Sweet solitude

Sweet solitude what joy to be alone

In wild wood shady dell to stay for hours
Twould soften hearts if they were hard as stone
To see glad Butterflies & smiling flowers
Tis pleasant in these quiet lonely places
Where not the voice of Man our pleasure mars
To see the little bees with coal black faces
Gath'ring sweets from little flowers like stars

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Solitude

    O how sweet I cannot tell
    With thee at that hour to dwell
    Stretchd the mossy bank beside
    Lye to view the random tide
    Where no clowns has chopt from thence
    Bush nor stake to mend his fence

    Cornerd stones & pebbles round
    Breaking dasht wi mellow sound
    Wether this or that to see
    I am blest if Im wi thee
    & full dear has been the hour
    Spent wi in thy noon day bower
    Prest wi thee thy mossy seat
    O its unexpressive sweet

(Lines deleted from the published version by his publisher)

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Fenny dells

Sweet solitude thou partner of my life 
Thou balm of hope & every pressing care 
Thou soothing silence oer the noise of strife 
These meadow flats & trees—the Autumn air 
Mellows my heart to harmony—I bear 
Lifes burthen happily—these fenny dells 
Seem Eden in this sabbath rest from care 
My heart with loves first early memory swells 
To hear the music of those village bells

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King of the east

Aye now it delights ye to look at the sky
Those are hawks sailing proud as the clouds & as high
See there ones at rest hanging still even now
As fixed in the air as a bird on a bough
These are sweet sights in sooth but the milking maid sees
The sky every morning wear sweeter than these
When she hies to her cows while the sun large & round
Starts up like a table of fire from the ground
& she sees it so often she gives it no praise
Though some never saw it not once all their days
This morning I marked in what splendour he rose
Like a king of the east ere his journey he goes

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A farm house

On a heath stood a farm house as lone as coud be
Let em look where they woud nothing else coud they see
But here an odd furze bush & there an odd tree
            Green corn field & fallow land brown
More lonsomly too in a hollow it lay
The hermit like tennants no neighbours had they
To pop in & chat a few hours of the day
            Twas two mile or more from a town

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Beside the fire

Beside the fire large apples lay to roast

& in a hugh brown pitcher creaming ale

Was warming seasoned with a nut meg toast

The merry group of gossips to regale

With in the chimney top the threating gale             

Howld angrily & loud but coud not scare                           

The crickets raptures from its merry tale                          

Around her feet the glad cat curld her tail

Listing the crickets song with half shut eyes            

While in the chimney top loud roars the gale

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Old meadow lake

Ive often gazed with pleasure by the edge 
Of the old meadow lake floodwashed & crookd, 
The water rat slow rustling in the sedge 
The fish ring wavering in the clear I've looked 
In rapture on the mellow summer shine 
Of the still water gleaming in the sun 
Just wrinkled by the plash of quiet kine 
Who knee deep in the flags would drink—& done, 
Back to their feed on the shorn sward again 
The flags the bulrush & the barbd leaf 
Of water-weed bethread with lighter vein 
& water-lily giving flies relief

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The dreary fen

The dreary fen a waste of water goes

With nothing to be seen but Royston crows
The traveller journeying on the road for hours
Sees nothing but the dykes & water-flowers
The lonely lodges scattered miles away
Lock up from fear & robbers all the day
The merry maiden that no place dislikes
Runs out & fills her kettle from the dykes
She hurries wildly from the face of men
& knows no company but cock and hen
Here highland maiden sees in Sundays hour
The glorious sight of sainfoin grounds in flower
& meets the savoury smells that wake the morn
The woodbine hedges & the poppied corn

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Patty

O once I had a true love
As blest as I could be
Patty was my turtle dove
& Patty she loved me
We walked the fields together
By roses & woodbine
In Summers sunshine weather
& Patty she was mine

We stopped to gather primroses
& violets white & blue
In pastures & green closes
All glistening with the dew
We sat upon green mole-hills
Among the daisy flowers
To hear the small birds merry trills
& share the sunny hours

