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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems Chiefly From Manuscript, by John Clare
+
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+Title: Poems Chiefly From Manuscript
+
+Author: John Clare
+
+Release Date: August, 2005  [EBook #8672]
+[This file was first posted on July 31, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS CHIEFLY FROM MANUSCRIPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jon Ingram, Marc D'Hooghe and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JOHN CLARE.
+
+_Engraved by E. Scriven, from a Painting by W. Hilton, R.A._]
+
+
+
+POEMS CHIEFLY FROM MANUSCRIPT by JOHN CLARE
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+For the present volume over two thousand poems by Clare have been
+considered and compared; of which over two-thirds have not been
+published. Of those here given ninety are now first printed, and are
+distinguished with asterisks in the contents: one or two are gleaned
+from periodicals: and many of the others have been brought into line
+with manuscript versions. While poetic value has been the general
+ground of selection, the development of the poet has seemed of
+sufficient interest for representation; and some of Clare's juvenilia
+are accordingly included. The arrangement is chronological, though
+in many cases the date of a poem can only be conjectured from the
+handwriting and the style; and it is almost impossible to affix dates
+to such Asylum Poems as bear none.
+
+Punctuation and orthography have been attempted; Clare left such
+matters to his editor in his lifetime, conceiving them to be an
+"awkward squad." In some poems stanzas have been omitted, particularly
+in the case of first drafts which demand revision; but in others
+stanzas dropped by previous editors have been restored. Titles have
+been given to many poems which, doubtless, in copies not available to
+us were better christened by Clare himself. So regularly does Clare
+use such forms as "oer," "eer," and the like that he seems to have
+regarded them not as abbreviations but as originals, and they are
+given without apostrophe. The text of the Asylum Poems which has been
+used is a transcript, and one or two difficult passages are probably
+the fault of the copyist.
+
+For permission to examine and copy many of the poems preserved in the
+Peterborough Museum, and to have photographs taken, we are indebted
+to J. W. Bodger, Esq., the President for 1919-1920; without whose
+co-operation and interest the volume would have been a very different
+matter. Valuable help, too, has been given by Mr. Samuel Loveman of
+Cleveland, Ohio, who has placed at our disposal his collection of
+Clare MSS. To G. C. Druce, Esq., of Oxford, whose pamphlet on Clare's
+knowledge of flowers cannot but delight the lover of Clare: to the
+Rev. S. G. Short of Maxey, and formerly of Northborough: to J.
+Middleton Murry, Esq., the Editor of the _Athenaeum_: to Edward
+Liveing, Esq., and E. G. Clayton, Esq.: and to Norman Gale, Esq., who
+has not wavered from his early faith in Clare, our gratitude is gladly
+given for assistance and sympathy.
+
+And to Mr. Samuel Sefton of Derby, the grandson of Clare and one of
+his closest investigators, who has patiently and carefully responded
+to all our queries in a long correspondence, and who, besides
+informing us of the Clare tradition as it exists in the family, has
+supplied many materials of importance in writing the poet's life,
+special thanks are due. It was a fortunate chance that put us in
+communication with him.
+
+EDMUND BLUNDEN
+
+ALAN PORTER
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+    And he repulséd, (a short tale to make),
+    Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;
+    Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;
+    Thence to a lightness; and by this declension,
+    Into the madness wherein now he raves.
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL
+
+The life of John Clare, offering as it does so much opportunity for
+sensational contrast and unbridled distortion, became at one time
+(like the tragedy of Chatterton) a favourite with the quillmen. Even
+his serious biographers have made excessive use of light and darkness,
+poetry and poverty, genius and stupidity: that there should be some
+uncertainty about dates and incidents is no great matter, but that
+misrepresentations of character or of habit should be made is the
+fault of shallow research or worse. We have been informed, for
+instance, that drink was a main factor in Clare's mental collapse;
+that Clare "pottered in the fields feebly"; that on his income of
+"£45 a year ... Clare thought he could live without working"; and all
+biographers have tallied in the melodramatic legend; "Neither wife
+nor children ever came to see him, except the youngest son, who came
+once," during his Asylum days. To these attractive exaggerations there
+are the best of grounds for giving the lie.
+
+John Clare was born on the 13th of July, 1793, in a small cottage
+degraded in popular tradition to a mud hut of the parish of Helpston,
+between Peterborough and Stamford. This cottage is standing to-day,
+almost as it was when Clare lived there; so that those who care to do
+so may examine Martin's description of "a narrow wretched hut, more
+like a prison than a human dwelling," in face of the facts. Clare's
+father, a labourer named Parker Clare, was a man with his wits about
+him, whether educated or not; and Ann his wife is recorded to have
+been a woman of much natural ability and precise habits, who thought
+the world of her son John. Of the other children, little is known but
+that there were two who died young and one girl who was alive in 1824.
+Clare himself wrote a sonnet in the _London Magazine_ for June, 1821,
+"To a Twin Sister, Who Died in Infancy."
+
+Parker Clare, a man with some reputation as a wrestler and chosen for
+thrashing corn on account of his strength, sometimes shared the fate
+of almost all farm labourers of his day and was compelled to accept
+parish relief: at no time can he have been many shillings to the good:
+but it was his determination to have John educated to the best of his
+power. John Clare therefore attended a dame-school until he was seven;
+thence, he is believed to have gone to a day-school, where he
+made progress enough to receive on leaving the warm praise of the
+schoolmaster, and the advice to continue at a nightschool--which he
+did. His aim, he notes later on, was to write copperplate: but there
+are evidences that he learned much more than penmanship. Out of school
+he appears to have been a happy, imaginative child: as alert for mild
+mischief as the rest of the village boys, but with something solitary
+and romantic in his disposition. One day indeed at a very early age he
+went off to find the horizon; and a little later while he tended sheep
+and cows in his holiday-time on Helpston Common, he made friends with
+a curious old lady called Granny Bains, who taught him old songs and
+ballads. Such poems as "Childhood" and "Remembrances" prove that
+Clare's early life was not mere drudgery and despair. "I never had
+much relish for the pastimes of youth. Instead of going out on the
+green at the town end on winter Sundays to play football I stuck to
+my corner stool poring over a book; in fact, I grew so fond of being
+alone at last that my mother was fain to force me into company, for
+the neighbours had assured her mind ... that I was no better than
+crazy.... I used to be very fond of fishing, and of a Sunday morning
+I have been out before the sun delving for worms in some old
+weed-blanketed dunghill and steering off across the wet grain ... till
+I came to the flood-washed meadow stream.... And then the year used
+to be crowned with its holidays as thick as the boughs on a harvest
+home." It is probable that the heavy work which he is said to have
+done as a child was during the long holiday at harvesttime. When he
+was twelve or thirteen he certainly became team-leader, and in this
+employment he saw a farm labourer fall from the top of his loaded
+wagon and break his neck. For a time his reason seemed affected by the
+sight.
+
+At evening-school, Clare struck up a friendship with an excise-man's
+son, to the benefit of both. In 1835, one of many sonnets was addressed
+to this excellent soul:
+
+    Turnill, we toiled together all the day,
+    And lived like hermits from the boys at play;
+    We read and walked together round the fields,
+    Not for the beauty that the journey yields--
+    But muddied fish, and bragged oer what we caught,
+    And talked about the few old books we bought.
+    Though low in price you knew their value well,
+    And I thought nothing could their worth excel;
+    And then we talked of what we wished to buy,
+    And knowledge always kept our pockets dry.
+    We went the nearest ways, and hummed a song,
+    And snatched the pea pods as we went along,
+    And often stooped for hunger on the way
+    To eat the sour grass in the meadow hay.
+
+One of these "few old books" was Thomson's "Seasons", which gave
+a direction to the poetic instincts of Clare, already manifesting
+themselves in scribbled verses in his exercise-books.
+
+Read, mark, learn as Clare might, no opportunity came for him to enter
+a profession. "After I had done with going to school it was proposed
+that I should be bound apprentice to a shoemaker, but I rather
+disliked this bondage. I whimpered and turned a sullen eye on every
+persuasion, till they gave me my will. A neighbour then offered to
+learn me his trade--to be a stone mason,--but I disliked this too....
+I was then sent for to drive the plough at Woodcroft Castle of Oliver
+Cromwell memory; though Mrs. Bellairs the mistress was a kind-hearted
+woman, and though the place was a very good one for living, my mind
+was set against it from the first;... one of the disagreeable things
+was getting up so early in the morning ... and another was getting
+wetshod ... every morning and night--for in wet weather the moat used
+to overflow the cause-way that led to the porch, and as there was but
+one way to the house we were obliged to wade up to the knees to get
+in and out.... I staid here one month, and then on coming home to my
+parents they could not persuade me to return. They now gave up all
+hopes of doing any good with me and fancied that I should make nothing
+but a soldier; but luckily in this dilemma a next-door neighbour at
+the Blue Bell, Francis Gregory, wanted me to drive plough, and as I
+suited him, he made proposals to hire me for a year--which as it had
+my consent my parents readily agreed to." There he spent a year in
+light work with plenty of leisure for his books and his long reveries
+in lonely favourite places. His imagination grew intensely, and in his
+weekly errand to a flour-mill at Maxey ghosts rose out of a swamp and
+harried him till he dropped. This stage was hardly ended when one
+day on his road he saw a young girl named Mary Joyce, with whom he
+instantly fell in love. This crisis occurred when Clare was almost
+sixteen: the fate of John Clare hung in the balance for six months.
+Then Mary's father, disturbed principally by the chance that his
+daughter might be seen talking to this erratic youngster, put an end
+to their meetings. From this time, with intervals of tranquillity,
+Clare was to suffer the slow torture of remorse, until at length
+deliberately yielding himself up to his amazing imagination he held
+conversation with Mary, John Clare's Mary, his first wife Mary--as
+though she had not lived unwed, and had not been in her grave for
+years.
+
+But this was not yet; and we must return to the boy Clare, now
+terminating his year's hiring at the Blue Bell. It was time for him
+to take up some trade in good earnest; accordingly, in an evil hour
+disguised as a fortunate one, he was apprenticed to the head gardener
+at Burghley Park. The head gardener was in practice a sot and a
+slave-driver. After much drunken wild bravado, not remarkable in the
+lad Clare considering his companions and traditions, there came the
+impulse to escape; with the result that Clare and a companion were
+shortly afterwards working in a nursery garden at Newark-upon-Trent.
+Both the nursery garden and "the silver Trent" are met again in the
+poems composed in his asylum days; but for the time being they meant
+little to him, and he suddenly departed through the snow. Arrived home
+at Helpston, he lost some time in finding farm work and in writing
+verses: sharing a loft at night with a fellow-labourer, he would rise
+at all hours to note down new ideas. It was not unnatural in the
+fellow-labourer to request him to "go and do his poeting elsewhere."
+Clare was already producing work of value, none the less. Nothing
+could be kept from his neighbours, who looked askance on his ways of
+thinking, and writing: while a candid friend to whom he showed his
+manuscripts directed his notice to the study of grammar. Troubled
+by these ill omens, he comforted himself in the often intoxicated
+friendship of the bad men of the village, who under the mellowing
+influences of old ale roared applause as he recited his ballads. This
+life was soon interrupted.
+
+"When the country was chin-deep," Clare tells us, "in the fears of
+invasion, and every mouth was filled with the terror which Buonaparte
+had spread in other countries, a national scheme was set on foot to
+raise a raw army of volunteers: and to make the matter plausible a
+letter was circulated said to be written by the Prince Regent. I
+forget how many were demanded from our parish, but remember the panic
+which it created was very great. No great name rises in the world
+without creating a crowd of little mimics that glitter in borrowed
+rays; and no great lie was ever yet put in circulation without a herd
+of little lies multiplying by instinct, as it were and crowding under
+its wings. The papers that were circulated assured the people of
+England that the French were on the eve of invading it and that it
+was deemed necessary by the Regent that an army from eighteen to
+forty-five should be raised immediately. This was the great lie, and
+then the little lies were soon at its heels; which assured the people
+of Helpston that the French had invaded and got to London. And some of
+these little lies had the impudence to swear that the French had even
+reached Northampton. The people were at their doors in the evening to
+talk over the rebellion of '45 when the rebels reached Derby, and
+even listened at intervals to fancy they heard the French rebels at
+Northampton, knocking it down with their cannon. I never gave much
+credit to popular stories of any sort, so I felt no concern at these
+stories; though I could not say much for my valour if the tale had
+proved true. We had a crossgrained sort of choice left us, which was
+to be found, to be drawn, and go for nothing--or take on as volunteers
+for the bounty of two guineas. I accepted the latter and went with
+a neighbour's son, W. Clarke, to Peterborough to be sworn on and
+prepared to join the regiment at Oundle. The morning we left home our
+mothers parted with us as if we were going to Botany Bay, and people
+got at their doors to bid us farewell and greet us with a Job's
+comfort 'that they doubted we should see Helpston no more.' I confess
+I wished myself out of the matter. When we got to Oundle, the place
+of quartering, we were drawn out into the field, and a more motley
+multitude of lawless fellows was never seen in Oundle before--and
+hardly out of it. There were 1,300 of us. We were drawn up into a line
+and sorted out into companies. I was one of the shortest and therefore
+my station is evident. I was in that mixed multitude called the
+battalion, which they nicknamed 'bum-tools' for what reason I cannot
+tell; the light company was called 'light-bobs,' and the grenadiers
+'bacon-bolters' ... who felt as great an enmity against each other as
+ever they all felt against the French."
+
+In 1813 he read among other things the "Eikon Basilike," and turned
+his hand to odd jobs as they presented themselves. His life appears to
+have been comfortable and a little dull for a year or two; flirtation,
+verse-making, ambitions and his violin took their turns amiably
+enough! At length he went to work in a lime-kiln several miles from
+Helpston, and wrote only less poems than he read: one day in the
+autumn of 1817, he was dreaming yet new verses when he first saw
+"Patty," his wife-to-be. She was then eighteen years old, and modestly
+beautiful; for a moment Clare forgot Mary Joyce, and though "the
+courtship ultimately took a more prosaic turn," there is no denying
+the fact that he was in love with "Patty" Turner, the daughter of the
+small farmer who held Walkherd Lodge. In the case of Clare, poetry was
+more than ever as time went on autobiography; and it is noteworthy
+that among the many love lyrics addressed to Mary Joyce there are not
+wanting affectionate tributes to his faithful wife Patty.
+
+    Maid of Walkherd, meet again,
+    By the wilding in the glen....
+
+    And I would go to Patty's cot
+      And Patty came to me;
+    Each knew the other's very thought
+      Under the hawthorn tree....
+    And I'll be true for Patty's sake
+      And she'll be true for mine;
+    And I this little ballad make,
+      To be her valentine.
+
+Not long after seeing Patty, Clare was informed by the owner of the
+lime-kiln that his wages would now be seven shillings a week, instead
+of nine. He therefore left this master and found similar work in the
+village of Pickworth, where being presented with a shoemaker's bill
+for £3, he entered into negotiations with a Market Deeping bookseller
+regarding "Proposals for publishing by subscription a Collection of
+Original Trifles on Miscellaneous Subjects, Religious and Moral, in
+verse, by John Clare, of Helpstone." Three hundred proposals were
+printed, with a specimen sonnet well chosen to intrigue the religious
+and moral; and yet the tale of intending subscribers stood adamantly
+at seven. On the face of it, then, Clare had lost one pound; had worn
+himself out with distributing his prospectuses; and further had been
+discharged from the lime-kiln for doing so in working hours. His
+ambitions, indeed, set all employers and acquaintances against him;
+and he found himself at the age of twenty-five compelled to ask for
+parish relief. In this extremity, even the idea of enlisting once
+more crossed his brain; then, that of travelling to Yorkshire for
+employment: and at last, the prospectus which had done him so much
+damage turned benefactor. With a few friends Clare was drinking
+success to his goose-chase when there appeared two "real gentlemen"
+from Stamford. One of these, a bookseller named Drury, had chanced
+on the prospectus, and wished to see more of Clare's poetry. Soon
+afterwards, he promised to publish a selection, with corrections; and
+communicated with his relative, John Taylor, who with his partner
+Hessey managed the well-known publishing business in Fleet Street.
+While this new prospect was opening upon Clare, he succeeded in
+obtaining work once more, near the home of Patty; their love-making
+proceeded, despite the usual thunderstorms, and the dangerous rivalry
+of a certain dark lady named Betty Sell. The bookseller Drury, though
+his appearance was in such critical days timely for Clare, was not a
+paragon of virtue. Without Clare's knowing it, he acquired the legal
+copyright of the poems, probably by the expedient of dispensing money
+at convenient times--a specious philanthropy, as will be shown. At the
+same time he allowed Clare to open a book account, which proved
+at length to be no special advantage. And further, with striking
+astuteness, he found constant difficulty in returning originals. In a
+note written some ten years later, Clare regrets that "Ned Drury has
+got my early vol. of MSS. I lent it him at first, but like all my
+other MSS. elsewhere I could never get it again.... He has copies
+of all my MSS. except those written for the 'Shepherd's Calendar.'"
+Nevertheless, through Drury, Clare was enabled to meet his publisher
+Taylor and his influential friend of the _Quarterly_, Octavius
+Gilchrist, before the end of 1819.
+
+By 1818, there is no doubt, Clare had read very deeply, and even had
+some idea of the classical authors through translations. It is certain
+that he knew the great English writers, probable that he possessed
+their works. What appears to be a list of books which he was anxious
+to sell in his hardest times includes some curious titles, with some
+familiar ones. There are Cobb's Poems, Fawke's Poems, Broom's, Mrs.
+Hoole's, and so on; there are also Cowley's Works--Folio, Warton's
+"Milton," Waller, and a Life of Chatterton; nor can he have been
+devoid of miscellaneous learning after the perusal of Watson's
+"Electricity," Aristotle's Works, Gasse's "Voyages," "Nature
+Display'd," and the _European Magazine_ ("fine heads and plates"). His
+handwriting at this time was bold and hasty; his opinions, to judge
+from his uncompromising notes to Drury respecting the text of the
+poems, almost cynical and decidedly his own. Tact was essential if you
+would patronize Clare: you might broaden his opinions, but you dared
+not assail them. Thus the friendly Gilchrist, a high churchman, hardly
+set eyes on Clare before condemning Clare's esteem for a dissenting
+minister, a Mr. Holland, who understood the poet and the poetry: it
+was some time before Gilchrist set eyes on Clare again.
+
+The year 1820 found Clare unemployed once more, but the said Mr.
+Holland arrived before long with great news. "In the beginning of
+January," Clare briefly puts it, "my poems were published after a long
+anxiety of nearly two years and all the Reviews, except Phillips'
+waste paper magazine, spoke in my favour." Most assuredly they did.
+The literary world, gaping for drouth, had seen an announcement, then
+an account of "John Clare, an agricultural labourer and poet," during
+the previous autumn; the little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, in
+a little while seemed to usurp the whole sky--or in other terms, three
+editions of "Poems Descriptiveof Rural Life and Scenery" were sold
+between January 16 and the last of March. While this fever was raging
+among the London coteries, critical, fashionable, intellectual, even
+the country folk round Helpston came to the conclusion that Clare was
+something of a phenomenon. "In the course of the publication," says
+Clare, "I had ventured to write to Lord Milton to request leave that
+the volume might be dedicated to him; but his Lordship was starting
+into Italy and forgot to answer it. So it was dedicated to nobody,
+which perhaps might be as well. As soon as it was out, my mother took
+one to Milton; when his Lordship sent a note to tell me to bring ten
+more copies. On the following Sunday I went, and after sitting
+awhile in the servants' hall (where I could eat or drink nothing
+for thought), his Lordship sent for me, and instantly explained the
+reasons why he did not answer my letter, in a quiet unaffected manner
+which set me at rest. He told me he had heard of my poems by Parson
+Mossop (of Helpston), who I have since heard took hold of every
+opportunity to speak against my success or poetical abilities before
+the book was published, and then, when it came out and others praised
+it, instantly turned round to my side. Lady Milton also asked
+me several questions, and wished me to name any book that was a
+favourite; expressing at the same time a desire to give me one. But I
+was confounded and could think of nothing. So I lost the present.
+In fact, I did not like to pick out a book for fear of seeming
+over-reaching on her kindness, or else Shakespeare was at my tongue's
+end. Lord Fitzwilliam, and Lady Fitzwilliam too, talked to me and
+noticed me kindly, and his Lordship gave me some advice which I had
+done well perhaps to have noticed better than I have. He bade me
+beware of booksellers and warned me not to be fed with promises. On my
+departure they gave me a handful of money--the most that I had ever
+possessed in my life together. I almost felt I should be poor no
+more--there was £17." Such is Clare's description of an incident which
+has been rendered in terms of insult. Other invitations followed, the
+chief practical result being an annuity of fifteen pounds promised by
+the Marquis of Exeter. Men of rank and talent wrote letters to Clare,
+or sent him books: some found their way to Helpston, and others sent
+tracts to show him the way to heaven. And now at last Clare was well
+enough off to marry Patty, before the birth of their first child, Anna
+Maria.
+
+Before his marriage, probably, Clare was desired to spend a few days
+with his publisher Taylor in London. In smock and gaiters he felt most
+uncertain of himself and borrowed a large overcoat from Taylor to
+disguise his dress: over and above this question of externals, he
+instinctively revolted against being exhibited. Meeting Lord Radstock,
+sometime admiral in the Royal Navy, at dinner in Taylor's house, Clare
+gained a generous if somewhat religiose friend, with the instant
+result that he found himself "trotting from one drawing-room to the
+other." He endured this with patience, thinking possibly of the cat
+killed by kindness; and incidentally Radstock introduced him to the
+strangely superficial-genuine lady Mrs. Emmerson, who was to be a
+faithful, thoughtful friend to his family for many years to come. In
+another direction, soon after Clare's return to Helpston, the retired
+admiral did him a great service, opening a private subscription list
+for his benefit: it was found possible to purchase "£250 Navy 5 Per
+Cents" on the 28th April and a further "£125 Navy 5 Per Cents" a month
+or so later. This stock, held by trustees, yielded Clare a dividend of
+£18 15s. at first, but in 1823 this income dwindled to £15 15s.; and
+by 1832 appears to have fallen to £13 10s. To the varying amount thus
+derived, and to the £15 given yearly by the Marquis of Exeter,
+a Stamford doctor named Bell--one of Clare's most energetic
+admirers--succeeded in adding another annuity of £10 settled upon the
+poet by Lord Spencer. But in the consideration of these bounties, it
+is just to examine the actual financial effect of Clare's first book.
