Woodlands

A fragment

& then he roams the woodlands 
As happy as a moth on summers nights 
Now pausing thro the brambles prickly twine 
Where midnight lingers in the leafy mine 
& now thro smooth barked hazels mellow green 
That leave a pleasant open spot between 
Thro flowers & grass & many crippled brake 
Then garden clumps as nature wills to make 
Where oft he stands & pauses & admires 
& feels that happiness that never tires 
Now marking little tiny creeping things 
Creep on the leaves & then the coloured wings 
Of startled moth & eager butter flye 
That puzzled in the leaves & by & bye 
Mounts in the oaks & then the open sky

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Singing at the plough

Here morning in the ploughmans songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky
& twilight in the east a doubt as yet
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye
Woke early I arose & 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 & 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 easts young brow
Glows red & finds thee singing at the plough

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

A footpath winding

Ive oft been glad at heart to see 
A footpath winding through the grass 
Oer narrow stiles neath spreading tree 
Not wide enough for two to pass 
But now no ownership I fear 
Nor path to keep nor stile to climb 
I feel myself a monarch here 
My very fancies grow sublime

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Thy spirit visits

An incomplete rhyming scheme perhaps, but what fun!

Personally I think Clare’s pencil simply ran away with him, 

and sometimes he never went back to ‘correct’.

Thy spirit visits me like dew 
That glistens on the flowers 
Falling in the morning blue 
     & in the evening hours 

The wild flowers have a feeling 
Oer my calm senses stealing 

& loves soft dreams revealing 
     Seem wispering from the bowers

The foxgloves freckled bells 
That blossom by the wood 
& in the forrest dells 
     In the midst of solitude 

There I hear my lover call 
Where the whitethorn forms a wall 
& the foxglove blossoms tall 
     In the tears of eve bedewed 

Spirit thou of every place 
Where loves memories are left 
Places green as years of grace 
     Where hope lives of love bereft 

My love lives in these green places 
Where woodbine the white thorn embraces 
Far from the crowd of worldly faces 
     Here loves spirit still is left

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Winding ways

Theres somthing rich & joyful to the mind 
To view through close & field those crooked shreds 
Of footpaths that most picturesqly wind 
From town to town or some tree hidden sheds 
Where lonely cottager lifes peace enjoys 
Far far from strife & all its troubled noise 
The pent up artizan by pleasure led 
Along their winding ways right glad employs 
His sabbath leisure in the freshening air 
The grass the trees the sunny sloping sky 
From his weeks prison gives delicious fare 
But still he passes almost vacant bye 
The many charms that poesy finds to please 
Along the little footpaths such as these 

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Birds & all both great and small

Not only wood-larks spare but all 

From sparrows to the wren 
For birds & all both great and small 
Are sent for use to men 
Altho some times by hung

For faults so small their blood to shed 
Is cruel & severe 
For the few corns from you they take 
Their Songs do thrice repay 
Then spare them all for Musicks sake 
And let 'em fly away

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment

Images by my friend #CarryAkroyd

Ladybird

Ladybird ladybird where art thou flown 

Thou wert here in the morning before the sun shone 

Just now up the bowl o' the damson tree 

You passed the gold lichen & got to the grey 

Ladybird ladybird where can you be 

You climb up the tulips & then fly away 

Daily #JohnClare posts

#poetry #environment