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I think of thee

I think of thee at early day

& wonder where my love can be

& when the evening shadows grey

O how I think of thee

Along the meadow banks I rove

& down the flaggy fen

& hope my first & early love

To meet thee once agen

I think of thee at dewy morn

& at the sunny noon

& walks with thee—now left forlorn

Beneath the silent moon

I think of thee I think of all

How blest we both have been—

The sun looks pale upon the wall

& autumn shuts the scene

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Image from my friend Carry Akroyd

Their passing bell

Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower
Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye
Their deaths were dew-drops on heavens amaranthine bower
Was tolled on flowers as Summer gales went by
They bowed & trembled yet they heaved no sigh
& the sun smiled to show the end was well
Infants have nought to weep for ere they die
All prayers are needless beads they need not tell
White flowers their mourners are Nature their passing bell

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Death and Eternity

A dark inevitable night
A blank that will remain
A waiting for the morning light
Where waiting is in vain
A gulph where pathway never led 
To show the depth beneath
A thing we know not yet we dread
That dreaded thing is Death

The vaulted void of purple sky 
That everywhere extends
That stretches from the dazzled eye
In space that never ends
A morning whose uprisen sun 
No setting e'er shall see
A day that comes without a noon
Such is Eternity.

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Autumn shuts the scene

I think of thee at dewy morn 
& at the sunny noon 
& walks with thee—now left forlorn 
Beneath the silent moon 
I think of thee I think of all 
How blest we both have been— 
The sun looks pale upon the wall 
& autumn shuts the scene

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Gold tinted west

Come beautiful maiden while autumn delays
& the sunsets so sweet in the gold tinted west
While the fading beach tree sets the woods in a blaze
& the lark sings his song ere he sinks into rest

In Autumns gone by how fondly I press't thee
& loved thee sincerely & so I do now
As I wandered along with thee ever near me
While the leaves they were fading on every bough

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Fond desire

Now melancholly autumn comes anew
With showery clouds & fields of wheat tanned brown
Along the meadow banks I peace pursue
& see the wild flowers gleaming up & down
Like sun & light—the ragworts golden crown
Mirrors like sunshine when sunbeams retire
& silver yarrow—theres the little town
& oer the meadows gleams that slender spire
Reminding me of one—& waking fond desire

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I saw a Bonny maid

From bank to bank the water roars - Like thunder in a storm
A Sea in sight of both the shores - Creating no alarm
The water birds above the flood - Fly o'er the foam and spray
And nature wears a gloomy hood - On this October day
And there I saw a bonny maid - That proved my hearts delight
All day she was a Goddess made - An angel fair at night
We loved and in each others power felt - Nothing to condemn
I was the leaf and she the flower - And both grew on one stem
I loved her lip her cheek her eye - She cheered my midnight gloom
A bonny rose neath Gods own sky - In one perrenial bloom
She lives mid pastures evergreen - And meadows ever fair
Each winter spring and summer scene - The sweetest woman there

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Thy truth

I love thee nature in my inmost heart
Go where I will thy truth seems from above
Go where I will thy landscape forms a part
Of heaven—e'en these fens where wood nor grove
Are seen—their very nakedness I love
For one dwells nigh that secret hopes prefer
Above the race of women—like the dove
I mourn her abscence—fate that would deter
My hate for all things—strengthens love for her

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Like living death

Abscence in love is worse than any fate
Summer is winters desert & the spring
Is like a ruined city desolate
Joy dies & hope retires on feeble wing
Nature sinks heedless — birds unheeded sing
‘Tis solitude in cities — crowds all move
Like living death — though all to life still cling 
The strongest bitterest thing that life can prove
Is womans undisguise of hate & love

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The evil air

The sleepy birds scared from their mossy nest

Beat through the evil air in vain for rest
& many a one the withering shades among
Wakened to perish oer its brooded young
The cattle startled with the sudden fright
Sickend from food & maddend into flight
& steed & beast in plunging speed pursued
The desperate struggle of the multitude
The faithful dogs yet knew their owners face
& cringing followd with a fearful pace
Joining the piteous yell with panting breath
While blasting lightnings followd fast with death
Then as Destruction stopt the vain retreat
They droppd & dying lickd their masters feet

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A ruin of the past

Summers pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
& the cloudy days of autumn & of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart & eye & forever far away
Dear heart & can it be that such raptures meet decay
I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay
I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout & play
On its bank at "clink and bandy” "chock" & "taw" & "ducking stone”
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone

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