+The publishers' own account, furnished only through Clare's repeated
+demands in 1829 or thereabouts, has a sobering tale to tell: but so
+far no biographer has condescended to examine it.
+
+On the first edition Clare got nothing. Against him is entered the
+item "Cash paid Mr. Clare for copyright p. Mr. Drury ... £20"; but
+this money if actually paid had been paid in 1819. Against him also is
+charged a curious "Commission 5 p. Cent... £8 12s.," while Drury and
+Taylor acknowledge sharing profits of £26 odd.
+
+On the second and third editions Clare got nothing; but to his account
+is charged the £100 which Taylor and Hessey "subscribed" to his fund.
+"Commission," "Advertising," "Sundries," and "Deductions allowed to
+Agents," account for a further £51 of the receipts: and Drury and
+Taylor ostensibly take over £30 apiece.
+
+The fourth edition not being exhausted, the account is not closed: but
+"Advertising" has already swollen to £30, and there is no sign that
+Clare benefits a penny piece. Small wonder that at the foot of these
+figures he has written, "How can this be? I never sold the poems
+for any price--what money I had of Drury was given me on account of
+profits to be received--but here it seems I have got nothing and
+am brought in minus twenty pounds of which I never received a
+sixpence--or it seems that by the sale of these four thousand copies
+I have lost that much--and Drury told me that 5,000 copies had been
+printed tho' 4,000 only are accounted for." Had Clare noticed further
+an arithmetical discrepancy which apparently shortened his credit
+balance by some £27, he might have been still more sceptical.
+
+Not being overweighted, therefore, with instant wealth, Clare returned
+to Helpston determined to continue his work in the fields. But fame
+opposed him: all sorts and conditions of Lydia Whites, Leo Hunters,
+Stigginses, and Jingles crowded to the cottage, demanding to see the
+Northamptonshire Peasant, and often wasting hours of his time. One
+day, for example, "the inmates of a whole boarding-school, located at
+Stamford, visited the unhappy poet"; and even more congenial visitors
+who cheerfully hurried him off to the tavern parlour were the ruin of
+his work. Yet he persevered, writing his poems only in his leisure,
+until the harvest of 1820 was done; then in order to keep his word
+with Taylor, who had agreed to produce a new volume in the spring
+of 1821, he spent six months in the most energetic literary labour.
+Writing several poems a day as he roamed the field or sat in Lea
+Close Oak, he would sit till late in the night sifting, recasting and
+transcribing. His library, by his own enterprise and by presents from
+many friends, was greatly enlarged, and he already knew not only the
+literature of the past, but also that of the present. In his letters
+to Taylor are mentioned his appreciations of Keats, "Poor Keats, you
+know how I reverence him," Shelley, Hunt, Lamb--and almost every
+other contemporary classic. Nor was he afraid to criticize Scott with
+freedom in a letter to Scott's friend Sherwell: remarking also that
+Wordworth's Sonnet on Westminster Bridge had no equal in the language,
+but disagreeing with "his affected godliness."
+
+Taylor and Hessey for their part did not seem over-anxious to produce
+the new volume of poems, perhaps because Clare would not allow any
+change except in the jots and tittles of his work, perhaps thinking
+that the public had had a surfeit of sensation. At length in the
+autumn of 1821 the "Village Minstrel" made its appearance, in
+two volumes costing twelve shillings; with the bait of steel
+engravings,--the first, an unusually fine likeness of Clare from
+the painting by Hilton; the second, an imaginative study of Clare's
+cottage, not without representation of the Blue Bell, the village
+cross and the church. The book was reviewed less noisily, and a sale
+of a mere 800 copies in two months was regarded as "a very modified
+success." Meanwhile, Clare was writing for the _London Magazine_, and
+Cherry tells us that "as he contributed almost regularly for some
+time, a substantial addition was made to his income." Clare tells us,
+in a note on a cash account dated 1827, "In this cash account there
+is nothing allowed me for my three years' writing for the _London
+Magazine_. I was to have £12 a year."
+
+To insist in the financial affairs of Clare may seem blatant, or
+otiose: actually, the treatment which he underwent was a leading
+influence in his career. He was grateful enough to Radstock for
+raising a subscription fund; he may have been grateful to Taylor
+and Hessey for subscribing £100 of his own money; but what hurt and
+embittered him was to see this sum and the others invested for him
+under trustees. Indeed, what man would not, if possessed of any
+independence of mind, strongly oppose such namby-pamby methods? It is
+possible to take a more sinister view of Taylor and Hessey and their
+reluctance ever to provide Clare with a statement of account; but in
+the matter of Clare's funded property folly alone need be considered.
+
+In October 1821, notably, Clare saw an excellent opportunity for the
+future of his family. A small freehold of six or seven acres with a
+pleasant cottage named Bachelor's Hall, where Clare had spent many an
+evening in comfort and even in revelry, was mortgaged to a Jew for
+two hundred pounds; the tenants offered Clare the whole property on
+condition that he paid off the mortgage. Small holdings were rare in
+that district of great landowners, and this to Clare was the chance
+of a lifetime. He applied therefore to Lord Radstock for two hundred
+pounds from his funded property; Radstock replied that "the funded
+property was vested in trustees who were restricted to paying the
+interest to him." It would have been, thought Clare, no difficult
+matter for Radstock to have advanced me that small amount; and he
+rightly concluded that his own strength of character and common sense
+were distrusted by his patrons. Not overwhelmed by this, he now
+applied to his publisher Taylor, offering to sell his whole literary
+output for five years at the price of two hundred pounds. Taylor was
+not enthusiastic. These writings, he urged, might be worth more, or
+might be worth less; in the first case Clare, in the second himself
+would lose on the affair; besides, there were money-lenders and legal
+niceties to beware of; let not Clare "be ambitious but remain in the
+state in which God had placed him." Thus the miserable officiousness
+went on, and if Clare for a time found some comfort in the glass who
+can blame him? In his own words, "for enemies he cared nothing, from
+his friends he had much to fear." He was "thrown back among all the
+cold apathy of killing kindness that had numbed him ... for years."
+
+In May, 1822, Clare spent a brief holiday in London, meeting there the
+strong men of the _London Magazine_, Lamb, Hood, and therest. From
+his clothes, the _London_ group called him The Green Man; Lamb took a
+singular interest in him, and was wont to address him as "Clarissimus"
+and "Princely Clare." Another most enthusiastic acquaintance was a
+painter named Rippingille, who had begun life as the son of a farmer
+at King's Lynn, and who was now thoroughly capable of taking Clare
+into the most Bohemian corners of London. Suddenly, however, news came
+from Helpston recalling the poet from these perambulations, and he
+returned in haste, to find his second daughter born, Eliza Louisa,
+god-child of Mrs. Emmerson and Lord Radstock.
+
+At this time, Clare appears to have been writing ballads of a truly
+rustic sort, perhaps in the light of his universal title, The
+Northamptonshire Peasant Poet. He would now, moreover, collect such
+old ballads and songs as his father and mother or those who worked
+with him might chance to sing; but was often disappointed to find that
+"those who knew fragments seemed ashamed to acknowledge it ... and
+those who were proud of their knowledge in such things knew nothing
+but the senseless balderdash that is brawled over and sung at country
+feasts, statutes, and fairs, where the most senseless jargon passes
+for the greatest excellence, and rudest indecency for the finest wit."
+None the less he recovered sufficient material to train himself into
+the manner of these "old and beautiful recollections." But whatever
+he might write or edit, he was unlikely to find publishers willing
+to bring out. The "Village Minstrel" had barely passed the first
+thousand, and the "second edition" was not melting away. Literature
+after all was not money, and to increase Clare's anxiety and dilemma
+came illness. In the early months of 1823, he made a journey to
+Stamford to ask the help of his old friend Gilchrist.
+
+Gilchrist was already in the throes of his last sickness, and Clare
+took his leave without a word of his own difficulties. Arriving home,
+he fell into a worse illness than before; but as the spring came on he
+rallied, and occasionally walked to Stamford to call on his friend,
+who likewise seemed beginning to mend. On the 30th of June, Clare was
+received with the news "Mr. Gilchrist is dead." Clare relapsed into a
+curious condition which appeared likely to overthrow his life or his
+reason when Taylor most fortunately came to see him, and procured him
+the best doctor in Peterborough. This doctor not only baffled
+Clare's disease, but, rousing attention wherever he could in the
+neighbourhood, was able to provide him with good food and even some
+old port from the cellar of the Bishop of Peterborough.
+
+At last on the advice of the good doctor and the renewed invitation of
+Taylor, Clare made a third pilgrimage to London, and this time stayed
+from the beginning of May till the middle of July, 1824. Passing the
+first three weeks in peaceful contemplation of London crowds, he
+was well enough then to attend a _London Magazine_ dinner, where De
+Quincey swam into his ken, and the next week a similar gathering where
+Coleridge talked for three hours. Clare sat next to Charles Elton and
+gained a staunch friend, who shortly afterwards sent him a letter
+in verse with a request that he should sit to Rippingille for his
+portrait:
+
+    His touch will, hue by hue, combine
+    Thy thoughtful eyes, that steady shine,
+       The temples of Shakesperian line,
+             The quiet smile.
+
+To J. H. Reynolds he seemed "a very quiet and worthy yet enthusiastic
+man." George Darley, too, was impressed by Clare the man, and for some
+time was to be one of the few serious critics of Clare the poet. Allan
+Cunningham showed a like sympathy and a still more active interest.
+A less familiar character, the journalist Henry Van Dyk, perhaps did
+Clare more practical good than either.
+
+With these good effects of Clare's third visit to town, another may be
+noted. A certain Dr. Darling attended him throughout, and persuaded
+him to give up drink; this he did. The real trouble at Helpston was to
+discover employment, for already Clare was supporting his wife, his
+father and mother, and three young children. Farmers were unwilling
+to employ Clare, indeed insulted him if he applied to them: and his
+reticence perhaps lost him situations in the gardens of the Marquis of
+Exeter, and then of the Earl Fitzwilliam.
+
+In spite of disappointments, he wrote almost without pause, sometimes
+making poems in the manner of elder poets (with the intention of mild
+literary forgery), sometimes writing in his normal vein for the lately
+announced "New Shepherd's Calendar"; and almost daily preparing two
+series of articles, on natural history and on British birds. A curious
+proof of the facility with which he wrote verse is afforded by the
+great number of rhymed descriptions of birds, their nests and eggs
+which this period produced: as though he sat down resolved to write
+prose notes and found his facts running into metre even against his
+will. As if not yet embroiled in schemes enough, Clare planned and
+began a burlesque novel, an autobiography, and other prose papers:
+while he kept a diary which should have been published. Clare had
+been forced into a literary career, and no one ever worked more
+conscientiously or more bravely. Those who had at first urged him to
+write can scarcely be acquitted of desertion now: but the more and the
+better Clare wrote, the less grew the actual prospect of production,
+success and independence.
+
+On the 9th of March, 1825, Clare wrote in his diary: "I had a very odd
+dream last night, and take it as an ill omen ... I thought I had one
+of the proofs of the new poems from London, and after looking at it
+awhile it shrank through my hands like sand, and crumbled into dust."
+Three days afterwards, the proof of the "Shepherd's Calendar" arrived
+at Helpston. The ill omen was to be proved true, but not yet. Clare
+continued to write and to botanize, and being already half-forgotten
+by his earlier friends was contented with the company of two notable
+local men, Edward Artis the archaeologist who discovered ancient
+Durobrivae, and Henderson who assisted Clare in his nature-work. These
+two pleasant companions were in the service of Earl Fitzwilliam. It
+was perhaps through their interest that Clare weathered the hardships
+of 1825 so well; and equally, although the "Shepherd's Calendar"
+seemed suspended, did Clare's old patron Radstock endeavour to keep
+his spirits up, writing repeatedly to the publisher in regard to
+Clare's account. The hope of a business agreement was destroyed by the
+sudden death of Radstock, "the best friend," says Clare, "I have met
+with."
+
+Not long after this misfortune, Clare returned to field work for the
+period of harvest, then through the winter concentrated his energy on
+his poetry. Nor was poetry his only production, for through his friend
+Van Dyk he was enabled to contribute prose pieces to the London press.
+In June, 1826, his fourth child was born, and Clare entreated Taylor
+to bring out the "Shepherd's Calendar," feeling that he might at least
+receive money enough for the comfort of his wife and his baby; but
+Taylor felt otherwise, recommending Clare to write for the annuals
+which now began to flourish. This Clare at last persuaded himself to
+do. Payment was tardy, and in some cases imaginary; and for the time
+being the annuals were not the solution of his perplexities. He
+therefore went back to the land; and borrowing the small means
+required rented at length a few acres, with but poor results.
+
+The publication of Clare's first book had been managed with excellent
+strategy; Taylor had left nothing to chance, and the public responded
+as he had planned. The independence of Clare may have displeased
+the publisher; at any rate, his enthusiasm dwindled, and further to
+jeopardize Clare's chances it occurred that in 1825 Taylor and Hessey
+came to an end, the partners separating. Omens were indeed bad for
+the "Shepherd's Calendar" which, two years after its announcement,
+in June, 1827, made its unobtrusive appearance. There were very few
+reviews, and the book sold hardly at all. Yet this was conspicuously
+finer work than Clare had done before. Even "that beautiful
+frontispiece of De Wint's," as Taylor wrote, did not attract
+attention. The forgotten poet, slaving at his small-holding, found
+that his dream had come true. Meanwhile Allan Cunningham had been
+inquiring into this non-success, and early in 1828 wrote to Clare
+urging him to come to London and interview the publisher. An
+invitation from Mrs. Emmerson made thevisit possible. Once more then
+did Clare present himself at 20, Stratford Place, and find his "sky
+chamber" ready to receive him. Nor did he allow long time to elapse
+before finding out Allan Cunningham, who heartily approved of his plan
+to call on Taylor, telling him to request a full statement of account.
+The next day, when Clare was on the point of making the demand, Taylor
+led across the trail with an unexpected offer; recommending Clare to
+buy the remaining copies of his "Shepherd's Calendar" from him at
+half-a-crown each, that he might sell them in his own district.
+Clare asked time to reflect. A week later, against the wish of Allan
+Cunningham, he accepted the scheme.
+
+Clare had had another object in coming to town. Dr. Darling had done
+him so much good on a previous occasion that he wished to consult him
+anew. On the 25th of February, 1828, Clare wrote to his wife: "Mr.
+Emmerson's doctor, a Mr. Ward, told me last night that there was
+little or nothing the matter with me--and yet I got no sleep the
+whole of last night." Already, it appears, had coldness and dilemma
+unsettled him. That they had not subdued him, and that his home life
+was in the main happy and affectionate, and of as great an importance
+to him as any of his aspirations, is to be judged from his poems
+and his letters of 1828 and thereabouts. They show him as the very
+opposite of the feeble neurotic who has so often been beworded under
+his name:
+
+20, STRATFORD PLACE, _March 21st, 1828._
+
+MY DEAR PATTY,
+
+I have been so long silent that I feel ashamed of it, but I have been
+so much engaged that I really have not had time to write; and the
+occasion of my writing now is only to tell you that I shall be at home
+next week for certain.--I am anxious to see you and the children
+and I sincerely hope you are all well. I have bought the dear little
+creatures four books, and Henry Behnes has promised to send Frederick
+a wagon and horses as a box of music is not to be had. The books I
+have bought them are "Puss-in-Boots," "Cinderella," "Little Rhymes,"
+and "The Old Woman and Pig"; tell them that the pictures are all
+coloured, and they must make up their minds to chuse which they like
+best ere I come home.--Mrs. Emmerson desires to be kindly remembered
+to you, and intends sending the children some toys. I hope next
+Wednesday night at furthest will see me in my old corner once again
+amongst you. I have made up my mind to buy Baxter "The History of
+Greece," which I hope will suit him. I have been poorly, having caught
+cold, and have been to Dr. Darling. I would have sent you some money
+which I know you want, but as I am coming home so soon I thought it
+much safer to bring it home myself than send it; and as this is only
+to let you know that I am coming home, I shall not write further than
+hoping you are all well--kiss the dear children for me all round--give
+my remembrances to all--and believe me, my dear Patty,
+
+Yours most affectionately,
+
+JOHN CLARE.
+
+
+During this stay in London, Clare had had proofs that his poems
+were not completely overlooked. Strangers, recognizing him from the
+portrait in the "Village Minstrel," often addressed him in the street.
+In this way he first met Alaric A. Watts, and Henry Behnes, the
+sculptor, who induced Clare to sit to him. The result was a strong,
+intensely faithful bust (preserved now in the Northampton Free
+Library). Hilton, who had painted Clare in water-colours and in oils,
+celebrated with Behnes and Clare the modelling of this bust, all three
+avoiding a dinner of lions arranged by Mrs. Emmerson. On another
+occasion, Clare found a congenial spirit in William Hone.
+
+But now Clare is home at Helpston, ready with a sack of poetry to
+tramp from house to house and try his luck. Sometimes he dragged
+himself thirty miles a day, meeting rectors who "held it unbecoming
+to see poems hawked about": one day, having walked seven milesinto
+Peterborough, and having sold no books anywhere, he trudged home
+to find Patty in the pains of labour; and now had to go back to
+Peterborough as fast as he might for a doctor. Now there were nine
+living beings dependent on Clare. At length he altered his plan of
+campaign, and advertised that his poems could be had at his cottage,
+with some success. About this time Clare was invited to write for "The
+Spirit of the Age," and still he supplied brief pieces to the hated
+but unavoidable annuals. Letters too from several towns in East
+Anglia, summoning John Clare with his bag of books, at least promised
+him some slight revenue; actually he only went to one of these places,
+namely Boston, where the mayor gave a banquet in his honour, and
+enabled him to sell several volumes--autographed. Among the younger
+men, a similar feast was proposed; but Clare declined, afterwards
+reproaching himself bitterly on discovering that they had hidden ten
+pounds in his wallet. On his return home not only himself but the rest
+of the family in turn fell ill with fever, so that the spring of 1829
+found Clare out of work and faced with heavy doctor's-bills.
+
+Intellectually, John Clare was in 1828 and 1829 probably at his
+zenith. He had ceased long since to play the poetic ploughman; he had
+gained in his verses something more ardent and stirring than he had
+shown in the "Shepherd's Calendar"; and the long fight (for it was
+nothing less) against leading-strings and obstruction now began to
+manifest itself in poems of regret and of soliloquy. Having long
+written for others' pleasure, he now wrote for his own nature.
+
+    I would not wish the burning blaze
+      Of fame around a restless world,
+    The thunder and the storm of praise
+      In crowded tumults heard and hurled.
+
+There had been few periods of mental repose since 1820. His brain and
+his poetic genius, by this long discipline and fashioning, were now
+triumphant together. The declension from this high estate might have
+been more abrupt but for the change in his fortunes. He had again
+with gentleness demanded his accounts from his publisher, and when in
+August, 1829, these accounts actually arrived, disputed several points
+and gained certain concessions: payment was made from the editors of
+annuals; and with these reliefs came the chance for him to rent a
+small farm and to work on the land of Earl Fitzwilliam. His working
+hours were long, and his mind was forced to be idle. This salutary
+state of affairs lasted through 1830, until happiness seemed the only
+possibility before him. What poems he wrote occurred suddenly and
+simply to him. His children--now six in number--were growing up in
+more comfort and in more prospect than he had ever enjoyed. But he
+reckoned not with illness.
+
+In short, illness reduced Clare almost to skin-and-bone. Farming not
+only added nothing but made encroachment on his small stipend. In
+despair he flung himself into field labour again, and was carried home
+nearly dead with fever. Friends there were not wanting to send food
+and medicine; Parson Mossop, having long ago been converted to Clare,
+did much for him. Even so the landlord distrained for rent, and Clare
+applied to his old friend Henderson the botanist at Milton Park. Lord
+Milton came by and Clare was encouraged to tell him his trouble;
+his intense phrases and bearing were such that the nobleman at once
+promised him a new cottage and a plot of ground. At the same time, he
+expressed his hope that there would soon be another volume of poems
+by John Clare. This hope was the spark which fired a dangerous train,
+perhaps; for Clare once again fell into his exhausting habit of poetry
+all the day and every day. He decided to publish a new volume by
+subscription.
+
+The new cottage was in the well-orcharded village of Northborough,
+three miles from Helpston. It was indeed luxurious in comparison with
+the old stooping house where Clare had spent nearly forty years, but
+there was more in that old house than mere stone and timber. Clare
+began to look on the coming change with terror; delayed the move day
+after day, to the distress of poor Patty; and when at last news came
+from Milton Park that the Earl was not content with such strange
+hesitation, and when Patty had her household on the line of march, he
+"followed in the rear, walking mechanically, with eyes half shut, as
+if in a dream." There was no delay in his self-expression.
+
+    I've left mine 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.
+
+This and many other verses, not the least pathetic in our language,
+were written by John Clare on June 20th, 1832, on the occasion of his
+moving out of a small and crowded cottage in a village street to
+a roomy, romantic farmhouse standing in its own grounds. Was this
+ingratitude? ask rather, is the dyer's hand subdued to what it works
+in?
