calls the past a dull dark age of fools

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from The Topers Rant

Give me an old crone of a fellow
Who loves to drink ale in a horn,
And sing racy songs when he's mellow,
Which topers sung ere he was born.

For such a friend fate shall be thankèd,
And, line but our pockets with brass,
We'd sooner suck ale through a blanket
Than thimbles of wine from a glass.

Away with your proud thimble-glasses
Of wine foreign nations supply,
A toper ne'er drinks to the lasses
O'er a draught scarce enough for a fly.

Club me with the hedger and ditcher
Or beggar that makes his own horn,
To join o'er an old gallon pitcher
Foaming o'er with the essence of corn.

I care not with whom I get tipsy
Or where with brown stout I regale,
I'll weather the storm with a gipsy
If he be a lover of ale.

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Rural sports of May

Dear to him the rural sports of May
When each cot-threshold mounts its hailing bough
& ruddy milkmaids weave their garlands gay
Upon the green to crown the earliest cow
When mirth & pleasure wear a joyful brow
& join the tumult with unbounded glee
The humble tenants of the pail & plough
He lov'd "old sports," by them reviv'd, to see
But never car'd to join in their rude revelry

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The lonely lake

I love to see the old heaths withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze & ling
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow & flaps his melancholy wing
& oddling crow in idle motions swing
On the half rotten ashtrees topmost twig
Beside whose trunk the gipsy makes his bed
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread
The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn
& for the awe round fields & closen rove
& coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
& hang on little twigs & start again

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Iris by the pool

The summer morn is beautifull   In crimson & in blue 
So is the Iris by the pool   Besprent wi' firey dew 
The sedge birds song is beautifull   I’th’' rustle of the reed 
The river neath the Willows cool   Flows with the sweetest speed 
But Lucy o' Northampton town   Is sweeter far than these 
Than golden Chain & Sattin gown.  & songs o' honey bees 
Sweet Lucy o' Northampton town   So bonny & so fair 
With red rose cheeks & hair so brown   How beautifull you are 

Then meadow sweet and burnet too   How finer far to see 
Sweeter than sweetbrier pearled wi dew   You are my dear to me

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