+
+Clare rapidly proceeded with his new collection of poems, destined
+never to appear in his lifetime. In a thick oblong blank-book, divided
+into four sections to receive Tales in Verse, Poems, Ballads and
+Songs, and Sonnets, he copied his best work in a hand small but
+clear, and with a rare freedom from slips of the pen. His proposals,
+reprinted with a warm-hearted comment in the _Athenaeum_ of 1832, were
+in these terms:
+
+The proposals for publishing these fugitives being addressed to
+friends no further apology is necessary than the plain statement of
+facts. Necessity is said to be the mother of invention, but there
+is very little need of invention for truth; and the truth is, that
+difficulty has grown up like a tree of the forest, and being no longer
+able to conceal it, I meet it in the best way possible by attempting
+to publish them for my own benefit and that of a numerous and
+increasing family. It were false delicacy to make an idle parade
+of independence in my situation, and it would be unmanly to make
+a troublesome appeal to favours, public or private, like a public
+petitioner. Friends neither expect this from me, or wish me to do it
+to others, though it is partly owing to such advice that I was induced
+to come forward with these proposals, and if they are successful
+they will render me a benefit, and if not they will not cancel any
+obligations that I may have received from friends, public and
+private, to whom my best wishes are due, and having said this much in
+furtherance of my intentions, I will conclude by explaining them.
+
+Proposals for publishing in 1 volume, F.c. 8vo, The Midsummer Cushion,
+or Cottage Poems, by John Clare.
+
+1st. The Book will be printed on fine paper, and published as soon as
+a sufficient number of subscribers are procured to defray the expense
+of publishing.
+
+2nd. It will consist of a number of fugitive trifles, some of which
+have appeared in different periodicals, and of others that have never
+been published.
+
+3rd. No money is requested until the volume shall be delivered, free
+of expense, to every subscriber.
+
+4th. The price will not exceed seven shillings and sixpence, and it
+may not be so much, as the number of pages and the expense of the book
+will be regulated by the Publisher.
+
+In his new home Clare was for a time troubled with visitors; to most
+he was aloof, but sometimes he spoke freely of his affairs. One
+visitor who found him in the communicative mood chanced to be the
+editor of a magazine, _The Alfred._ The denials of Clare, frankly
+given to rumours of his new benefits (variously estimated between two
+hundred and a thousand a year), were to this gentleman as meat and
+drink; and _The Alfred_ for October the 5th, 1832, contained a violent
+manifesto condemning publishers and patrons in the most fiery fashion
+and apparently inspired by the poet himself. This did his cause much
+damage, and Clare wrote to the perpetrator in anger: "There never
+was a more scandalous insult to my feelings than this officious
+misstatement.... I am no beggar; for my income is £36, and though
+I have had no final settlement with Taylor, I expect to have
+one directly." Clare ended by demanding a recantation. None was
+forthcoming, and the effect on patrons and poet was unfortunate
+indeed. Yet still he could write of himself in this uncoloured style:
+"I am ready to laugh with you at my own vanity. For I sit sometimes
+and wonder over the little noise I have made in the world, until I
+think I have written nothing yet to deserve any praise at all. So
+the spirit of fame, of living a little after life like a noise on a
+conspicuous place, urges my blood upward into unconscious melodies;
+and striding down my orchard and homestead I hum and sing inwardly
+these little madrigals, and then go in and pen them down, thinking
+them much better things than they are--until I look over them again.
+And then the charm vanishes into the vanity that I shall do something
+better ere I die; and so, in spite of myself, I rhyme on and write
+nothing but little things at last."
+
+With the gear that Mrs. Emmerson's kindness and activity had provided,
+Clare kept his garden and ground in order; yet the winter of 1832 was
+a time of great hardship and foreboding. His youngest son Charles was
+born on the 4th of January, 1833; the event shook Clare's nerve more
+terribly perhaps than anything before had done and he went out
+into the fields. Late in the day his daughter Anna found him lying
+unconscious, and for a month he had to keep his bed. As if to prove
+the proverb "It never rains but it pours," subscribers to his new
+volume hung back, and when spring had come they numbered in all
+forty-nine. Clare submitted the work to the publishers, great and
+small, but the best offer that he got depended on his providing in
+advance £100 for the necessary steel engravings. And now Clare lost
+all his delight in lonely walks, but sitting in his study wrote
+curious paraphrases of "the Psalms, the Proverbs, and the Book of
+Job." His manner towards those round him became apathetic and silent.
+Even the news brought by his doctor--who prescribed Clare to his other
+patients--that subscribers now were more than two hundred, seemed to
+sound meaningless in his ears. But even these danger-signs seemed
+discounted by the self-command and cheerfulness which Clare soon
+afterwards regained; and ashamed of his misjudgment, Dr. Smith came to
+the conclusion that he need visit Clare no more. An attack of insanity
+immediately followed, during which Clare did not know his wife, his
+children or himself.
+
+From this heavy trance he awoke, bitterly aware of his peril. He wrote
+at once to Taylor, again and again. "You must excuse my writing; but I
+feel that if I do not write now I shall not be able. What I wish is to
+get under Dr. Darling's advice, or to have his advice to go somewhere;
+for I have not been from home this twelve-month, and cannot get
+anywhere." ... "If I could but go to London, I think I should get
+better. How would you advise me to come? I dare not come up by myself.
+Do you think one of my children might go with me?... Thank God my wife
+and children are all well." Taylor wrote once in mildly sympathetic
+words, but probably thought that Clare was making much ado about
+nothing. And here at least was the opportunity for a patron to save a
+poet from death-in-life for five pounds. Nothing was done, and Clare
+sat in his study, writing more and more paraphrases of the Old
+Testament, together with series of sonnets of a grotesque, rustic
+sort, not resembling any other poems in our language.
+
+The "Midsummer Cushion" had been set aside, but Clare had submitted
+many of the poems together with hundreds more to Messrs. Whittaker.
+Largely through the recommendations of Mr. Emmerson, the publishers
+decided to print a volume from these, picking principally those poems
+which had already shown themselves respectable by appearing in the
+annuals. One even written in 1820, "The Autumn Robin," was somehow
+chosen, to the exclusion of such later poems as "Remembrances"
+and "The Fallen Elm." With faults like these, the selection was
+nevertheless a distinctly beautiful book of verse. In March, 1834,
+Clare definitely received forty pounds for the copyright, and finally
+in July, 1835, appeared this his last book, "The Rural Muse." Its
+success was half-hearted, in spite of a magnificent eulogy by
+Christopher North in _Blackwood's_, and of downright welcome by the
+_Athenaeum_, the _New Monthly_ and other good judges. There was a slow
+sale for several months, but for Clare there was little chance of new
+remuneration. This he could regard calmly, for while the book was in
+the press he had received from the Literary Fund a present of fifty
+pounds.
+
+Clare's malady slowly increased. The exact history of this decline is
+almost lost, yet we may well believe that the death of his mother on
+the 18th of December, 1835, was a day of double blackness for him.
+The winter over, Patty made a great fight for his reason, and at last
+persuaded him to go out for walks, which checked the decline. Now he
+became so passionately fond of being out-of-doors that "he could not
+be made to stop a single day at home." In one of these roving walks he
+met his old friend Mrs. Marsh, the wife of the Bishop of Peterborough.
+A few nights later as her guest he sat in the Peterborough theatre
+watching the "Merchant of Venice." So vivid was his imagination--for
+doubtless the strolling players were not in themselves convincing--that
+he at last began to shout at Shylock and try to attack him on the stage.
+When Clare returned to Helpston, the change in him terrified his wife.
+And yet, he rallied and walked the fields, and sitting on the window-seat
+taught his sons to trim the two yew-trees in his garden into old-fashioned
+circles and cones. The positive signs of derangement which he had given so
+far were not after all conclusive. He had seen Mary Joyce pass by, he had
+spoken to her, occasionally he as a third person had watched and discussed
+the doings of John Clare and this lost sweetheart. He had surprised one or
+two people by calling mole-hills mountains. One day, too, at Parson
+Mossop's house he had suddenly pointed to figures moving up and down.
+Under these circumstances, a Market Deeping doctor named Skrimshaw
+certified him mad; and on similar grounds almost any one in the world
+might be clapped into an asylum.
+
+Hallucinations ceased for a few months, but Mrs. Clare had difficulty
+in keeping outside interference at bay. Earl Fitzwilliam, in his
+position of landlord, proposed to send the man who called mole-hills
+mountains at once to the Northampton Asylum. When the summer came,
+unfortunately, Clare's mind seemed suddenly to give way, and
+preparations were being made for his admission to the county Asylum
+when letters came from Taylor and other old friends in London,
+proposing to place him in private hands. Clare was taken accordingly
+on the 16th of July, 1837, to Fair Mead House, Highbeach, in Epping
+Forest.
+
+Dr. Allen, the mild broad-minded founder of this excellent asylum, had
+few doubts as to the condition of Clare's mind, and assured him an
+eventual recovery. As with the fifty other patients, so he dealt with
+Clare: keeping him away from books, and making him work in the garden
+and the fields. Poetry, it is said, was made impossible for him, paper
+being taken away from him; but it is not conceivable that Clare could
+live apart from this kindest of companions for many months together.
+Soon he was allowed to go out into the forest at his will, often
+taking his new acquaintance Thomas Campbell, the son of the poet,
+on these wood-rambles. His hallucinations do not appear to have
+diminished, although they changed. He was now convinced that Mary
+Joyce was his true wife--Patty was his "second wife." He had known
+William Shakespeare, and many other great ones in person. Why such men
+as Wordsworth, Campbell and Byron were allowed to steal John Clare's
+best poems and to publish them as their own, he could not imagine.
+John Clare was not only noble by nature but by blood also.--On such
+rumoured eccentricities did the popular notion of his madness rest. It
+would seem that anything he said was taken down in evidence against
+him. How dared he be figurative?
+
+On the other hand, Miss Mitford records figurative conversations not
+so easily explained; his eye-witness's account of the execution of
+Charles the First, "the most graphic and minute, with an accuracy as
+to costume and manners far exceeding what would probably have been at
+his command if sane," and his seaman's narrative of the battle of
+the Nile and the death of Nelson in exact nautical detail. These
+imaginations she compares to clairvoyance. Cyrus Redding, who left
+three accounts of his visit, found him "no longer, as he was formerly,
+attenuated and pale of complexion ... a little man, of muscular frame
+and firmly set, his complexion fresh and forehead high, a nose
+somewhat aquiline, and long full chin." "His manner was perfectly
+unembarrassed, his language correct and fluent; he appeared to possess
+great candour and openness of mind, and much of the temperament of
+genius. There was about his manner no tincture of rusticity." Once
+only during the conversation did Clare betray any aberration, abruptly
+introducing and abandoning the topic of Prize-fighting, as though "a
+note had got into a piece of music which had no business there."
+
+Clare told Redding that he missed his wife and his home, the society
+of women, and books. At last, having been in the private asylum four
+years, he "returned home out of Essex" on foot, leaving Epping Forest
+early on July 20, 1841, and dragging himself along almost without
+pause until July 23. Of this amazing journey he himself wrote an
+account for "Mary Clare," which is printed in full in Martin's "Life":
+it is both in style and in subject an extraordinary document. The
+first night, he says, "I lay down with my head towards the north, to
+show myself the steering-point in the morning." On "the third day I
+satisfied my hunger by eating the grass on the roadside which seemed
+to taste something like bread. I was hungry and eat heartily till I
+was satisfied; in fact, the meal seemed to do me good." And "there was
+little to notice, for the road very often looked as stupid as myself."
+At last between Peterborough and Helpston "a cart met me, with a man,
+a woman and a boy in it. When nearing me the woman jumped out, and
+caught fast hold of my hands, and wished me to get into the cart. But
+I refused; I thought her either drunk or mad. But when I was told it
+was my second wife, Patty, I got in, and was soon at Northborough."
+
+Rest and home somewhat restored Clare's mind, and it was Patty's hope
+and aim to keep him in his cottage. Though she attempted to keep paper
+from him he contrived to write verse paraphrases of the prophetical
+books, sometimes putting in between a song to Mary or a stanza of
+nature poetry. At the end of August, round the edges of a local
+newspaper he wrote the draft of a letter to Dr. Allen, of Highbeach,
+which in the almost complete absence of documents for this period is
+an important expression:
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Having left the Forest in a hurry I had not time to take my leave of
+you and your family, but I intended to write, and that before now. But
+dullness and disappointment prevented me, for I found your words true
+on my return here, having neither friends nor home left. But as it is
+called the "Poet's Cottage" I claimed a lodging in it where I now am.
+One of my fancies I found here with her family and all well. They met
+me on this side Werrington with a horse and cart, and found me all but
+knocked up, for I had travelled from Essex to Northamptonshire without
+ever eating or drinking all the way--save one pennyworth of beer which
+was given me by a farm servant near an odd house called "The Plough."
+One day I eat grass to keep on my [feet], but on the last day I chewed
+tobacco and never felt hungry afterwards.
+
+Where my poetical fancy is I cannot say, for the people in the
+neighbourhood tell me that the one called "Mary" has been dead these
+eight years: but I can be miserably happy in any situation and any
+place and could have staid in yours on the Forest if any of my friends
+had noticed me or come to see me. But the greatest annoyance in such
+places as yours are those servants styled keepers, who often assumed
+as much authority over me as if I had been their prisoner; and not
+liking to quarrel I put up with it till I was weary of the place
+altogether. So I heard the voice of freedom, and started, and could
+have travelled to York with a penny loaf and a pint of beer; for I
+should not have been fagged in body, only one of my old shoes had
+nearly lost the sole before I started, and let in the water and silt
+the first day, and made me crippled and lame to the end of my journey.
+
+I had eleven books sent me from How & Parsons, Booksellers--some lent
+and some given me; out of the eleven I only brought 5 vols. here, and
+as I don't want any part of Essex in Northamptonshire agen I wish you
+would have the kindness to send a servant to get them for me. I should
+be very thankful--not that I care about the books altogether, only it
+may be an excuse to see me and get me into company that I do not want
+to be acquainted with--one of your labourers', Pratt's, wife borrowed
+[   ] of Lord Byron's--and Mrs. Fish's daughter has two or three more,
+all Lord Byron's poems; and Mrs. King late of The Owl Public House
+Leppit Hill, and now of Endfield Highway, has two or three--all Lord
+Byron's, and one is the "Hours of Idleness."
+
+You told me something before haytime about the Queen allowing me
+a yearly salary of £100, and that the first quarter had then
+commenced--or else I dreamed so. If I have the mistake is not of much
+consequence to any one save myself, and if true I wish you would get
+the quarter for me (if due), as I want to be independent and pay
+for board and lodging while I remain here. I look upon myself as a
+widow[er] or bachelor, I don't know which. I care nothing about the
+women now, for they are faithless and deceitful; and the first woman,
+when there was no man but her husband, found out means to cuckold him
+by the aid and assistance of the devil--but women being more righteous
+now, and men more plentiful, they have found out a more godly way to
+do it without the devil's assistance. And the man who possesses a
+woman possesses losses without gain. The worst is the road to ruin,
+and the best is nothing like a good Cow. Man I never did like--and
+woman has long sickened me. I should like to be to myself a few years
+and lead the life of a hermit: but even there I should wish for her
+whom I am always thinking of--and almost every song I write has some
+sighs and wishes in ink about Mary. If I have not made your head weary
+by reading thus far I have tired my own by writing it; so I will bid
+you goodbye, and am
+
+                    My dear doctor
+
+                                   Yours very sincerely
+
+                                       JOHN CLARE
+
+Give my best respects to Mrs. Allen and Miss Allen, and to Dr.
+Stedman; also to Campbell, and Hayward, and Howard at Leopard's Hill,
+or in fact to any one who may think it worth while to enquire about
+me.
+
+Patty worked her hardest to keep Clare out of future asylums, but
+it seems that her wishes were overridden. Dr. Allen let it be known
+through the _Gentleman's Magazine_ and other publications that Clare
+would in the ordinary way almost certainly recover: but the local
+doctors knew better. On the authority of an anonymous "patron" the
+doctor Skrimshaw who had previously found Clare insane now paid
+him another visit, and with a certain William Page, also of Market
+Deeping, condemned him to be shut up "After years addicted to poetical
+prosings."
+
+Then one day keepers came, and a vain struggle, and the Northborough
+cottage saw John Clare no more. He was now in the asylum at
+Northampton, and the minds of Northamptonshire noblemen need no longer
+be troubled that a poet was wandering in miserable happiness under
+their park walls.
+
+So far, the madness of Clare had been rather an exaltation of mind
+than a collapse. Forsaken mainly by his friends--even Mrs. Emmerson's
+letters ceased in 1837,--unrecognized by the new generation of writers
+and of readers, hated by his neighbours, wasted with hopeless love,
+he had encouraged a life of imagination and ideals. Imagination
+overpowered him, until his perception of realities failed him.
+He could see Mary Joyce or talk with her, he had a family of
+dream-children by her: but if this was madness, there was method in
+it. But now the blow fell, imprisonment for life: down went John Clare
+into idiocy, "the ludicrous with the terrible." And even from this
+desperate abyss he rose.
+
+Earl Fitzwilliam paid for Clare's maintenance in the Northampton
+Asylum, but at the ordinary rate for poor people. The asylum
+authorities at least seemed to have recognized Clare as a man out
+of the common, treating him as a "gentleman patient," and allowing
+him--for the first twelve years--to go when he wished into
+Northampton, where he would sit under the portico of All Saints'
+Church in meditation. What dreams were these! "sometimes his face
+would brighten up as if illuminated by an inward sun, overwhelming
+in its glory and beauty." Sane intervals came, in which he wrote his
+poems; and these poems were of a serenity and richness not surpassed
+in his earlier work, including for instance "Graves of Infants" (May,
+1844), "The Sleep of Spring" (1844), "Invitation to Eternity" (1848)
+and "Clock-a-Clay" (before 1854). But little news of him went farther
+afield than the town of Northampton, and the poems remained in
+manuscript. A glimpse of Clare in these years is left us by a Mr.
+Jesse Hall, who as an admirer of his poems called on him in May, 1848.
+"As it was a very fine day, he said we could go and have a walk in the
+grounds of the institution. We discussed many subjects and I found him
+very rational, there being very little evidence of derangement.... I
+asked permission for him to come to my hotel the next day. We spent
+a few hours together. I was very sorry to find a great change in him
+from the previous day, and I had ample evidence of his reason being
+dethroned, his conversation being disconnected and many of his remarks
+displaying imbecility: but at times he spoke rationally and to the
+point." To Hall as to almost every other casual visitor Clare gave
+several manuscript poems.
+
+A letter to his wife, dated July 19th, 1848, gives fresh insight into
+his condition:
+
+MY DEAR WIFE,
+
+I have not written to you a long while, but here I am in the land of
+Sodom where all the people's brains are turned the wrong way. I was
+glad to see John yesterday, and should like to have gone back with
+him, for I am very weary of being here. You might come and fetch me
+away, for I think I have been here long enough.
+
+I write this in a green meadow by the side of the river agen Stokes
+Mill, and I see three of their daughters and a son now and then. The
+confusion and roar of mill dams and locks is sounding very pleasant
+while I write it, and it's a very beautiful evening; the meadows are
+greener than usual after the shower and the rivers are brimful. I
+think it is about two years since I was first sent up in this Hell
+and French Bastille of English liberty. Keep yourselves happy and
+comfortable and love one another. By and bye I shall be with you,
+perhaps before you expect me. There has been a great storm here
+with thunder and hail that did much damage to the glass in the
+neighbourhood. Hailstones the size of hens' eggs fell in some places.
+Did your brother John come to Northborough or go to Barnack? His uncle
+John Riddle came the next morning but did not stay. I thought I was
+coming home but I got cheated. I see many of your little brothers and
+sisters at Northampton, weary and dirty with hard work; some of them
+with red hands, but all in ruddy good health: some of them are along
+with your sister Ruth Dakken who went from Helpston a little girl.
+Give my love to your Mother, Grandfather and Sisters, and believe me,
+my dear children, hers and yours,
+
+Very affectionately
+
+JOHN CLARE
+
+
+Life went on with little incident for Clare in the asylum. To amuse
+himself he read and wrote continually; in 1850 his portrait was
+painted, and his death reported. In 1854 he assisted Miss Baker in her
+"Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases," providing her with
+all his asylum manuscripts and specially contributing some verses on
+May-day customs. At this time an edition of his poems was projected,
+and the idea met with much interest among those who yet remembered
+Clare: but it faded and was gone. The "harmless lunatic" was at length
+confined to the asylum grounds, and to the distresses of his mind
+began to be added those of the ageing body. Hope even now was not
+dead, and a poor versifier but good Samaritan who saw him in 1857
+printed some lines in the _London Journal_ for November 2lst asking
+the aid of Heaven to restore Clare to his home and his poetry (for he
+seems to have written little at that time); a gentleman who was in a
+position to judge wrote also that in the spring of 1860 his mind was
+calmer than it had been for years, and that he was induced to write
+verses once more. But Clare was sixty-seven years old; it was perhaps
+too late to release him, and perhaps he had grown past the desire of
+liberty. On the 7th of March he wrote to Patty, asking after all his
+children and some of his friends, and sending his love to his father
+and mother (so long since dead); signing himself "Your loving husband
+till death, John Clare." On the 8th he wrote a note to Mr. Hopkins:
+"Why I am shut up I don't know." And on the 9th he answered his "dear
+Daughter Sophia's letter," saying that he was "not quite so well to
+write" as he had been, and (presumably in reply to some offer of books
+or comforts) "I want nothing from Home to come here. I shall be glad
+to see you when you come." In the course of 1860 he was photographed,
+and that the Northampton folk still took an interest in their poet is
+proved by the sale of these likenesses; copies could be seen in the
+shops until recent years. But that Clare might have been set at large
+seems not to have occurred to those who in curiosity purchased his
+portrait. A visitor named John Plummer went to the asylum in 1861, and
+found Clare reading in the window recess of a very comfortable room.
+"Time had dealt kindly with him," he wrote. "It was in vain that we
+strove to arrest his attention: he merely looked at us with a vacant
+gaze for a moment, and then went on reading his book." This was
+possibly rather the action of sanity than of insanity. Yet Plummer did
+his best, in _Once a Week_ and elsewhere, to call attention to
+the forgotten poet, who was visited soon afterwards by the worthy
+Nonconformist Paxton Hood, and presently by Joseph Whitaker, the
+publisher of the "Almanack."
+
+Clare became patriarchal in appearance; and his powers failed more
+rapidly, until he could walk no longer. A wheel-chair was procured for
+him, that he might still enjoy the garden and the open air. On Good
+Friday in 1864 he was taken out for the last time; afterwards he could
+not be moved, yet he would still manage to reach his window-seat; then
+came paralysis, and on the afternoon of May the 20th, 1864,
+
+    His soul seemed with the free,
+    He died so quietly.
+
+His last years had been spent in some degree of happiness, and
+from officials and fellow-patients he had received gentleness, and
+sympathy, and even homage. It has been said, not once nor twice but
+many times, that in the asylum he was never visited by his wife, nor
+by any of his children except the youngest son, Charles, who came
+once. That any one should condemn Patty for her absence is surely
+presumptuous in the extreme: she was now keeping her home together
+with the greatest difficulty, nor can it be known what deeper motives
+influenced relationships between wife and husband, even if the name of
+Mary Joyce meant nothing. That the children came to see their father
+whenever they could, the letters given above signify: but, if the
+opportunities were not many, there were the strongest of reasons.
+Frederick died in 1843, just after Clare's incarceration: Anna in the
+year following: Charles the youngest, a boy of great promise, in 1852:
+and Sophia in 1863. William, and John who went to Wales, went when
+occasion came and when they could afford the expense of the journey:
+Eliza, who survived last of Clare's children and who most of all
+understood him and his poetry, was unable through illness to leave her
+home for many years, yet she went once to see him. The isolation which
+found its expression in "I Am" was another matter: it was the sense of
+futility, of not having fulfilled his mission, of total eclipse
+that spoke there. N. P. Willis, perhaps the Howitts, and a few more
+worthies came for brief hours to see Clare, rather as a phenomenon
+than as a poet; but Clare, who had sat with Elia and his assembled
+host, who had held his own with the finest brains of his time and had
+written such a cornucopia of genuine poetry now lying useless in his
+cottage at Northborough, cannot but have regarded the Northampton
+Asylum as "the shipwreck of his own esteems."
+
+Clare was buried on May 25th, 1864, where he had wished to be, in the
+churchyard at Helpston. The letter informing Mrs. Clare of his death
+was delivered at the wrong address, and did not eventually reach her
+at Northborough before Clare's coffin arrived at Helpston; scarcely
+giving her time to attend the funeral the next day. Indeed, had the
+sexton at Helpston been at home, the bearers would have urged him to
+arrange for the funeral at once; in his absence, they left the coffin
+in an inn parlour for the night, and a scandal was barely prevented.
+A curious superstition grew up locally that it was not Clare's body
+which was buried in that coffin: and among those who attended the last
+rite, not one but found it almost impossible to connect this episode
+with those days forty years before, when so many a notable man
+was seen making through Helpston village for the cottage of the
+eager-eyed, brilliant, unwearying young poet who was the talk of
+London. After such a long silence and oblivion, even the mention
+of John Clare's name in his native village awoke odd feelings of
+unreality.
+
+The poetry of John Clare, originally simple description of the country
+and countrymen, or ungainly imitation of the poetic tradition as he
+knew it through Allan Ramsay, Burns, and the popular writers of the
+eighteenth century, developed into a capacity for exact and complete
+nature-poetry and for self-expression. Thoroughly awake to all the
+finest influences in life and in literature, he devoted himself to
+poetry in every way. Imagination, colour, melody and affection were
+his by nature; where he lacked was in dramatic impulse and in passion,
+and sometimes his incredible facility in verse, which enabled him to
+complete poem after poem without pause or verbal difficulty, was not
+his best friend. He possesses a technique of his own; his rhymes are
+based on pronunciation, the Northamptonshire pronunciation to which
+his ear had been trained, and thus he accurately joins "stoop" and
+"up," or "horse" and "cross"--while his sonnets are free and often
+unique in form. In spite of his individual manner, there is no poet
+who in his nature-poetry so completely subdues self and mood and deals
+with the topic for its own sake. That he is by no means enslaved to
+nature-poetry, the variety of the poems in this selection must show.
+
+His Asylum Poems are distinct from most of the earlier work. They are
+often the expressions of his love tragedy, yet strange to say they
+are not often sad or bitter: imagination conquers, and the tragedy
+vanishes. They are rhythmically new, the movement having changed from
+that of quiet reflection to one of lyrical enthusiasm: even nature
+is now seen in brighter colours and sung in subtler music. Old age
+bringing ever intenser recollection and childlike vision found Clare
+writing the light lovely songs which bear no slightest sign of the
+cruel years. So near in these later poems are sorrow and joy that they
+awaken deeper feelings and instincts than almost any other lyrics
+can--emotions such as he shares with us in his "Adieu!":
+
+    I left the little birds
+    And sweet lowing of the herds,
+    And couldn't find out words,
+       Do you see,
+    To say to them good-bye,
+    Where the yellowcups do lie;
+    So heaving a deep sigh,
+       Took to sea....
+
+In this sort of pathos, so indefinable and intimate, William Blake and
+only he can be said to resemble him.
+
+B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+NOTE
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL
+
+EARLY POEMS--
+
+*Ballad
+*Song
+Summer Evening
+What is Life
+*The Maid of Ocram, or Lord Gregory
+The Gipsy's Camp
+Impromptu
+The Wood-cutter's Night Song
+Rural Morning Song
+The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story
+In Hilly-Wood
+The Ants
+*To Anna Three Years Old
+*From "The Parish: A Satire"
+Nobody Cometh to Woo
+*Distant Hills
+
+MIDDLE PERIOD, 1824-1836--
+
+*The Stranger
+*Song's Eternity
+*The Old Cottagers
+*Young Lambs
+*Early Nightingale
+*Winter Walk
+*The Soldier
+*Ploughman Singing
+*Spring's Messengers
+*Letter in Verse
+*Snow Storm
+*Firwood
+*Grasshoppers
+*Field Path
+*Country Letter
+From "January"
+November
+*The Fens
+*Spear Thistle
+*Idle Fame
+*Approaching Night
+*Song
+Farewell and Defiance to Love
+To John Milton
+The Vanities of Life
+Death
+*The Fallen Elm
+*Sport in the Meadows
+*Death
+Autumn
+Summer Images
+A World for Love
+Love
+Nature's Hymn to the Deity
+Decay
+*The Cellar Door
+The Flitting
+Remembrances
+The Cottager
+Insects
+Sudden Shower
+Evening Primrose
+The Shepherd's Tree
+Wild Bees
+The Firetail's Nest
+The Fear of Flowers
+Summer Evening
+Emmonsail's Heath in Winter
+Pleasures of Fancy
+To Napoleon
+The Skylark
+The Flood
+The Thrush's Nest
+November Earth's Eternity
+*Autumn
+*Signs of Winter
+*Nightwind
+*Birds in Alarm
+*Dyke Side
+*Badger
+*The Fox
+*The Vixen
+*Turkeys
+*The Poet's
+Death
+The Beautiful Stranger
+*The Tramp
+*Farmer's Boy
+*Braggart
+*Sunday Dip
+*Merry Maid
+*Scandal
+*Quail's Nest
+*Market Day
+*Stonepit
+*"The Lass with the Delicate Air"
+*The Lout
+*Hodge
+*Farm Breakfast
+*Love and Solitude
+
+ASYLUM POEMS--
+*Gipsies
+*The Frightened Ploughman
+*Farewell The Old Year
+*The Yellowhammer
+*Autumn
+*Song
+*The Winter's Come
+*Summer Winds
+Bonnie Lassie O!
+*Meet Me in the Green Glen
+*Love Cannot Die
+*Peggy
+*The Crow Sat on the Willow
+*Now is Past
+*Song
+*First Love
+*Mary Bayfield
+*The Maid of Jerusalem
+*Song
+*Thou Flower of Summer
+*The Swallow
+*The Sailor-Boy
+The Sleep of Spring
+Mary Bateman
+Bonny Mary O!
+Where She Told Her Love
+Autumn
+*Invitation to Eternity
+*The Maple Tree
+*House or Window Flies
+*Dewdrops
+*Fragment
+*From "A Rhapsody"
+*Secret Love
+*Bantry Bay
+*Peggy's the Lady of the Hall
+*I Dreamt of Robin
+*The Peasant Poet
+*To John Clare
+*Early Spring
+Clock-a-Clay
+Little Trotty
+Wagtail
+Graves of Infants
+The Dying Child
+Love Lives Beyond the Tomb
+I AM
+
+APPENDICES--
+
+*Fragment: A Specimen of Clare's rough drafts A Bibliographical
+Outline
+
+Poems with asterisks are now first printed, or in one or two cases now
+first collected.
+
+
+
+
+EARLY POEMS
+
+_Ballad_
+
+A faithless shepherd courted me,
+He stole away my liberty.
+When my poor heart was strange to men,
+He came and smiled and stole it then.
+
+When my apron would hang low,
+Me he sought through frost and snow.
+When it puckered up with shame,
+And I sought him, he never came.
+
+When summer brought no fears to fright,
+He came to guard me every night.
+When winter nights did darkly prove,
+None came to guard me or to love.
+
+I wish, I wish, but all in vain,
+I wish I was a maid again.
+A maid again I cannot be,
+O when will green grass cover me?
+
+
+_Song_
+
+Mary, leave thy lowly cot
+ When thy thickest jobs are done;
+When thy friends will miss thee not,
+ Mary, to the pastures run.
+Where we met the other night
+ Neath the bush upon the plain,
+Be it dark or be it light,
+ Ye may guess we'll meet again.
+
+Should ye go or should ye not,
+ Never shilly-shally, dear.
+Leave your work and leave your cot,
+ Nothing need ye doubt or fear:
+Fools may tell ye lies in spite,
+ Calling me a roving swain;
+Think what passed the other night--
+ I'll be bound ye'll meet again.
+
+
+_Summer Evening_
+
+The sinking sun is taking leave,
+And sweetly gilds the edge of Eve,
+While huddling clouds of purple dye
+Gloomy hang the western sky.
+Crows crowd croaking over head,
+Hastening to the woods to bed.
+Cooing sits the lonely dove,
+Calling home her absent love.
+With "Kirchup! Kirchup!" mong the wheats
+Partridge distant partridge greets;
+Beckoning hints to those that roam,
+That guide the squandered covey home.
+Swallows check their winding flight,
+And twittering on the chimney light.
+Round the pond the martins flirt,
+Their snowy breasts bedaubed with dirt,
+While the mason, neath the slates,
+Each mortar-bearing bird awaits:
+By art untaught, each labouring spouse
+Curious daubs his hanging house.
+
+Bats flit by in hood and cowl;
+Through the barn-hole pops the owl;
+From the hedge, in drowsy hum,
+Heedless buzzing beetles bum,
+Haunting every bushy place,
+Flopping in the labourer's face.
+Now the snail hath made its ring;
+And the moth with snowy wing
+Circles round in winding whirls,
+Through sweet evening's sprinkled pearls,
+On each nodding rush besprent;
+Dancing on from bent to bent;
+Now to downy grasses clung,
+Resting for a while he's hung;
+Then, to ferry oer the stream,
+Vanishing as flies a dream;
+Playful still his hours to keep,
+Till his time has come to sleep;
+
+In tall grass, by fountain head,
+Weary then he drops to bed.
+From the hay-cock's moistened heaps,
+Startled frogs take vaunting leaps;
+And along the shaven mead,
+Jumping travellers, they proceed:
+Quick the dewy grass divides,
+Moistening sweet their speckled sides;
+From the grass or flowret's cup,
+Quick the dew-drop bounces up.
+Now the blue fog creeps along,
+And the bird's forgot his song:
+Flowers now sleep within their hoods;
+Daisies button into buds;
+From soiling dew the butter-cup
+Shuts his golden jewels up;
+And the rose and woodbine they
+Wait again the smiles of day.
+Neath the willow's wavy boughs,
+Dolly, singing, milks her cows;
+While the brook, as bubbling by,
+Joins in murmuring melody.
+Dick and Dob, with jostling joll,
+Homeward drag the rumbling roll;
+Whilom Ralph, for Doll to wait,
+Lolls him o'er the pasture gate.
+Swains to fold their sheep begin;
+Dogs loud barking drive them in.
+Hedgers now along the road
+Homeward bend beneath their load;
+And from the long furrowed seams,
+Ploughmen loose their weary teams:
+Ball, with urging lashes wealed,
+Still so slow to drive a-field,
+Eager blundering from the plough,
+Wants no whip to drive him now;
+At the stable-door he stands,
+Looking round for friendly hands
+
+To loose the door its fastening pin,
+And let him with his corn begin.
+Round the yard, a thousand ways,
+Beasts in expectation gaze,
+Catching at the loads of hay
+Passing fodderers tug away.
+Hogs with grumbling, deafening noise,
+Bother round the server boys;
+And, far and near, the motley group
+Anxious claim their suppering-up.
+
+From the rest, a blest release,
+Gabbling home, the quarreling geese
+Seek their warm straw-littered shed,
+And, waddling, prate away to bed.
+Nighted by unseen delay,
+Poking hens, that lose their way,
+On the hovel's rafters rise,
+Slumbering there, the fox's prize.
+Now the cat has ta'en her seat,
+With her tail curled round her feet;
+Patiently she sits to watch
+Sparrows fighting on the thatch.
+Now Doll brings the expected pails,
+And dogs begin to wag their tails;
+With strokes and pats they're welcomed in,
+And they with looking wants begin;
+Slove in the milk-pail brimming o'er,
+She pops their dish behind the door.
+Prone to mischief boys are met,
+Neath the eaves the ladder's set,
+Sly they climb in softest tread,
+To catch the sparrow on his bed;
+Massacred, O cruel pride!
+Dashed against the ladder's side.
+Curst barbarians! pass me by;
+Come not, Turks, my cottage nigh;
+Sure my sparrows are my own,
+Let ye then my birds alone.
+
+Come, poor birds, from foes severe
+Fearless come, you're welcome here;
+My heart yearns at fate like yours,
+A sparrow's life's as sweet as ours.
+Hardy clowns! grudge not the wheat
+Which hunger forces birds to eat:
+Your blinded eyes, worst foes to you,
+Can't see the good which sparrows do.
+Did not poor birds with watching rounds
+Pick up the insects from your grounds,
+Did they not tend your rising grain,
+You then might sow to reap in vain.
+Thus Providence, right understood,
+Whose end and aim is doing good,
+Sends nothing here without its use;
+Though ignorance loads it with abuse,
+And fools despise the blessing sent,
+And mock the Giver's good intent.--
+O God, let me what's good pursue,
+Let me the same to others do
+As I'd have others do to me,
+And learn at least humanity.
+
+Dark and darker glooms the sky;
+Sleep gins close the labourer's eye:
+Dobson leaves his greensward seat,
+Neighbours where they neighbours meet
+Crops to praise, and work in hand,
+And battles tell from foreign land.
+While his pipe is puffing out,
+Sue he's putting to the rout,
+Gossiping, who takes delight
+To shool her knitting out at night,
+And back-bite neighbours bout the town--
+Who's got new caps, and who a gown,
+And many a thing, her evil eye
+Can see they don't come honest by.
+Chattering at a neighbour's house,
+She hears call out her frowning spouse;
+Prepared to start, she soodles home,
+Her knitting twisting oer her thumb,
+As, both to leave, afraid to stay,
+She bawls her story all the way;
+The tale so fraught with 'ticing charms,
+Her apron folded oer her arms.
+She leaves the unfinished tale, in pain,
+To end as evening comes again:
+And in the cottage gangs with dread,
+  To meet old Dobson's timely frown,
+Who grumbling sits, prepared for bed,
+  While she stands chelping bout the town.
+
+The night-wind now, with sooty wings,
+In the cotter's chimney sings;
+Now, as stretching oer the bed,
+Soft I raise my drowsy head,
+Listening to the ushering charms,
+That shake the elm tree's mossy arms:
+Till sweet slumbers stronger creep,
+  Deeper darkness stealing round,
+Then, as rocked, I sink to sleep,
+  Mid the wild wind's lulling sound.
+
+
+_What is Life?_
+
+And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run,
+A mist retreating from the morning sun,
+  A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
+Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;
+  And happiness?-A bubble on the stream,
+That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
+
+What are vain Hopes?--The puffing gale of morn,
+  That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
+And robs each floweret of its gem,--and dies;
+  A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn,
+Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
+
+And thou, O Trouble?--Nothing can suppose,
+(And sure the power of wisdom only knows,)
+  What need requireth thee:
+So free and liberal as thy bounty flows,
+  Some necessary cause must surely be;
+But disappointments, pains, and every woe
+  Devoted wretches feel,
+The universal plagues of life below,
+  Are mysteries still neath Fate's unbroken seal.
+
+And what is Death? is still the cause unfound?
+That dark, mysterious name of horrid sound?
+  A long and lingering sleep, the weary crave.
+And Peace? where can its happiness abound?--
+  No where at all, save heaven, and the grave.
+
+Then what is Life?--When stripped of its disguise,
+  A thing to be desired it cannot be;
+Since every thing that meets our foolish eyes
+  Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
+Tis but a trial all must undergo;
+  To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
+That happiness vain man's denied to know,
+  Until he's called to claim it in the skies.
+
+
+_The Maid Of Ocram or, Lord Gregory_
+
+Gay was the Maid of Ocram
+As lady eer might be
+Ere she did venture past a maid
+To love Lord Gregory.
+Fair was the Maid of Ocram
+And shining like the sun
+Ere her bower key was turned on two
+Where bride bed lay for none.
+
+And late at night she sought her love--
+The snow slept on her skin--
+Get up, she cried, thou false young man,
+And let thy true love in.
+And fain would he have loosed the key
+All for his true love's sake,
+But Lord Gregory then was fast asleep,
+His mother wide awake.
+
+And up she threw the window sash,
+And out her head put she:
+And who is that which knocks so late
+And taunts so loud to me?
+It is the Maid of Ocram,
+Your own heart's next akin;
+For so you've sworn, Lord Gregory,
+To come and let me in.
+
+O pause not thus, you know me well,
+Haste down my way to win.
+The wind disturbs my yellow locks,
+The snow sleeps on my skin.--
+If you be the Maid of Ocram,
+As much I doubt you be,
+Then tell me of three tokens
+That passed with you and me.--
+
+O talk not now of tokens
+Which you do wish to break;
+Chilled are those lips you've kissed so warm,
+And all too numbed to speak.
+You know when in my father's bower
+You left your cloak for mine,
+Though yours was nought but silver twist
+And mine the golden twine.--
+
+If you're the lass of Ocram,
+As I take you not to be,
+The second token you must tell
+Which past with you and me.--
+O know you not, O know you not
+Twas in my father's park,
+You led me out a mile too far
+And courted in the dark?
+
+When you did change your ring for mine
+My yielding heart to win,
+Though mine was of the beaten gold
+Yours but of burnished tin,
+Though mine was all true love without,
+Yours but false love within?
+
+O ask me no more tokens
+For fast the snow doth fall.
+Tis sad to strive and speak in vain,
+You mean to break them all.--
+If you are the Maid of Ocram,
+As I take you not to be,
+You must mention the third token
+That passed with you and me.--
+
+Twas when you stole my maidenhead;
+That grieves me worst of all.--
+Begone, you lying creature, then
+This instant from my hall,
+Or you and your vile baby
+Shall in the deep sea fall;
+For I have none on earth as yet
+That may me father call.--
+
+O must none close my dying feet,
+And must none close my hands,
+And may none bind my yellow locks
+As death for all demands?
+You need not use no force at all,
+Your hard heart breaks the vow;
+You've had your wish against my will
+And you shall have it now.
+
+And must none close my dying feet,
+And must none close my hands,
+And will none do the last kind deeds
+That death for all demands?--
+Your sister, she may close your feet,
+Your brother close your hands,
+Your mother, she may wrap your waist
+In death's fit wedding bands;
+Your father, he may tie your locks
+And lay you in the sands.--
+
+My sister, she will weep in vain,
+My brother ride and run,
+My mother, she will break her heart;
+And ere the rising sun
+My father will be looking out--
+But find me they will none.
+I go to lay my woes to rest,
+None shall know where I'm gone.
+God must be friend and father both,
+Lord Gregory will be none.--
+
+Lord Gregory started up from sleep
+And thought he heard a voice
+That screamed full dreadful in his ear,
+And once and twice and thrice.
+Lord Gregory to his mother called:
+O mother dear, said he,
+I've dreamt the Maid of Ocram
+Was floating on the sea.
+
+Lie still, my son, the mother said,
+Tis but a little space
+And half an hour has scarcely passed
+Since she did pass this place.--
+O cruel, cruel mother,
+When she did pass so nigh
+How could you let me sleep so sound
+Or let her wander bye?
+Now if she's lost my heart must break--
+I'll seek her till I die.
+
+He sought her east, he sought her west,
+He sought through park and plain;
+He sought her where she might have been
+But found her not again.
+I cannot curse thee, mother,
+Though thine's the blame, said he
+I cannot curse thee, mother,
+Though thou'st done worse to me.
+Yet do I curse thy pride that aye
+So tauntingly aspires;
+For my love was a gay knight's heir,
+And my father was a squire's.
+
+And I will sell my park and hall;
+And if ye wed again
+Ye shall not wed for titles twice
+That made ye once so vain.
+So if ye will wed, wed for love,
+As I was fain to do;
+Ye've gave to me a broken heart,
+And I'll give nought to you.
+
+Your pride has wronged your own heart's blood;
+For she was mine by grace,
+And now my lady love is gone
+None else shall take her place.
+I'll sell my park and sell my hall
+And sink my titles too.
+Your pride's done wrong enough as now
+To leave it more to do.
+
+She owneth none that owned them all
+And would have graced them well;
+None else shall take the right she missed
+Nor in my bosom dwell.--
+And then he took and burnt his will
+Before his mother's face,
+And tore his patents all in two,
+While tears fell down apace--
+But in his mother's haughty look
+Ye nought but frowns might trace.
+
+And then he sat him down to grieve,
+But could not sit for pain.
+And then he laid him on the bed
+And ne'er got up again.
+
+
+_The Gipsy's Camp_
+
+How oft on Sundays, when I'd time to tramp,
+My rambles led me to a gipsy's camp,
+Where the real effigy of midnight hags,
+With tawny smoked flesh and tattered rags,
+Uncouth-brimmed hat, and weather-beaten cloak,
+Neath the wild shelter of a knotty oak,
+Along the greensward uniformly pricks
+Her pliant bending hazel's arching sticks:
+While round-topt bush, or briar-entangled hedge,
+Where flag-leaves spring beneath, or ramping sedge,
+Keeps off the bothering bustle of the wind,
+And give the best retreat she hopes to find.
+How oft I've bent me oer her fire and smoke,
+To hear her gibberish tale so quaintly spoke,
+While the old Sybil forged her boding clack,
+Twin imps the meanwhile bawling at her back;
+Oft on my hand her magic coin's been struck,
+And hoping chink, she talked of morts of luck:
+And still, as boyish hopes did first agree,
+Mingled with fears to drop the fortune's fee,
+I never failed to gain the honours sought,
+And Squire and Lord were purchased with a groat.
+But as man's unbelieving taste came round,
+She furious stampt her shoeless foot aground,
+Wiped bye her soot-black hair with clenching fist,
+While through her yellow teeth the spittle hist,
+Swearing by all her lucky powers of fate,
+Which like as footboys on her actions wait,
+That fortune's scale should to my sorrow turn,
+And I one day the rash neglect should mourn;
+That good to bad should change, and I should be
+Lost to this world and all eternity;
+That poor as Job I should remain unblest:--
+  (Alas, for fourpence how my die is cast!)
+Of not a hoarded farthing be possesst,
+  And when all's done, be shoved to hell at last!
+
+
+_Impromptu_
+
+"Where art thou wandering, little child?"
+  I said to one I met to-day.--
+She pushed her bonnet up and smiled,
+  "I'm going upon the green to play:
+Folks tell me that the May's in flower,
+  That cowslip-peeps are fit to pull,
+And I've got leave to spend an hour
+  To get this little basket full."
+
+--And thou'st got leave to spend an hour!
+  My heart repeated.--She was gone;
+--And thou hast heard the thorn's in flower,
+  And childhood's bliss is urging on:
+Ah, happy child! thou mak'st me sigh,
+  This once as happy heart of mine,
+Would nature with the boon comply,
+  How gladly would I change for thine.
+
+
+_The Wood-cutter's Night Song_
+
+Welcome, red and roundy sun,
+  Dropping lowly in the west;
+Now my hard day's work is done,
+  I'm as happy as the best.
+
+Joyful are the thoughts of home,
+  Now I'm ready for my chair,
+So, till morrow-morning's come,
+  Bill and mittens, lie ye there!
+
+Though to leave your pretty song,
+  Little birds, it gives me pain,
+Yet to-morrow is not long,
+  Then I'm with you all again.
+
+If I stop, and stand about,
+  Well I know how things will be,
+Judy will be looking out
+  Every now-and-then for me.
+
+So fare ye well! and hold your tongues,
+  Sing no more until I come;
+They're not worthy of your songs
+  That never care to drop a crumb.
+
+All day long I love the oaks,
+  But, at nights, yon little cot,
+Where I see the chimney smokes,
+  Is by far the prettiest spot.
+
+Wife and children all are there,
+  To revive with pleasant looks,
+Table ready set, and chair,
+  Supper hanging on the hooks.
+
+Soon as ever I get in,
+  When my faggot down I fling,
+Little prattlers they begin
+  Teasing me to talk and sing.
+
+Welcome, red and roundy sun,
+  Dropping lowly in the west;
+Now my hard day's work is done,
+  I'm as happy as the best.
+
+Joyful are the thoughts of home,
+  Now I'm ready for my chair,
+So, till morrow-morning's come,
+  Bill and mittens, lie ye there!
+
+
+_Rural Morning_
+
+Soon as the twilight through the distant mist
+In silver hemmings skirts the purple east,
+Ere yet the sun unveils his smiles to view
+And dries the morning's chilly robes of dew,
+Young Hodge the horse-boy, with a soodly gait,
+Slow climbs the stile, or opes the creaky gate,
+With willow switch and halter by his side
+Prepared for Dobbin, whom he means to ride;
+The only tune he knows still whistling oer,
+And humming scraps his father sung before,
+As "Wantley Dragon," and the "Magic Rose,"
+The whole of music that his village knows,
+Which wild remembrance, in each little town,
+From mouth to mouth through ages handles down.
+Onward he jolls, nor can the minstrel-throngs
+Entice him once to listen to their songs;
+Nor marks he once a blossom on his way;
+A senseless lump of animated clay--
+With weather-beaten hat of rusty brown,
+Stranger to brinks, and often to a crown;
+With slop-frock suiting to the ploughman's taste,
+Its greasy skirtings twisted round his waist;
+And hardened high-lows clenched with nails around,
+Clamping defiance oer the stoney ground,
+The deadly foes to many a blossomed sprout
+That luckless meets him in his morning's rout.
+In hobbling speed he roams the pasture round,
+Till hunted Dobbin and the rest are found;
+Where some, from frequent meddlings of his whip,
+Well know their foe, and often try to slip;
+While Dobbin, tamed by age and labour, stands
+To meet all trouble from his brutish hands,
+And patient goes to gate or knowly brake,
+The teasing burden of his foe to take;
+Who, soon as mounted, with his switching weals,
+Puts Dob's best swiftness in his heavy heels,
+The toltering bustle of a blundering trot
+Which whips and cudgels neer increased a jot,
+Though better speed was urged by the clown--
+And thus he snorts and jostles to the town.
+
+And now, when toil and summer's in its prime,
+In every vill, at morning's earliest time,
+To early-risers many a Hodge is seen,
+And many a Dob's heard clattering oer the green.
+
+Now straying beams from day's unclosing eye
+In copper-coloured patches flush the sky,
+And from night's prison strugglingly encroach,
+To bring the summons of warm day's approach,
+Till, slowly mounting oer the ridge of clouds
+That yet half shows his face, and half enshrouds,
+The unfettered sun takes his unbounded reign
+And wakes all life to noise and toil again:
+And while his opening mellows oer the scenes
+Of wood and field their many mingling greens,
+Industry's bustling din once more devours
+The soothing peace of morning's early hours:
+The grunt of hogs freed from their nightly dens
+And constant cacklings of new-laying hens,
+And ducks and geese that clamorous joys repeat
+The splashing comforts of the pond to meet,
+And chirping sparrows dropping from the eaves
+For offal kernels that the poultry leaves,
+Oft signal-calls of danger chittering high
+At skulking cats and dogs approaching nigh.
+And lowing steers that hollow echoes wake
+Around the yard, their nightly fast to break,
+As from each barn the lumping flail rebounds
+In mingling concert with the rural sounds;
+While oer the distant fields more faintly creep
+The murmuring bleatings of unfolding sheep,
+And ploughman's callings that more hoarse proceed
+Where industry still urges labour's speed,
+The bellowing of cows with udders full
+That wait the welcome halloo of "come mull,"
+And rumbling waggons deafening again,
+Rousing the dust along the narrow lane,
+And cracking whips, and shepherd's hooting cries,
+From woodland echoes urging sharp replies.
+Hodge, in his waggon, marks the wondrous tongue,
+And talks with echo as he drives along;
+Still cracks his whip, bawls every horse's name,
+And echo still as ready bawls the same:
+The puzzling mystery he would gladly cheat,
+And fain would utter what it can't repeat,
+Till speedless trials prove the doubted elf
+As skilled in noise and sounds as Hodge himself;
+And, quite convinced with the proofs it gives,
+The boy drives on and fancies echo lives,
+Like some wood-fiend that frights benighted men,
+The troubling spirit of a robber's den.
+
+And now the blossom of the village view,
+With airy hat of straw, and apron blue,
+And short-sleeved gown, that half to guess reveals
+By fine-turned arms what beauty it conceals;
+Whose cheeks health flushes with as sweet a red
+As that which stripes the woodbine oer her head;
+Deeply she blushes on her morn's employ,
+To prove the fondness of some passing boy,
+Who, with a smile that thrills her soul to view,
+Holds the gate open till she passes through,
+While turning nods beck thanks for kindness done,
+And looks--if looks could speak-proclaim her won.
+With well-scoured buckets on proceeds the maid,
+And drives her cows to milk beneath the shade,
+Where scarce a sunbeam to molest her steals--
+Sweet as the thyme that blossoms where she kneels;
+And there oft scares the cooing amorous dove
+With her own favoured melodies of love.
+Snugly retired in yet dew-laden bowers,
+This sweetest specimen of rural flowers
+Displays, red glowing in the morning wind,
+The powers of health and nature when combined.
+
+Last on the road the cowboy careless swings,
+Leading tamed cattle in their tending strings,
+With shining tin to keep his dinner warm
+Swung at his back, or tucked beneath his arm;
+Whose sun-burnt skin, and cheeks chuffed out with fat,
+Are dyed as rusty as his napless hat.
+And others, driving loose their herds at will,
+Are now heard whooping up the pasture-hill;
+Peeled sticks they bear of hazel or of ash,
+The rib-marked hides of restless cows to thrash.
+In sloven garb appears each bawling boy,
+As fit and suiting to his rude employ;
+His shoes, worn down by many blundering treads,
+Oft show the tenants needing safer sheds:
+The pithy bunch of unripe nuts to seek,
+And crabs sun-reddened with a tempting cheek,
+From pasture hedges, daily puts to rack
+His tattered clothes, that scarcely screen the back,--
+Daubed all about as if besmeared with blood,
+Stained with the berries of the brambly wood
+That stud the straggling briars as black as jet,
+Which, when his cattle lair, he runs to get;
+Or smaller kinds, as if beglossed with dew
+Shining dim-powdered with a downy blue,
+That on weak tendrils lowly creeping grow
+Where, choaked in flags and sedges, wandering slow,
+The brook purls simmering its declining tide
+Down the crooked boundings of the pasture-side.
+There they to hunt the luscious fruit delight,
+And dabbling keep within their charges' sight;
+Oft catching prickly struttles on their rout,
+And miller-thumbs and gudgeons driving out,
+Hid near the arched brig under many a stone
+That from its wall rude passing clowns have thrown.
+And while in peace cows eat, and chew their cuds,
+Moozing cool sheltered neath the skirting woods,
+To double uses they the hours convert,
+Turning the toils of labour into sport;
+Till morn's long streaking shadows lose their tails,
+And cooling winds swoon into faultering gales;
+And searching sunbeams warm and sultry creep,
+Waking the teazing insects from their sleep;
+And dreaded gadflies with their drowsy hum
+On the burnt wings of mid-day zephyrs come,--
+Urging each lown to leave his sports in fear,
+  To stop his starting cows that dread the fly;
+Droning unwelcome tidings on his ear,
+  That the sweet peace of rural morn's gone by.
+
+
+_Song_
+
+One gloomy eve I roamed about
+  Neath Oxey's hazel bowers,
+While timid hares were darting out,
+  To crop the dewy flowers;
+And soothing was the scene to me,
+  Right pleased was my soul,
+My breast was calm as summer's sea
+  When waves forget to roll.
+
+But short was even's placid smile,
+  My startled soul to charm,
+When Nelly lightly skipt the stile,
+  With milk-pail on her arm:
+One careless look on me she flung,
+  As bright as parting day;
+And like a hawk from covert sprung,
+  It pounced my peace away.
+
+
+_The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story_
+
+Stopt by the storm, that long in sullen black
+From the south-west stained its encroaching track,
+Haymakers, hustling from the rain to hide,
+Sought the grey willows by the pasture-side;
+And there, while big drops bow the grassy stems,
+And bleb the withering hay with pearly gems,
+Dimple the brook, and patter in the leaves,
+The song or tale an hour's restraint relieves.
+And while the old dames gossip at their ease,
+And pinch the snuff-box empty by degrees,
+The young ones join in love's delightful themes,
+Truths told by gipsies, and expounded dreams;
+And mutter things kept secrets from the rest,
+As sweethearts' names, and whom they love the best;
+And dazzling ribbons they delight to show,
+And last new favours of some veigling beau,
+Who with such treachery tries their hearts to move,
+And, like the highest, bribes the maidens' love.
+The old dames, jealous of their whispered praise,
+Throw in their hints of man's deluding ways;
+And one, to give her counsels more effect,
+And by example illustrate the fact
+Of innocence oercome by flattering man,
+Thrice tapped her box, and pinched, and thus began.
+
+  "Now wenches listen, and let lovers lie,
+Ye'll hear a story ye may profit by;
+I'm your age treble, with some oddments to't,
+And right from wrong can tell, if ye'll but do't:
+Ye need not giggle underneath your hat,
+Mine's no joke-matter, let me tell you that;
+So keep ye quiet till my story's told,
+And don't despise your betters cause they're old.
+
+  "That grave ye've heard of, where the four roads meet,
+Where walks the spirit in a winding-sheet,
+Oft seen at night, by strangers passing late,
+And tarrying neighbours that at market wait,
+Stalking along as white as driven snow,
+And long as one's shadow when the sun is low;
+The girl that's buried there I knew her well,
+And her whole history, if ye'll hark, can tell.
+Her name was Jane, and neighbour's children we,
+And old companions once, as ye may be;
+And like to you, on Sundays often strolled
+To gipsies' camps to have our fortunes told;
+And oft, God rest her, in the fortune-book
+Which we at hay-time in our pockets took,
+Our pins at blindfold on the wheel we stuck,
+When hers would always prick the worst of luck;
+For try, poor thing, as often as she might,
+Her point would always on the blank alight;
+Which plainly shows the fortune one's to have,
+As such like go unwedded to the grave,--
+And so it proved.--The next succeeding May,
+We both to service went from sports and play,
+Though in the village still; as friends and kin
+Thought neighbour's service better to begin.
+So out we went:--Jane's place was reckoned good,
+Though she bout life but little understood,
+And had a master wild as wild can be,
+And far unfit for such a child as she;
+And soon the whisper went about the town,
+That Jane's good looks procured her many a gown
+From him, whose promise was to every one,
+But whose intention was to wive with none.
+Twas nought to wonder, though begun by guess;
+For Jane was lovely in her Sunday dress,
+And all expected such a rosy face
+Would be her ruin--as was just the case.
+The while the change was easily perceived,
+Some months went by, ere I the tales believed;
+For there are people nowadays, Lord knows,
+Will sooner hatch up lies than mend their clothes;
+And when with such-like tattle they begin,
+Don't mind whose character they spoil a pin:
+But passing neighbours often marked them smile,
+And watched him take her milkpail oer a stile;
+And many a time, as wandering closer by,
+From Jenny's bosom met a heavy sigh;
+And often marked her, as discoursing deep,
+When doubts might rise to give just cause to weep,
+Smothering their notice, by a wished disguise
+To slive her apron corner to her eyes.
+Such signs were mournful and alarming things,
+And far more weighty than conjecture brings;
+Though foes made double what they heard of all,
+Swore lies as proofs, and prophesied her fall.
+Poor thoughtless wench! it seems but Sunday past
+Since we went out together for the last,
+And plain enough indeed it was to find
+She'd something more than common on her mind;
+For she was always fond and full of chat,
+In passing harmless jokes bout beaus and that,
+But nothing then was scarcely talked about,
+And what there was, I even forced it out.
+A gloomy wanness spoiled her rosy cheek,
+And doubts hung there it was not mine to seek;
+She neer so much as mentioned things to come,
+But sighed oer pleasures ere she left her home;
+And now and then a mournful smile would raise
+At freaks repeated of our younger days,
+Which I brought up, while passing spots of ground
+Where we, when children, "hurly-burlied" round,
+Or "blindman-buffed" some morts of hours away--
+Two games, poor thing, Jane dearly loved to play.
+She smiled at these, but shook her head and sighed
+When eer she thought my look was turned aside;
+Nor turned she round, as was her former way,
+To praise the thorn, white over then with May;
+Nor stooped once, though thousands round her grew,
+To pull a cowslip as she used to do:
+For Jane in flowers delighted from a child--
+I like the garden, but she loved the wild--
+And oft on Sundays young men's gifts declined,
+Posies from gardens of the sweetest kind,
+And eager scrambled the dog-rose to get,
+And woodbine-flowers at every bush she met.
+The cowslip blossom, with its ruddy streak,
+Would tempt her furlongs from the path to seek;
+And gay long purple, with its tufty spike,
+She'd wade oer shoes to reach it in the dyke;
+And oft, while scratching through the briary woods
+For tempting cuckoo-flowers and violet buds,
+Poor Jane, I've known her crying sneak to town,
+Fearing her mother, when she'd torn her gown.
+Ah, these were days her conscience viewed with pain,
+Which all are loth to lose, as well as Jane.
+And, what I took more odd than all the rest,
+Was, that same night she neer a wish exprest
+To see the gipsies, so beloved before,
+That lay a stone's throw from us on the moor:
+I hinted it; she just replied again--
+She once believed them, but had doubts since then.
+And when we sought our cows, I called, "Come mull!"
+But she stood silent, for her heart was full.
+She loved dumb things: and ere she had begun
+To milk, caressed them more than eer she'd done;
+But though her tears stood watering in her eye,
+I little took it as her last good-bye;
+For she was tender, and I've often known
+Her mourn when beetles have been trampled on:
+So I neer dreamed from this, what soon befell,
+Till the next morning rang her passing-bell.
+My story's long, but time's in plenty yet,
+Since the black clouds betoken nought but wet;
+And I'll een snatch a minute's breath or two,
+And take another pinch, to help me through.
+
+  "So, as I said, next morn I heard the bell,
+And passing neighbours crossed the street, to tell
+That my poor partner Jenny had been found
+In the old flag-pool, on the pasture, drowned.
+God knows my heart! I twittered like a leaf,
+And found too late the cause of Sunday's grief;
+For every tongue was loosed to gabble oer
+The slanderous things that secret passed before:
+With truth or lies they need not then be strict,
+The one they railed at could not contradict.
+Twas now no secret of her being beguiled,
+For every mouth knew Jenny died with child;
+And though more cautious with a living name,
+Each more than guessed her master bore the blame.
+That very morning, it affects me still,
+Ye know the foot-path sidles down the hill,
+Ignorant as babe unborn I passed the pond
+To milk as usual in our close beyond,
+And cows were drinking at the water's edge,
+And horses browsed among the flags and sedge,
+And gnats and midges danced the water oer,
+Just as I've marked them scores of times before,
+And birds sat singing, as in mornings gone,--
+While I as unconcerned went soodling on,
+But little dreaming, as the wakening wind
+Flapped the broad ash-leaves oer the pond reclin'd,
+And oer the water crinked the curdled wave,
+That Jane was sleeping in her watery grave.
+The neatherd boy that used to tend the cows,
+While getting whip-sticks from the dangling boughs
+Of osiers drooping by the water-side,
+Her bonnet floating on the top espied;
+He knew it well, and hastened fearful down
+To take the terror of his fears to town,--
+
+A melancholy story, far too true;
+And soon the village to the pasture flew,
+Where, from the deepest hole the pond about,
+They dragged poor Jenny's lifeless body out,
+And took her home, where scarce an hour gone by
+She had been living like to you and I.
+I went with more, and kissed her for the last,
+And thought with tears on pleasures that were past;
+And, the last kindness left me then to do,
+I went, at milking, where the blossoms grew,
+And handfuls got of rose and lambtoe sweet,
+And put them with her in her winding-sheet.
+A wilful murder, jury made the crime;
+Nor parson 'lowed to pray, nor bell to chime;
+On the cross roads, far from her friends and kin,
+The usual law for their ungodly sin
+Who violent hands upon themselves have laid,
+Poor Jane's last bed unchristian-like was made;
+And there, like all whose last thoughts turn to heaven,
+She sleeps, and doubtless hoped to be forgiven.
+But, though I say't, for maids thus veigled in
+I think the wicked men deserve the sin;
+And sure enough we all at last shall see
+The treachery punished as it ought to be.
+For ere his wickedness pretended love,
+Jane, I'll be bound, was spotless as the dove,
+And's good a servant, still old folks allow,
+As ever scoured a pail or milked a cow;
+And ere he led her into ruin's way,
+As gay and buxom as a summer's day:
+The birds that ranted in the hedge-row boughs,
+As night and morning we have sought our cows,
+With yokes and buckets as she bounced along,
+Were often deafed to silence with her song.
+
+But now she's gone:--girls, shun deceitful men,
+The worst of stumbles ye can fall agen;
+Be deaf to them, and then, as twere, ye'll see
+Your pleasures safe as under lock and key.
+Throw not my words away, as many do;
+They're gold in value, though they're cheap to you.
+And husseys hearken, and be warned from this,
+If ye love mothers, never do amiss:
+Jane might love hers, but she forsook the plan
+To make her happy, when she thought of man.
+Poor tottering dame, it was too plainly known,
+Her daughter's dying hastened on her own,
+For from the day the tidings reached her door
+She took to bed and looked up no more,
+And, ere again another year came round,
+She, well as Jane, was laid within the ground;
+And all were grieved poor Goody's end to see:
+No better neighbour entered house than she,
+A harmless soul, with no abusive tongue,
+Trig as new pins, and tight's the day was long;
+And go the week about, nine times in ten
+Ye'd find her house as cleanly as her sen.
+But, Lord protect us! time such change does bring,
+We cannot dream what oer our heads may hing;
+The very house she lived in, stick and stone,
+Since Goody died, has tumbled down and gone:
+And where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue,
+And balm, and mint, with curled-leaf parsley grew,
+And double marygolds, and silver thyme,
+And pumpkins neath the window used to climb;
+And where I often when a child for hours
+Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers,
+As lady's laces, everlasting peas,
+True-love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at-ease,
+And golden rods, and tansy running high
+That oer the pale-tops smiled on passers-by,
+Flowers in my time that every one would praise,
+Though thrown like weeds from gardens nowadays;
+Where these all grew, now henbane stinks and spreads,
+And docks and thistles shake their seedy heads,
+And yearly keep with nettles smothering oer;--
+The house, the dame, the garden known no more:
+While, neighbouring nigh, one lonely elder-tree
+Is all that's left of what had used to be,
+Marking the place, and bringing up with tears
+The recollections of one's younger years.
+And now I've done, ye're each at once as free
+To take your trundle as ye used to be;
+To take right ways, as Jenny should have ta'en,
+Or headlong run, and be a second Jane;
+For by one thoughtless girl that's acted ill
+A thousand may be guided if they will:
+As oft mong folks to labour bustling on,
+We mark the foremost kick against a stone,
+Or stumble oer a stile he meant to climb,
+While hind ones see and shun the fall in time.
+But ye, I will be bound, like far the best
+Love's tickling nick-nacks and the laughing jest,
+And ten times sooner than be warned by me,
+Would each be sitting on some fellow's knee,
+Sooner believe the lies wild chaps will tell
+Than old dames' cautions, who would wish ye well:
+So have your wills."--She pinched her box again,
+And ceased her tale, and listened to the rain,
+Which still as usual pattered fast around,
+And bowed the bent-head loaded to the ground;
+While larks, their naked nest by force forsook,
+Pruned their wet wings in bushes by the brook.
+
+  The maids, impatient now old Goody ceased,
+As restless children from the school released,
+Right gladly proving, what she'd just foretold,
+That young ones' stories were preferred to old,
+Turn to the whisperings of their former joy,
+That oft deceive, but very rarely cloy.
+
+
+_In Hilly-Wood_
+
+How sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs,
+  Upon an ashen stoven pillowing me;
+Faintly are heard the ploughmen at their ploughs,
+  But not an eye can find its way to see.
+The sunbeams scarce molest me with a smile,
+  So thickly the leafy armies gather round;
+And where they do, the breeze blows cool the while,
+  Their leafy shadows dancing on the ground.
+Full many a flower, too, wishing to be seen,
+Perks up its head the hiding grass between,--
+  In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be;
+Where all the noises, that on peace intrude,
+  Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee,
+Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+_To Anna Three Years Old_
+
+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.
+
+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
+  Oer 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 neer 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.
+
+
+_From "The Parish: A Satire"_
+
+I
+
+In politics and politicians' lies
+The modern farmer waxes wondrous wise;
+Opinionates with wisdom all compact,
+And een could tell a nation how to act;
+Throws light on darkness with excessive skill,
+Knows who acts well and whose designs are ill,
+Proves half the members nought but bribery's tools,
+And calls the past a dull dark age of fools.
+
+As wise as Solomon they read the news,
+Not with their blind forefathers' simple views,
+Who read of wars, and wished that wars would cease,
+And blessed the King, and wished his country peace;
+Who marked the weight of each fat sheep and ox,
+The price of grain and rise and fall of stocks;
+Who thought it learning how to buy and sell,
+And him a wise man who could manage well.
+No, not with such old-fashioned, idle views
+Do these newsmongers traffic with the news.
+They read of politics and not of grain,
+And speechify and comment and explain,
+And know so much of Parliament and state
+You'd think they're members when you heard them prate;
+And know so little of their farms the while
+They can but urge a wiser man to smile.
+
+II
+
+A thing all consequence here takes the lead,
+Reigning knight-errant oer this dirty breed--
+A bailiff he, and who so great to brag
+Of law and all its terrors as Bumtagg;
+Fawning a puppy at his master's side
+And frowning like a wolf on all beside;
+Who fattens best where sorrow worst appears
+And feeds on sad misfortune's bitterest tears?
+Such is Bumtagg the bailiff to a hair,
+The worshipper and demon of despair,
+Who waits and hopes and wishes for success
+At every nod and signal of distress,
+Happy at heart, when storms begin to boil,
+To seek the shipwreck and to share the spoil.
+Brave is this Bumtagg, match him if you can;
+For there's none like him living--save his man.
+
+As every animal assists his kind
+Just so are these in blood and business joined;
+Yet both in different colours hide their art,
+And each as suits his ends transacts his part.
+One keeps the heart-bred villain full in sight,
+The other cants and acts the hypocrite,
+Smoothing the deed where law sharks set their gin
+Like a coy dog to draw misfortune in.
+But both will chuckle oer their prisoners' sighs
+And are as blest as spiders over flies.
+Such is Bumtagg, whose history I resign,
+As other knaves wait room to stink and shine;
+And, as the meanest knave a dog can brag,
+Such is the lurcher that assists Bumtagg.
+
+
+_Nobody Cometh to Woo_
+
+On Martinmas eve the dogs did bark,
+  And I opened the window to see,
+When every maiden went by with her spark
+  But neer a one came to me.
+And O dear what will become of me?
+  And O dear what shall I do,
+When nobody whispers to marry me--
+  Nobody cometh to woo?
+
+None's born for such troubles as I be:
+  If the sun wakens first in the morn
+"Lazy hussy" my parents both call me,
+  And I must abide by their scorn,
+For nobody cometh to marry me,
+  Nobody cometh to woo,
+So here in distress must I tarry me--
+  What can a poor maiden do?
+
+If I sigh through the window when Jerry
+  The ploughman goes by, I grow bold;
+And if I'm disposed to be merry,
+  My parents do nothing but scold;
+And Jerry the clown, and no other,
+  Eer cometh to marry or woo;
+They think me the moral of mother
+  And judge me a terrible shrew.
+
+For mother she hateth all fellows,
+  And spinning's my father's desire,
+While the old cat growls bass with the bellows
+  If eer I hitch up to the fire.
+I make the whole house out of humour,
+  I wish nothing else but to please,
+Would fortune but bring a new comer
+  To marry, and make me at ease!
+
+When I've nothing my leisure to hinder
+  I scarce get as far as the eaves;
+Her head's instant out of the window
+  Calling out like a press after thieves.
+The young men all fall to remarking,
+  And laugh till they're weary to see't,
+While the dogs at the noise begin barking,
+  And I slink in with shame from the street.
+
+My mother's aye jealous of loving,
+  My father's aye jealous of play,
+So what with them both there's no moving,
+  I'm in durance for life and a day.
+O who shall I get for to marry me?
+  Who will have pity to woo?
+Tis death any longer to tarry me,
+  And what shall a poor maiden do?
+
+
+_Distant Hills_
+
+What is there in those distant hills
+  My fancy longs to see,
+That many a mood of joy instils?
+  Say what can fancy be?
+
+Do old oaks thicken all the woods,
+  With weeds and brakes as here?
+Does common water make the floods,
+  That's common everywhere?
+
+Is grass the green that clothes the ground?
+  Are springs the common springs?
+Daisies and cowslips dropping round,
+  Are such the flowers she brings?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Are cottages of mud and stone,
+  By valley wood and glen,
+And their calm dwellers little known
+  Men, and but common men,
+
+That drive afield with carts and ploughs?
+  Such men are common here,
+And pastoral maidens milking cows
+  Are dwelling everywhere.
+
+If so my fancy idly clings
+  To notions far away,
+And longs to roam for common things
+  All round her every day,
+
+Right idle would the journey be
+  To leave one's home so far,
+And see the moon I now can see
+  And every little star.
+
+And have they there a night and day,
+  And common counted hours?
+And do they see so far away
+  This very moon of ours?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I mark him climb above the trees
+  With one small [comrade] star,
+And think me in my reveries--
+  He cannot shine so far.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The poets in the tales they tell
+  And with their happy powers
+Have made lands where their fancies dwell
+  Seem better lands than ours.
+
+Why need I sigh far hills to see
+  If grass is their array,
+While here the little paths go through
+  The greenest every day?
+
+Such fancies fill the restless mind,
+  At once to cheat and cheer
+With thought and semblance undefined,
+  Nowhere and everywhere.
+
+
+
+
+MIDDLE PERIOD 1824-1836
+
+
+_The Stranger_
+
+When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
+  No, rather smile away despair;
+For those have been more sad than I,
+  With burthens more than I could bear;
+Aye, gone rejoicing under care
+Where I had sunk in black despair.
+
+When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
+  Am I a hopeless grief to keep,
+When some have slept on torture's breast
+  And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
+Aye, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
+And pillowed on the hope of heaven?
+
+Though low and poor and broken down,
+  Am I to think myself distrest?
+No, rather laugh where others frown
+  And think my being truly blest;
+For others I can daily see
+More worthy riches worse than me.
+
+Aye, once a stranger blest the earth
+  Who never caused a heart to mourn,
+Whose very voice gave sorrow mirth--
+  And how did earth his worth return?
+It spurned him from its lowliest lot,
+The meanest station owned him not;
+
+An outcast thrown in sorrow's way,
+  A fugitive that knew no sin,
+Yet in lone places forced to stray--
+  Men would not take the stranger in.
+Yet peace, though much himself he mourned,
+Was all to others he returned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His presence was a peace to all,
+  He bade the sorrowful rejoice.
+Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
+  Health lived and issued from his voice.
+He healed the sick and sent abroad
+The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.
+
+The blind met daylight in his eye,
+  The joys of everlasting day;
+The sick found health in his reply;
+  The cripple threw his crutch away.
+Yet he with troubles did remain
+And suffered poverty and pain.
+
+Yet none could say of wrong he did,
+  And scorn was ever standing bye;
+Accusers by their conscience chid,
+  When proof was sought, made no reply.
+Yet without sin he suffered more
+Than ever sinners did before.
+
+
+_Song's Eternity_
+
+What is song's eternity?
+  Come and see.
+Can it noise and bustle be?
+  Come and see.
+Praises sung or praises said
+  Can it be?
+Wait awhile and these are dead--
+  Sigh, sigh;
+Be they high or lowly bred  They die.
+
+What is song's eternity?
+  Come and see.
+Melodies of earth and sky,
+  Here they be.
+Song once sung to Adam's ears
+  Can it be?
+Ballads of six thousand years
+  Thrive, thrive;
+Songs awaken with the spheres
+  Alive.
+
+Mighty songs that miss decay,
+  What are they?
+Crowds and cities pass away
+  Like a day.
+Books are out and books are read;
+  What are they?
+Years will lay them with the dead--
+  Sigh, sigh;
+Trifles unto nothing wed,
+  They die.
+
+Dreamers, mark the honey bee;
+  Mark the tree
+Where the blue cap "_tootle tee_"
+  Sings a glee
+Sung to Adam and to Eve
+  Here they be.
+When floods covered every bough,
+  Noah's ark
+Heard that ballad singing now;
+  Hark, hark,
+
+"_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.
+
+
+_The Old Cottagers_
+
+The little cottage stood alone, the pride
+Of solitude surrounded every side.
+Bean fields in blossom almost reached the wall;
+A garden with its hawthorn hedge was all
+The space between.--Green light did pass
+Through one small window, where a looking-glass
+Placed in the parlour, richly there revealed
+A spacious landscape and a blooming field.
+The pasture cows that herded on the moor
+Printed their footsteps to the very door,
+Where little summer flowers with seasons blow
+And scarcely gave the eldern leave to grow.
+The cuckoo that one listens far away
+Sung in the orchard trees for half the day;
+And where the robin lives, the village guest,
+In the old weedy hedge the leafy nest
+Of the coy nightingale was yearly found,
+Safe from all eyes as in the loneliest ground;
+And little chats that in bean stalks will lie
+A nest with cobwebs there will build, and fly
+Upon the kidney bean that twines and towers
+Up little poles in wreaths of scarlet flowers.
+
+There a lone couple lived, secluded there
+From all the world considers joy or care,
+Lived to themselves, a long lone journey trod,
+And through their Bible talked aloud to God;
+While one small close and cow their wants maintained,
+But little needing, and but little gained.
+Their neighbour's name was peace, with her they went,
+With tottering age, and dignified content,
+Through a rich length of years and quiet days,
+And filled the neighbouring village with their praise.
+
+
+_Young Lambs_
+
+The spring is coming by a many signs;
+  The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
+That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
+  Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
+And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
+  The little early buttercups unfold
+A glittering star or two--till many trace
+  The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
+And then a little lamb bolts up behind
+  The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
+And then another, sheltered from the wind,
+  Lies all his length as dead--and lets me go
+Close bye and never stirs but baking lies,
+With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+_Winter Walk_
+
+The holly bush, a sober lump of green,
+Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,
+And smiles at winter be it eer so keen
+With all the leafy luxury of May.
+And O it is delicious, when the day
+In winter's loaded garment keenly blows
+And turns her back on sudden falling snows,
+To go where gravel pathways creep between
+Arches of evergreen that scarce let through
+A single feather of the driving storm;
+And in the bitterest day that ever blew
+The walk will find some places still and warm
+Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm
+To little birds that flirt and start away.
+
+_The Soldier_
+
+Home furthest off grows dearer from the way;
+And when the army in the Indias lay
+Friends' letters coming from his native place
+Were like old neighbours with their country face.
+And every opportunity that came
+Opened the sheet to gaze upon the name
+Of that loved village where he left his sheep
+For more contented peaceful folk to keep;
+And friendly faces absent many a year
+Would from such letters in his mind appear.
+And when his pockets, chafing through the case,
+Wore it quite out ere others took the place,
+Right loath to be of company bereft
+He kept the fragments while a bit was left.
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+_Spring's Messengers_
+
+Where slanting banks are always with the sun
+  The daisy is in blossom even now;
+And where warm patches by the hedges run
+  The cottager when coming home from plough
+Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set.
+Thus ere the Christmas goes the spring is met
+  Setting up little tents about the fields
+In sheltered spots.--Primroses when they get
+  Behind the wood's old roots, where ivy shields
+Their crimpled, curdled leaves, will shine and hide.
+  Cart ruts and horses' footings scarcely yield
+  A slur for boys, just crizzled and that's all.
+Frost shoots his needles by the small dyke side,
+  And snow in scarce a feather's seen to fall.
+
+
+_Letter in Verse_
+
+Like boys that run behind the loaded wain
+For the mere joy of riding back again,
+When summer from the meadow carts the hay
+And school hours leave them half a day to play;
+So I with leisure on three sides a sheet
+Of foolscap dance with poesy's measured feet,
+Just to ride post upon the wings of time
+And kill a care, to friendship turned in rhyme.
+The muse's gallop hurries me in sport
+With much to read and little to divert,
+And I, amused, with less of wit than will,
+Run till I tire.--And so to cheat her still.
+Like children running races who shall be
+First in to touch the orchard wall or tree,
+The last half way behind, by distance vext,
+Turns short, determined to be first the next;
+So now the muse has run me hard and long--
+I'll leave at once her races and her song;
+And, turning round, laugh at the letter's close
+And beat her out by ending it in prose.
+
+
+_Snow Storm_
+
+What a night! The wind howls, hisses, and but stops
+To howl more loud, while the snow volley keeps
+Incessant batter at the window pane,
+Making our comfort feel as sweet again;
+And in the morning, when the tempest drops,
+At every cottage door mountainous heaps
+Of snow lie drifted, that all entrance stops
+Untill the beesom and the shovel gain
+The path, and leave a wall on either side.
+The shepherd rambling valleys white and wide
+With new sensations his old memory fills,
+When hedges left at night, no more descried,
+Are turned to one white sweep of curving hills,
+And trees turned bushes half their bodies hide.
+
+The boy that goes to fodder with surprise
+Walks oer the gate he opened yesternight.
+The hedges all have vanished from his eyes;
+Een some tree tops the sheep could reach to bite.
+The novel scene emboldens new delight,
+And, though with cautious steps his sports begin,
+He bolder shuffles the huge hills of snow,
+Till down he drops and plunges to the chin,
+And struggles much and oft escape to win--
+Then turns and laughs but dare not further go;
+For deep the grass and bushes lie below,
+Where little birds that soon at eve went in
+With heads tucked in their wings now pine for day
+And little feel boys oer their heads can stray.
+
+
+_Firwood_
+
+The fir trees taper into twigs and wear
+The rich blue green of summer all the year,
+Softening the roughest tempest almost calm
+And offering shelter ever still and warm
+To the small path that towels underneath,
+Where loudest winds--almost as summer's breath--
+Scarce fan the weed that lingers green below
+When others out of doors are lost in frost and snow.
+And sweet the music trembles on the ear
+As the wind suthers through each tiny spear,
+Makeshifts for leaves; and yet, so rich they show,
+Winter is almost summer where they grow.
+
+
+_Grasshoppers_
+
+Grasshoppers go in many a thumming spring
+And now to stalks of tasseled sow-grass cling,
+That shakes and swees awhile, but still keeps straight;
+While arching oxeye doubles with his weight.
+Next on the cat-tail-grass with farther bound
+He springs, that bends until they touch the ground.
+
+_Field Path_
+
+The beams in blossom with their spots of jet
+Smelt sweet as gardens wheresoever met;
+The level meadow grass was in the swath;
+The hedge briar rose hung right across the path,
+White over with its flowers--the grass that lay
+Bleaching beneath the twittering heat to hay
+Smelt so deliciously, the puzzled bee
+Went wondering where the honey sweets could be;
+And passer-bye along the level rows
+Stoopt down and whipt a bit beneath his nose.
+
+
+_Country Letter_
+
+Dear brother robin this comes from us all
+With our kind love and could Gip write and all
+Though but a dog he'd have his love to spare
+For still he knows and by your corner chair
+The moment he comes in he lyes him down
+and seems to fancy you are in the town.
+This leaves us well in health thank God for that
+For old acquaintance Sue has kept your hat
+Which mother brushes ere she lays it bye
+and every sunday goes upstairs to cry
+Jane still is yours till you come back agen
+and neer so much as dances with the men
+and ned the woodman every week comes in
+and asks about you kindly as our kin
+and he with this and goody Thompson sends
+Remembrances with those of all our friends
+Father with us sends love untill he hears
+and mother she has nothing but her tears
+Yet wishes you like us in health the same
+and longs to see a letter with your name
+So loving brother don't forget to write
+Old Gip lies on the hearth stone every night
+Mother can't bear to turn him out of doors
+and never noises now of dirty floors
+Father will laugh but lets her have her way
+and Gip for kindness get a double pay
+So Robin write and let us quickly see
+You don't forget old friends no more than we
+Nor let my mother have so much to blame
+To go three journeys ere your letter came.
+
+
+_From "January"_
+
+  Supper removed, the mother sits,
+And tells her tales by starts and fits.
+Not willing to lose time or toil,
+She knits or sews, and talks the while
+Something, that may be warnings found
+To the young listeners gaping round--
+Of boys who in her early day
+Strolled to the meadow-lake to play,
+Where willows, oer the bank inclined
+Sheltered the water from the wind,
+And left it scarcely crizzled oer--
+When one sank in, to rise no more!
+And how, upon a market-night,
+When not a star bestowed its light,
+A farmer's shepherd, oer his glass,
+Forgot that he had woods to pass:
+And having sold his master's sheep,
+Was overta'en by darkness deep.
+How, coming with his startled horse,
+To where two roads a hollow cross;
+Where, lone guide when a stranger strays,
+A white post points four different ways,
+Beside the woodride's lonely gate
+A murdering robber lay in wait.
+The frightened horse, with broken rein,
+Stood at the stable-door again;
+But none came home to fill his rack,
+Or take the saddle from his back;
+The saddle--it was all he bore--
+The man was seen alive no more!--
+In her young days, beside the wood,
+The gibbet in its terror stood:
+Though now decayed, tis not forgot,
+But dreaded as a haunted spot.--
+
+  She from her memory oft repeats
+Witches' dread powers and fairy feats:
+How one has oft been known to prance
+In cowcribs, like a coach, to France,
+And ride on sheep-trays from the fold
+A race-horse speed to Burton-hold;
+To join the midnight mystery's rout,
+Where witches meet the yews about:
+And how, when met with unawares,
+They turn at once to cats or hares,
+And race along with hellish flight,
+Now here, now there, now out of sight!--
+And how the other tiny things
+Will leave their moonlight meadow-rings,
+And, unperceived, through key-holes creep,
+When all around have sunk to sleep,
+To feast on what the cotter leaves,--
+Mice are not reckoned greater thieves.
+They take away, as well as eat,
+And still the housewife's eye they cheat,
+In spite of all the folks that swarm
+In cottage small and larger farm;
+They through each key-hole pop and pop,
+Like wasps into a grocer's shop,
+With all the things that they can win
+From chance to put their plunder in;--
+As shells of walnuts, split in two
+By crows, who with the kernels flew;
+Or acorn-cups, by stock-doves plucked,
+Or egg-shells by a cuckoo sucked;
+With broad leaves of the sycamore
+They clothe their stolen dainties oer:
+And when in cellar they regale,
+Bring hazel-nuts to hold their ale;
+With bung-holes bored by squirrels well,
+To get the kernel from the shell;
+Or maggots a way out to win,
+When all is gone that grew within;
+And be the key-holes eer so high,
+Rush poles a ladder's help supply.
+Where soft the climbers fearless tread,
+On spindles made of spiders' thread.
+And foul, or fair, or dark the night,
+Their wild-fire lamps are burning bright:
+For which full many a daring crime
+Is acted in the summer-time;--
+When glow-worm found in lanes remote
+Is murdered for its shining coat,
+And put in flowers, that nature weaves
+With hollow shapes and silken leaves,
+Such as the Canterbury bell,
+Serving for lamp or lantern well;
+Or, following with unwearied watch
+The flight of one they cannot match,
+As silence sliveth upon sleep,
+Or thieves by dozing watch-dogs creep,
+They steal from Jack-a-Lantern's tails
+A light, whose guidance never fails
+To aid them in the darkest night
+And guide their plundering steps aright.
+Rattling away in printless tracks,
+Some, housed on beetles' glossy backs,
+Go whisking on--and others hie
+As fast as loaded moths can fly:
+Some urge, the morning cock to shun,
+The hardest gallop mice can run,
+In chariots, lolling at their ease,
+Made of whateer their fancies please;--
+Things that in childhood's memory dwell--
+Scooped crow-pot-stone, or cockle-shell,
+With wheels at hand of mallow seeds,
+Where childish sport was stringing beads;
+And thus equipped, they softly pass
+Like shadows on the summer-grass,
+And glide away in troops together
+Just as the Spring-wind drives a feather.
+As light as happy dreams they creep,
+Nor break the feeblest link of sleep:
+A midge, if in their road a-bed,
+Feels not the wheels run oer his head,
+But sleeps till sunrise calls him up,
+Unconscious of the passing troop,--
+
+  Thus dame the winter-night regales
+With wonder's never-ceasing tales;
+While in a corner, ill at ease,
+Or crushing tween their father's knees,
+The children--silent all the while--
+And een repressed the laugh or smile--
+Quake with the ague chills of fear,
+And tremble though they love to hear;
+Starting, while they the tales recall,
+At their own shadows on the wall:
+Till the old clock, that strikes unseen
+Behind the picture-pasted screen
+Where Eve and Adam still agree
+To rob Life's fatal apple-tree,
+Counts over bed-time's hour of rest,
+And bids each be sleep's fearful guest.
+She then her half-told tales will leave
+To finish on to-morrow's eve;--
+The children steal away to bed,
+And up the ladder softly tread;
+Scarce daring--from their fearful joys--
+To look behind or make a noise;
+Nor speak a word! but still as sleep
+They secret to their pillows creep,
+And whisper oer, in terror's way,
+The prayers they dare no louder say;
+Then hide their heads beneath the clothes,
+And try in vain to seek repose:
+While yet, to fancy's sleepless eye,
+Witches on sheep-trays gallop by,
+And fairies, like a rising spark,
+Swarm twittering round them in the dark;
+Till sleep creeps nigh to ease their cares,
+And drops upon them unawares.
+
+
+_November_
+
+The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
+  And, if the sun looks through, tis with a face
+  Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
+  When done the journey of her nightly race,
+  Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
+  For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
+  Nor mark a patch of sky--blindfold they trace,
+  The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
+Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.
+
+The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
+  Crouching and sleeping neath its grassy lair,
+  And scarcely startles, though the shepherd goes
+  Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
+  The wild colt only turns around to stare
+  At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
+  And moody crows beside the road forbear
+  To fly, though pelted by the passing swain;
+Thus day seems turned to night, and tries to wake in vain.
+
+The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon,
+  And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light;
+  The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon,
+  And small birds chirp and startle with affright;
+  Much doth it scare the superstitious wight,
+  Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay;
+  While cow-boys think the day a dream of night,
+  And oft grow fearful on their lonely way,
+Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.
+
+Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings
+  Its murky prison round--then winds wake loud;
+  With sudden stir the startled forest sings
+  Winter's returning song-cloud races cloud.
+  And the horizon throws away its shroud,
+  Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;
+  Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,
+  And oer the sameness of the purple sky
+Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.
+
+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 ploughman hears its humming rage begin,
+  And hies for shelter from his naked toil;
+  Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin,
+  He bends and scampers oer the elting soil,
+  While clouds above him in wild fury boil,
+  And winds drive heavily the beating rain;
+  He turns his back to catch his breath awhile,
+  Then ekes his speed and faces it again,
+To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain.
+
+The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat
+  The melancholy crow--in hurry weaves,
+  Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat,
+  Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves,
+  Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves.
+  There he doth dithering sit, and entertain
+  His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves;
+  Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en,
+And wishing in his heart twas summer-time again.
+
+Thus wears the month along, in checkered moods,
+  Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms;
+  One hour dies silent oer the sleepy woods,
+  The next wakes loud with unexpected storms;
+  A dreary nakedness the field deforms--
+  Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight,
+  Lives in the village still about the farms,
+  Where toil's rude uproar hums from morn till night
+Noises, in which the ears of industry delight.
+
+At length the stir of rural labour's still,
+  And industry her care awhile foregoes;
+  When winter comes in earnest to fulfil
+  His yearly task, at bleak November's close,
+  And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows;
+  When frost locks up the stream in chill delay
+  And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes,
+  For little birds--then toil hath time for play,
+And nought but threshers' flails awake the dreary day.
+
+
+_The Fens_
+
+Wandering by the river's edge,
+I love to rustle through the sedge
+And through the woods of reed to tear
+Almost as high as bushes are.
+Yet, turning quick with shudder chill,
+As danger ever does from ill,
+Fear's moment ague quakes the blood,
+While plop the snake coils in the flood
+And, hissing with a forked tongue,
+Across the river winds along.
+In coat of orange, green, and blue
+Now on a willow branch I view,
+Grey waving to the sunny gleam,
+Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
+For little fish that nimble bye
+And in the gravel shallows lie.
+
+Eddies run before the boats,
+Gurgling where the fisher floats,
+Who takes advantage of the gale
+And hoists his handkerchief for sail
+On osier twigs that form a mast--
+While idly lies, nor wanted more,
+The spirit that pushed him on before.
+
+There's not a hill in all the view,
+Save that a forked cloud or two
+Upon the verge of distance lies
+And into mountains cheats the eyes.
+And as to trees the willows wear
+Lopped heads as high as bushes are;
+Some taller things the distance shrouds
+That may be trees or stacks or clouds
+Or may be nothing; still they wear
+A semblance where there's nought to spare.
+
+Among the tawny tasselled reed
+The ducks and ducklings float and feed.
+With head oft dabbing in the flood
+They fish all day the weedy mud,
+And tumbler-like are bobbing there,
+Heels topsy turvy in the air.
+
+The geese in troops come droving up,
+Nibble the weeds, and take a sup;
+And, closely puzzled to agree,
+Chatter like gossips over tea.
+The gander with his scarlet nose
+When strife's at height will interpose;
+And, stretching neck to that and this,
+With now a mutter, now a hiss,
+A nibble at the feathers too,
+A sort of "pray be quiet do,"
+And turning as the matter mends,
+He stills them into mutual friends;
+Then in a sort of triumph sings
+And throws the water oer his wings.
+
+Ah, could I see a spinney nigh,
+A puddock riding in the sky
+Above the oaks with easy sail
+On stilly wings and forked tail,
+Or meet a heath of furze in flower,
+I might enjoy a quiet hour,
+Sit down at rest, and walk at ease,
+And find a many things to please.
+But here my fancy's moods admire
+The naked levels till they tire,
+Nor een a molehill cushion meet
+To rest on when I want a seat.
+
+Here's little save the river scene
+And grounds of oats in rustling green
+And crowded growth of wheat and beans,
+That with the hope of plenty leans
+And cheers the farmer's gazing brow,
+Who lives and triumphs in the plough--
+One sometimes meets a pleasant sward
+Of swarthy grass; and quickly marred
+The plough soon turns it into brown,
+And, when again one rambles down
+The path, small hillocks burning lie
+And smoke beneath a burning sky.
+Green paddocks have but little charms
+With gain the merchandise of farms;
+And, muse and marvel where we may,
+Gain mars the landscape every day--
+The meadow grass turned up and copt,
+The trees to stumpy dotterels lopt,
+The hearth with fuel to supply
+For rest to smoke and chatter bye;
+Giving the joy of home delights,
+The warmest mirth on coldest nights.
+And so for gain, that joy's repay,
+Change cheats the landscape every day,
+Nor trees nor bush about it grows
+That from the hatchet can repose,
+And the horizon stooping smiles
+Oer treeless fens of many miles.
+Spring comes and goes and comes again
+And all is nakedness and fen.
+
+
+_Spear Thistle_
+
+Where the broad sheepwalk bare and brown
+  [Yields] scant grass pining after showers,
+And winds go fanning up and down
+  The little strawy bents and nodding flowers,
+There the huge thistle, spurred with many thorns,
+The suncrackt upland's russet swells adorns.
+
+Not undevoid of beauty there they come,
+  Armed warriors, waiting neither suns nor showers,
+Guarding the little clover plots to bloom
+  While sheep nor oxen dare not crop their flowers
+Unsheathing their own knobs of tawny flowers
+When summer cometh in her hottest hours.
+
+The pewit, swopping up and down
+  And screaming round the passer bye,
+Or running oer the herbage brown
+  With copple crown uplifted high,
+Loves in its clumps to make a home
+Where danger seldom cares to come.
+
+The yellowhammer, often prest
+  For spot to build and be unseen,
+Will in its shelter trust her nest
+  When fields and meadows glow with green;
+And larks, though paths go closely bye,
+Will in its shade securely lie.
+
+The partridge too, that scarce can trust
+  The open downs to be at rest,
+Will in its clumps lie down, and dust
+  And prune its horseshoe-circled breast,
+And oft in shining fields of green
+Will lay and raise its brood unseen.
+
+The sheep when hunger presses sore
+  May nip the clover round its nest;
+But soon the thistle wounding sore
+  Relieves it from each brushing guest,
+That leaves a bit of wool behind,
+The yellowhammer loves to find.
+
+The horse will set his foot and bite
+  Close to the ground lark's guarded nest
+And snort to meet the prickly sight;
+  He fans the feathers of her breast--
+Yet thistles prick so deep that he
+Turns back and leaves her dwelling free.
+
+Its prickly knobs the dews of morn
+  Doth bead with dressing rich to see,
+When threads doth hang from thorn to thorn
+  Like the small spinner's tapestry;
+And from the flowers a sultry smell
+Comes that agrees with summer well.
+
+The bee will make its bloom a bed,
+  The humble bee in tawny brown;
+And one in jacket fringed with red
+  Will rest upon its velvet down
+When overtaken in the rain,
+And wait till sunshine comes again.
+
+And there are times when travel goes
+  Along the sheep tracks' beaten ways,
+Then pleasure many a praise bestows
+  Upon its blossoms' pointed rays,
+When other things are parched beside
+And hot day leaves it in its pride.
+
+
+_Idle Fame_
+
+I would not wish the burning blaze
+  Of fame around a restless world,
+The thunder and the storm of praise
+  In crowded tumults heard and hurled.
+I would not be a flower to stand
+  The stare of every passer-bye;
+But in some nook of fairyland,
+  Seen in the praise of beauty's eye.
+
+
+_Approaching Night_
+
+O take this world away from me;
+Its strife I cannot bear to see,
+Its very praises hurt me more
+Than een its coldness did before,
+Its hollow ways torment me now
+And start a cold sweat on my brow,
+Its noise I cannot bear to hear,
+Its joy is trouble to my ear,
+Its ways I cannot bear to see,
+Its crowds are solitudes to me.
+O, how I long to be agen
+That poor and independent man,
+With labour's lot from morn to night
+And books to read at candle light;
+That followed labour in the field
+From light to dark when toil could yield
+Real happiness with little gain,
+Rich thoughtless health unknown to pain:
+Though, leaning on my spade to rest,
+I've thought how richer folks were blest
+And knew not quiet was the best.
+
+Go with your tauntings, go;
+Neer think to hurt me so;
+  I'll scoff at your disdain.
+Cold though the winter blow,
+When hills are free from snow
+  It will be spring again.
+
+So go, and fare thee well,
+Nor think ye'll have to tell
+  Of wounded hearts from me,
+Locked up in your hearts cell.
+Mine still at home doth dwell
+  In its first liberty.
+
+Bees sip not at one flower,
+Spring comes not with one shower,
+  Nor shines the sun alone
+Upon one favoured hour,
+But with unstinted power
+  Makes every day his own.
+
+And for my freedom's sake
+With such I'll pattern take,
+  And rove and revel on.
+Your gall shall never make
+Me honied paths forsake;
+  So prythee get thee gone.
+
+And when my toil is blest
+And I find a maid possest
+  Of truth that's not in thee,
+Like bird that finds its nest
+I'll stop and take my rest;
+  And love as she loves me.
+
+
+_Farewell and Defiance to Love_
+
+Love and thy vain employs, away
+From this too oft deluded breast!
+No longer will I court thy stay,
+To be my bosom's teazing guest.
+Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure,
+Thou quackery of the harassed heart,
+That kills what it pretends to cure,
+  Life's mountebank thou art.
+
+With nostrums vain of boasted powers,
+That, ta'en, a worse disorder leave;
+An asp hid in a group of flowers,
+That bites and stings when few perceive;
+Thou mock-truce to the troubled mind,
+Leading it more in sorrow's way,
+Freedom, that leaves us more confined,
+  I bid thee hence away.
+
+Dost taunt, and deem thy power beyond
+The resolution reason gave?
+Tut! Falsity hath snapt each bond,
+That kept me once thy quiet slave,
+And made thy snare a spider's thread,
+Which een my breath can break in twain;
+Nor will I be, like Sampson, led
+  To trust thy wiles again.
+
+I took thee as my staff to guide
+Me on the road I did pursue,
+And when my weakness most relied
+Upon its strength it broke in two.
+I took thee as my friendly host
+That counsel might in dangers show,
+But when I needed thee the most
+  I found thou wert my foe.
+
+Tempt me no more with rosy cheeks,
+Nor daze my reason with bright eyes;
+I'm wearied with thy painted freaks,
+And sicken at such vanities:
+Be roses fine as eer they will,
+They, with the meanest, fade and die,
+And eyes, though thronged with darts to kill,
+    Share like mortality.
+Feed the young bard, that madly sips
+His nectar-draughts from folly's flowers,
+Bright eyes, fair cheeks, and ruby lips,
+Till muses melt to honey showers;
+Lure him to thrum thy empty lays,
+While flattery listens to the chimes,
+Till words themselves grow sick with praise
+  And stop for want of rhymes.
+
+Let such be still thy paramours,
+And chaunt love's old and idle tune,
+Robbing the spring of all its flowers,
+And heaven of all her stars and moon,
+To gild with dazzling similes
+Blind folly's vain and empty lay:
+I'm sobered from such phantasies,
+  So get thee hence away.
+
+Nor bid me sigh for mine own cost,
+Nor count its loss, for mine annoy,
+Nor say my stubbornness hath lost
+A paradise of dainty joy:
+I'll not believe thee, till I know
+That sober reason turns an ape,
+And acts the harlequin, to show
+  That cares in every shape,
+
+Heart-achings, sighs, and grief-wrung tears,
+Shame-blushes at betrayed distress,
+Dissembled smiles, and jealous fears,
+Are nought but real happiness:
+Then will I mourn what now I brave,
+And suffer Celia's quirks to be
+(Like a poor fate-bewilder'd slave,)
+  The rulers of my destiny.
+
+I'll weep and sigh wheneer she wills
+To frown, and when she deigns to smile
+It shall be cure for all my ills,
+And, foolish still, I'll laugh the while;
+But till that comes, I'll bless the rules
+Experience taught, and deem it wise
+To hold thee as the game of fools,
+  And all thy tricks despise.
+
+
+_To John Milton_
+
+_"From his honoured friend, William Davenant"_
+
+Poet of mighty power, I fain
+Would court the muse that honoured thee,
+And, like Elisha's spirit, gain
+  A part of thy intensity;
+And share the mantle which she flung
+Around thee, when thy lyre was strung.
+
+Though faction's scorn at first did shun
+With coldness thy inspired song,
+Though clouds of malice passed thy sun,
+  They could not hide it long;
+Its brightness soon exhaled away
+Dank night, and gained eternal day.
+
+The critics' wrath did darkly frown
+Upon thy muse's mighty lay;
+But blasts that break the blossom down
+  Do only stir the bay;
+And thine shall flourish, green and long,
+With the eternity of song.
+
+Thy genius saw, in quiet mood,
+Gilt fashion's follies pass thee by,
+And, like the monarch of the wood,
+  Towered oer it to the sky,
+Where thou couldst sing of other spheres,
+And feel the fame of future years.
+
+Though bitter sneers and stinging scorns
+Did throng the muse's dangerous way,
+Thy powers were past such little thorns,
+  They gave thee no dismay;
+The scoffer's insult passed thee by,
+Thou smild'st and mad'st him no reply.
+
+Envy will gnaw its heart away
+To see thy genius gather root;
+And as its flowers their sweets display
+  Scorn's malice shall be mute;
+Hornets that summer warmed to fly,
+Shall at the death of summer die.
+
+Though friendly praise hath but its hour.
+And little praise with thee hath been;
+The bay may lose its summer flower,
+  But still its leaves are green;
+And thine, whose buds are on the shoot,
+Shall only fade to change to fruit.
+
+Fame lives not in the breath of words,
+In public praises' hue and cry;
+The music of these summer birds
+  Is silent in a winter sky,
+When thine shall live and flourish on,
+Oer wrecks where crowds of fames are gone.
+
+The ivy shuns the city wall,
+When busy clamorous crowds intrude,
+And climbs the desolated hall
+  In silent solitude;
+The time-worn arch, the fallen dome,
+Are roots for its eternal home.
+
+The bard his glory neer receives
+Where summer's common flowers are seen,
+But winter finds it when she leaves
+  The laurel only green;
+And time from that eternal tree,
+Shall weave a wreath to honour thee;
+
+A sunny wreath for poets meet,
+From Helicon's immortal soil,
+Where sacred Time with pilgrim feet
+  Walks forth to worship, not to spoil,
+A wreath which Fame creates and bears,
+And deathless genius only heirs.
+
+Nought but thy ashes shall expire;
+Thy genius, at thy obsequies,
+Shall kindle up its living fire
+  And light the muse's skies;
+Ay, it shall rise, and shine, and be
+A sun in song's posterity.
+
+
+_The Vanities of Life_
+
+Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.--_Solomon_
+
+What are life's joys and gains?
+  What pleasures crowd its ways,
+That man should take such pains
+  To seek them all his days?
+Sift this untoward strife
+  On which thy mind is bent:
+See if this chaff of life
+  Is worth the trouble spent.
+
+Is pride thy heart's desire?
+  Is power thy climbing aim?
+Is love thy folly's fire?
+  Is wealth thy restless game?
+Pride, power, love, wealth, and all
+  Time's touchstone shall destroy,
+And, like base coin, prove all
+  Vain substitutes for joy.
+
+Dost think that pride exalts
+  Thyself in other's eyes,
+And hides thy folly's faults,
+  Which reason will despise?
+Dost strut, and turn, and stride,
+  Like walking weathercocks?
+The shadow by thy side
+  Becomes thy ape, and mocks.
+
+Dost think that power's disguise
+  Can make thee mighty seem?
+It may in folly's eyes,
+  But not in worth's esteem,
+When all that thou canst ask,
+  And all that she can give,
+Is but a paltry mask
+  Which tyrants wear and live.
+
+Go, let thy fancies range
+  And ramble where they may;
+View power in every change,
+  And what is the display?
+--The country magistrate,
+  The meanest shade in power,
+To rulers of the state,
+  The meteors of an hour.
+
+View all, and mark the end
+  Of every proud extreme,
+Where flattery turns a friend,
+  And counterfeits esteem;
+Where worth is aped in show,
+  That doth her name purloin,
+Like toys of golden glow
+  That's sold for copper coin.
+
+Ambition's haughty nod
+  With fancies may deceive,
+Nay, tell thee thou'rt a god,
+  And wilt thou such believe?
+Go, bid the seas be dry;
+  Go, hold earth like a ball,
+Or throw thy fancies by,
+  For God can do it all.
+
+Dost thou possess the dower
+  Of laws to spare or kill?
+Call it not heavenly power
+  When but a tyrant's will.
+Know what a God will do,
+  And know thyself a fool,
+Nor, tyrant-like, pursue
+  Where He alone should rule.
+
+O put away thy pride,
+  Or be ashamed of power
+That cannot turn aside
+  The breeze that waves a flower.
+Or bid the clouds be still:
+  Though shadows, they can brave
+Thy poor power mocking will:
+  Then make not man a slave.
+
+Dost think, when wealth is won,
+  Thy heart has its desire?
+Hold ice up to the sun,
+  And wax before the fire;
+Nor triumph oer the reign
+  Which they so soon resign;
+In this world's ways they gain,
+  Insurance safe as thine.
+
+Dost think life's peace secure
+  In house and in land?
+Go, read the fairy lure
+  To twist a cord in sand;
+Lodge stones upon the sky,
+  Hold water in a sieve,
+Nor give such tales the lie,
+  And still thine own believe.
+
+Whoso with riches deals,
+  And thinks peace bought and sold,
+Will find them slipping eels,
+  That slide the firmest hold:
+Though sweet as sleep with health
+  Thy lulling luck may be,
+Pride may oerstride thy wealth,
+  And check prosperity.
+
+Dost think that beauty's power
+  Life sweetest pleasure gives?
+Go, pluck the summer flower,
+  And see how long it lives:
+Behold, the rays glide on
+  Along the summer plain
+Ere thou canst say "they're gone,"
+  And measure beauty's reign.
+
+Look on the brightest eye,
+  Nor teach it to be proud;
+View but the clearest sky,
+  And thou shalt find a cloud;
+Nor call each face ye meet
+  An angel's, cause it's fair,
+But look beneath your feet,
+  And think of what they are.
+
+Who thinks that love doth live
+  In beauty's tempting show,
+Shall find his hopes ungive,
+  And melt in reason's thaw.
+Who thinks that pleasure lies
+  In every fairy bower,
+Shall oft, to his surprise,
+  Find poison in the flower.
+
+Dost lawless passions grasp?
+  Judge not thou deal'st in joy:
+Its flowers but hide the asp,
+  Thy revels to destroy.
+Who trusts an harlot's smile,
+  And by her wiles are led,
+Plays, with a sword the while
+  Hung dropping oer his head.
+
+Dost doubt my warning song?
+  Then doubt the sun gives light,
+Doubt truth to teach thee wrong,
+  And wrong alone as right;
+And live as lives the knave,
+  Intrigue's deceiving guest;
+Be tyrant, or be slave,
+  As suits thy ends the best.
+
+Or pause amid thy toils
+  For visions won and lost,
+And count the fancied spoils,
+  If eer they quit the cost:
+And if they still possess
+  Thy mind, as worthy things,
+Plat straws with bedlam Bess,
+  And call them diamond rings.
+
+Thy folly's past advice,
+  Thy heart's already won,
+Thy fall's above all price,
+  So go, and be undone;
+For all who thus prefer
+  The seeming great for small
+Shall make wine vinegar,
+  And sweetest honey gall.
+
+Wouldst heed the truths I sing,
+  To profit wherewithal,
+Clip folly's wanton wing,
+  And keep her within call.
+I've little else to give,
+  What thou canst easy try;
+The lesson how to live
+  Is but to learn to die.
+
+
+_Death_
+
+Why should man's high aspiring mind
+Burn in him with so proud a breath,
+When all his haughty views can find
+  In this world yields to death?
+The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
+The rich, the poor, the great, and small,
+Are each but worm's anatomies
+  To strew his quiet hall.
+
+Power may make many earthly gods,
+Where gold and bribery's guilt prevails,
+But death's unwelcome, honest odds
+  Kick o'er the unequal scales.
+The flattered great may clamours raise
+Of power, and their own weakness hide,
+But death shall find unlooked-for ways
+  To end the farce of pride,
+
+An arrow hurtled eer so high,
+From een a giant's sinewy strength,
+In Time's untraced eternity
+  Goes but a pigmy length;
+Nay, whirring from the tortured string,
+With all its pomp of hurried flight,
+Tis by the skylark's little wing
+  Outmeasured in its height.
+
+Just so man's boasted strength and power
+Shall fade before death's lightest stroke,
+Laid lower than the meanest flower,
+  Whose pride oer-topt the oak;
+And he who, like a blighting blast,
+Dispeopled worlds with war's alarms
+Shall be himself destroyed at last
+  By poor despised worms.
+
+Tyrants in vain their powers secure,
+And awe slaves' murmurs with a frown,
+For unawed death at last is sure
+  To sap the babels down.
+A stone thrown upward to the sky
+Will quickly meet the ground agen;
+So men-gods of earth's vanity
+  Shall drop at last to men;
+
+And Power and Pomp their all resign,
+Blood-purchased thrones and banquet halls.
+Fate waits to sack Ambition's shrine
+  As bare as prison walls,
+Where the poor suffering wretch bows down
+To laws a lawless power hath passed;
+And pride, and power, and king, and clown
+  Shall be Death's slaves at last.
+
+Time, the prime minister of Death!
+There's nought can bribe his honest will.
+He stops the richest tyrant's breath
+  And lays his mischief still.
+Each wicked scheme for power all stops,
+With grandeurs false and mock display,
+As eve's shades from high mountain tops
+  Fade with the rest away.
+
+Death levels all things in his march;
+Nought can resist his mighty strength;
+The palace proud, triumphal arch,
+  Shall mete its shadow's length.
+The rich, the poor, one common bed
+Shall find in the unhonoured grave,
+Where weeds shall crown alike the head
+  Of tyrant and of slave.
+
+
+_The Fallen Elm_
+
+Old elm, that murmured in our chimney top
+The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
+And into mellow whispering calms would drop
+When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
+And when dark tempests mimic thunder made--
+While darkness came as it would strangle light
+With the black tempest of a winter night
+That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root--
+How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
+Thy strength without--while all within was mute.
+It seasoned comfort to our hearts' desire,
+We felt thy kind protection like a friend
+And edged our chairs up closer to the fire,
+Enjoying comfort that was never penned.
+Old favourite tree, thou'st seen time's changes lower,
+Though change till now did never injure thee;
+For time beheld thee as her sacred dower
+And nature claimed thee her domestic tree.
+Storms came and shook thee many a weary hour,
+Yet stedfast to thy home thy roots have been;
+Summers of thirst parched round thy homely bower
+Till earth grew iron--still thy leaves were green.
+The children sought thee in thy summer shade
+And made their playhouse rings of stick and stone;
+The mavis sang and felt himself alone
+While in thy leaves his early nest was made.
+And I did feel his happiness mine own,
+Nought heeding that our friendship was betrayed,
+Friend not inanimate--though stocks and stones
+There are, and many formed of flesh and bones.
+Thou owned a language by which hearts are stirred
+Deeper than by a feeling clothed in word,
+And speakest now what's known of every tongue,
+Language of pity and the force of wrong.
+What cant assumes, what hypocrites will dare,
+Speaks home to truth and shows it what they are.
+I see a picture which thy fate displays
+And learn a lesson from thy destiny;
+Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom's ways--
+So thy old shadow must a tyrant be.
+Tnou'st heard the knave, abusing those in power,
+Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free;
+Thou'st sheltered hypocrites in many a shower,
+That when in power would never shelter thee.
+Thou'st heard the knave supply his canting powers
+With wrong's illusions when he wanted friends;
+That bawled for shelter when he lived in showers
+And when clouds vanished made thy shade amends--
+With axe at root he felled thee to the ground
+And barked of freedom--O I hate the sound
+Time hears its visions speak,--and age sublime
+Hath made thee a disciple unto time.
+--It grows the cant term of enslaving tools
+To wrong another by the name of right;
+Thus came enclosure--ruin was its guide,
+But freedom's cottage soon was thrust aside
+And workhouse prisons raised upon the site.
+Een nature's dwellings far away from men,
+The common heath, became the spoiler's prey;
+The rabbit had not where to make his den
+And labour's only cow was drove away.
+No matter--wrong was right and right was wrong,
+And freedom's bawl was sanction to the song.
+--Such was thy ruin, music-making elm;
+The right of freedom was to injure thine:
+As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm
+In freedom's name the little that is mine.
+And there are knaves that brawl for better laws
+And cant of tyranny in stronger power
+Who glut their vile unsatiated maws
+And freedom's birthright from the weak devour.
+
+
+_Sport in the Meadows_
+
+Maytime is to the meadows coming in,
+And cowslip peeps have gotten eer so big,
+And water blobs and all their golden kin
+Crowd round the shallows by the striding brig.
+Daisies and buttercups and ladysmocks
+Are all abouten shining here and there,
+Nodding about their gold and yellow locks
+Like morts of folken flocking at a fair.
+The sheep and cows are crowding for a share
+And snatch the blossoms in such eager haste
+That basket-bearing children running there
+Do think within their hearts they'll get them all
+And hoot and drive them from their graceless waste
+As though there wa'n't a cowslip peep to spare.
+--For they want some for tea and some for wine
+And some to maken up a cuckaball
+To throw across the garland's silken line
+That reaches oer the street from wall to wall.
+--Good gracious me, how merrily they fare:
+One sees a fairer cowslip than the rest,
+And off they shout--the foremost bidding fair
+To get the prize--and earnest half and jest
+The next one pops her down--and from her hand
+Her basket falls and out her cowslips all
+Tumble and litter there--the merry band
+In laughing friendship round about her fall
+To helpen gather up the littered flowers
+That she no loss may mourn. And now the wind
+In frolic mood among the merry hours
+Wakens with sudden start and tosses off
+Some untied bonnet on its dancing wings;
+Away they follow with a scream and laugh,
+And aye the youngest ever lags behind,
+Till on the deep lake's very bank it hings.
+They shout and catch it and then off they start
+And chase for cowslips merry as before,
+And each one seems so anxious at the heart
+As they would even get them all and more.
+One climbs a molehill for a bunch of may,
+One stands on tiptoe for a linnet's nest
+And pricks her hand and throws her flowers away
+And runs for plantin leaves to have it drest.
+So do they run abouten all the day
+And teaze the grass-hid larks from getting rest.
+--Scarce give they time in their unruly haste
+To tie a shoestring that the grass unties--
+And thus they run the meadows' bloom to waste,
+Till even comes and dulls their phantasies,
+When one finds losses out to stifle smiles
+Of silken bonnet-strings--and utters sigh
+Oer garments renten clambering over stiles.
+Yet in the morning fresh afield they hie,
+Bidding the last day's troubles all goodbye;
+When red pied cow again their coming hears,
+And ere they clap the gate she tosses up
+Her head and hastens from the sport she fears:
+The old yoe calls her lamb nor cares to stoop
+To crop a cowslip in their company.
+Thus merrily the little noisy troop
+Along the grass as rude marauders hie,
+For ever noisy and for ever gay
+While keeping in the meadows holiday.
+
+
+_Death_
+
+The winds and waters are in his command,
+Held as a courser in the rider's hand.
+He lets them loose, they triumph at his will:
+He checks their course and all is calm and still.
+Life's hopes waste all to nothingness away
+As showers at night wash out the steps of day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tyrant, in his lawless power deterred,
+Bows before death, tame as a broken sword.
+One dyeth in his strength and, torn from ease,
+Groans in death pangs like tempests in the trees.
+Another from the bitterness of clay
+Falls calm as storms drop on an autumn day,
+With noiseless speed as swift as summer light
+Death slays and keeps her weapons out of sight.
+
+The tyrants that do act the God in clay
+And for earth's glories throw the heavens away,
+Whose breath in power did like to thunder sear,
+When anger hurried on the heels of fear,
+Whose rage planned hosts of murders at a breath--
+Here in sound silence sheath their rage in death.
+
+Their feet, that crushed down freedom to its grave
+And felt the very earth they trod a slave,
+How quiet here they lie in death's cold arms
+Without the power to crush the feeble worms
+Who spite of all the dreadful fears they made
+Creep there to conquer and are not afraid.
+
+
+_Autumn_
+
+Syren of sullen moods and fading hues,
+Yet haply not incapable of joy,
+    Sweet Autumn! I thee hail
+    With welcome all unfeigned;
+
+And oft as morning from her lattice peeps
+To beckon up the sun, I seek with thee
+    To drink the dewy breath
+    Of fields left fragrant then,
+
+In solitudes, where no frequented paths
+But what thy own foot makes betray thy home,
+    Stealing obtrusive there
+    To meditate thy end:
+
+By overshadowed ponds, in woody nooks,
+With ramping sallows lined, and crowding sedge,
+    Which woo the winds to play,
+    And with them dance for joy;
+
+And meadow pools, torn wide by lawless floods,
+Where water-lilies spread their oily leaves,
+    On which, as wont, the fly
+    Oft battens in the sun;
+
+Where leans the mossy willow half way oer,
+On which the shepherd crawls astride to throw
+    His angle, clear of weeds
+    That crowd the water's brim;
+
+Or crispy hills, and hollows scant of sward,
+Where step by step the patient lonely boy
+    Hath cut rude flights of stairs
+    To climb their steepy sides;
+
+Then track along their feet, grown hoarse with noise,
+The crawling brook, that ekes its weary speed,
+    And struggles through the weeds
+    With faint and sullen brawl.
+
+These haunts I long have favoured, more as now
+With thee thus wandering, moralizing on,
+    Stealing glad thoughts from grief,
+    And happy, though I sigh.
+
+Sweet Vision, with the wild dishevelled hair,
+And raiment shadowy of each wind's embrace,
+    Fain would I win thine harp
+    To one accordant theme;
+
+Now not inaptly craved, communing thus,
+Beneath the curdled arms of this stunt oak,
+    While pillowed on the grass,
+    We fondly ruminate
+
+Oer the disordered scenes of woods and fields,
+Ploughed lands, thin travelled with half-hungry sheep,
+    Pastures tracked deep with cows,
+    Where small birds seek for seed:
+
+Marking the cow-boy that so merry trills
+His frequent, unpremeditated song,
+    Wooing the winds to pause,
+    Till echo brawls again;
+
+As on with plashy step, and clouted shoon,
+He roves, half indolent and self-employed,
+    To rob the little birds
+    Of hips and pendent haws,
+
+And sloes, dim covered as with dewy veils,
+And rambling bramble-berries, pulp and sweet,
+    Arching their prickly trails
+    Half oer the narrow lane:
+
+Noting the hedger front with stubborn face
+The dank blea wind, that whistles thinly by
+    His leathern garb, thorn proof,
+    And cheek red hot with toil.
+
+While oer the pleachy lands of mellow brown,
+The mower's stubbling scythe clogs to his foot
+    The ever eking whisp,
+    With sharp and sudden jerk,
+
+Till into formal rows the russet shocks
+Crowd the blank field to thatch time-weathered barns,
+    And hovels rude repair,
+    Stript by disturbing winds.
+
+See! from the rustling scythe the haunted hare
+Scampers circuitous, with startled ears
+    Prickt up, then squat, as bye
+    She brushes to the woods,
+
+Where reeded grass, breast-high and undisturbed,
+Forms pleasant clumps, through which the soothing winds
+    Soften her rigid fears,
+    And lull to calm repose.
+
+Wild sorceress! me thy restless mood delights,
+More than the stir of summer's crowded scenes,
+    Where, jostled in the din,
+    Joy palled my ear with song;
+
+Heart-sickening for the silence that is thine,
+Not broken inharmoniously, as now
+    That lone and vagrant bee
+    Booms faint with wearp chime.
+
+Now filtering winds thin winnow through the woods
+In tremulous noise, that bids, at every breath,
+    Some sickly cankered leaf
+    Let go its hold, and die.
+
+And now the bickering storm, with sudden start,
+In flirting fits of anger carps aloud,
+    Thee urging to thine end,
+    Sore wept by troubled skies.
+
+And yet, sublime in grief, thy thoughts delight
+To show me visions of most gorgeous dyes,
+    Haply forgetting now
+    They but prepare thy shroud;
+
+Thy pencil dashing its excess of shades,
+Improvident of waste, till every bough
+    Burns with thy mellow touch
+    Disorderly divine.
+
+Soon must I view thee as a pleasant dream
+Droop faintly, and so sicken for thine end,
+    As sad the winds sink low
+    In dirges for their queen;
+
+While in the moment of their weary pause,
+To cheer thy bankrupt pomp, the willing lark
+    Starts from his shielding clod,
+    Snatching sweet scraps of song.
+
+Thy life is waning now, and silence tries
+To mourn, but meets no sympathy in sounds.
+    As stooping low she bends,
+    Forming with leaves thy grave;
+
+To sleep inglorious there mid tangled woods,
+Till parch-lipped summer pines in drought away,
+  Then from thine ivied trance
+  Awake to glories new.
+
+
+Summer Images
+
+Now swarthy summer, by rude health embrowned,
+  Precedence takes of rosy fingered spring;
+And laughing joy, with wild flowers pranked and crowned,
+  A wild and giddy thing,
+And health robust, from every care unbound,
+  Come on the zephyr's wing,
+    And cheer the toiling clown.
+
+Happy as holiday-enjoying face,
+  Loud tongued, and "merry as a marriage bell,"
+Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;
+  And where the troubled dwell,
+Thy witching smiles wean them of half their cares;
+  And from thy sunny spell,
+    They greet joy unawares.
+
+Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,
+  And mantle laced with gems of garish light,
+Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,
+  And in the world's despite,
+Share the rude mirth that thy own heart beguiles:
+  If haply so I might
+    Win pleasure from thy smiles,
+
+Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers,
+  In nightly revels or in city streets;
+But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears,
+  That one at leisure meets
+In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn,
+  Or fields, where bee-fly greets
+    The ears with mellow horn.
+
+The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe,
+  Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks;
+There bees go courting every flower that's ripe,
+  On baulks and sunny banks;
+And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon,
+  Attempts to give God thanks
+    In no discordant tune.
+
+There speckled thrush, by self-delight embued,
+  There sings unto himself for joy's amends,
+And drinks the honey dew of solitude.
+  There happiness attends
+With inbred joy until the heart oerflow,
+  Of which the world's rude friends,
+    Nought heeding, nothing know.
+
+There the gay river, laughing as it goes,
+  Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides,
+And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows
+  What pleasure there abides,
+To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free:
+  Spots solitude provides
+    To muse, and happy be.
+
+There ruminating neath some pleasant bush,
+  On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease,
+Where I can pillow on the yielding rush;
+  And, acting as I please,
+Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie,
+  Mark the wind-shaken trees,
+    And cloud-betravelled sky.
+
+And think me how some barter joy for care,
+  And waste life's summer-health in riot rude,
+Of nature, nor of nature's sweets aware;
+  Where passions vain and rude
+By calm reflection, softened are and still;
+  And the heart's better mood
+    Feels sick of doing ill.
+
+There I can live, and at my leisure seek
+  Joys far from cold restraints--not fearing pride--
+Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek
+  Rude health, so long denied.
+Here poor integrity can sit at ease,
+  And list self-satisfied
+    The song of honey-bees;
+
+And green lane traverse heedless where it goes
+  Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies
+Rude battered finger post, that stooping shows
+  Where the snug mystery lies;
+And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown,
+  Clears up the short surprise,
+    And shows a peeping town.
+
+I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn
+  Of beauty, feeding on joy's luscious hours;
+The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn,
+  Agape for honey showers;
+And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew
+  Of morning's early hours,
+    Like gold yminted new;
+
+And mark by rustic bridge, oer shallow stream,
+  Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled,
+Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream;
+  Who now, in gestures wild,
+Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall,
+  Feeling self-gratified,
+    Nor fearing human thrall:
+
+Then thread the sunny valley laced with streams,
+  Or forests rude, and the oershadowed brims
+Of simple ponds, where idle shepherd dreams,
+  And streaks his listless limbs;
+Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long,
+  Where joy's wild impulse swims
+    In one continued song.
+
+I love at early morn, from new mown swath,
+  To see the startled frog his route pursue;
+To mark while, leaping oer the dripping path,
+  His bright sides scatter dew,
+The early lark that, from its bustle flies,
+  To hail his matin new;
+    And watch him to the skies:
+
+To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,
+  The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,
+With earnest heed, and tremulous intent,
+  Frail brother of the morn,
+That from the tiny bents and misted leaves
+  Withdraws his timid horn,
+    And fearful vision weaves:
+
+Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top,
+  Wont to be first unsealing morning's eye,
+Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop
+  Of honey on his thigh;
+To see him seek morn's airy couch to sing,
+  Until the golden sky
+    Bepaint his russet wing:
+
+And sawning boy by tanning corn espy,
+  With clapping noise to startle birds away,
+And hear him bawl to every passer by
+  To know the hour of day;
+And see the uncradled breeze, refreshed and strong,
+  With waking blossoms play,
+    And breathe eolian song.
+
+I love the south-west wind, or low or loud,
+  And not the less when sudden drops of rain
+Moisten my pallid cheek from ebon cloud,
+  Threatening soft showers again,
+That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds,
+  Summer's sweet breath unchain,
+    And wake harmonious sounds.
+
+Rich music breathes in summer's every sound;
+  And in her harmony of varied greens,
+Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around
+  Much beauty intervenes,
+Filling with harmony the ear and eye;
+  While oer the mingling scenes
+    Far spreads the laughing sky.
+
+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.
+
+But now the evening curdles dank and grey,
+  Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed;
+And moping owls, to close the lids of day,
+  On drowsy wing proceed;
+While chickering crickets, tremulous and long,
+  Light's farewell inly heed,
+    And give it parting song.
+
+The pranking bat its nighty circlet makes;
+  The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew
+Oer meadows dew-besprent; and beetle wakes
+  Enquiries ever new,
+Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain,
+  As wanting to pursue
+    His homeward path again.
+
+Hark to the melody of distant bells
+  That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds
+By fitful starts, then musically swells
+  Oer the dun stilly grounds;
+While on the meadow bridge the pausing boy
+  Listens the mellow sounds,
+    And hums in vacant joy.
+
+Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round
+  His evening faggot, and with every stride
+His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound.
+  Till silly sheep beside
+His path start tremulous, and once again
+  Look back dissatisfied,
+    Then scour the dewy plain.
+
+How sweet the soothing calm that smoothly stills
+  Oer the heart's every sense its opiate dews,
+In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills!
+  That softens and subdues,
+With gentle quiet's bland and sober train,
+  Which dreamy eve renews
+    In many a mellow strain.
+
+I love to walk the fields, they are to me
+  A legacy no evil can destroy;
+They, like a spell, set every rapture free
+  That cheered me when a boy.
+Play--pastime--all time's blotting pen concealed,
+  Comes like a new-born joy,
+    To greet me in the field.
+
+For nature's objects ever harmonize
+  With emulous taste, that vulgar deed annoys;
+It loves in quiet moods to sympathize,
+  And meet vibrating joys
+Oer nature's pleasant things; nor will it deem
+  Pastime the muse employs
+    A vain obtrusive theme.
+
+
+_A World for Love_
+
+Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
+Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
+Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
+That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.
+
+And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
+How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
+Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
+Had eer been bent by Trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.
+
+For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,
+And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty's happy clime;
+And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,
+And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.
+
+And there to make a cot unknown to any care and pain,
+And there to shut the door alone on singing wind and rain--
+Far, far away from all the world, more rude than rain or wind,
+Oh, who could wish a sweeter home, or better place to find?
+
+Than thus to love and live with thee, thou beautiful delight!
+Than thus to live and love with thee the summer day and night!
+The Earth itself, where thou hadst rest, would surely smile to see
+Herself grow Eden once again, possest of Love and thee.
+
+
+_Love_
+
+Love, though it is not chill and cold,
+  But burning like eternal fire,
+Is yet not of approaches bold,
+  Which gay dramatic tastes admire.
+Oh timid love, more fond than free,
+  In daring song is ill pourtrayed,
+Where, as in war, the devotee
+  By valour wins each captive maid;--
+
+Where hearts are prest to hearts in glee,
+  As they could tell each other's mind;
+Where ruby lips are kissed as free,
+  As flowers are by the summer wind.
+No! gentle love, that timid dream,
+  With hopes and fears at foil and play,
+Works like a skiff against the stream,
+  And thinking most finds least to say.
+
+It lives in blushes and in sighs,
+  In hopes for which no words are found;
+Thoughts dare not speak but in the eyes,
+  The tongue is left without a sound.
+The pert and forward things that dare
+  Their talk in every maiden's ear,
+Feel no more than their shadows there--
+  Mere things of form, with nought of fear.
+
+True passion, that so burns to plead,
+  Is timid as the dove's disguise;
+Tis for the murder-aiming gleed
+  To dart at every thing that flies.
+True love, it is no daring bird,
+  But like the little timid wren,
+That in the new-leaved thorns of spring
+  Shrinks farther from the sight of men.
+
+The idol of his musing mind,
+  The worship of his lonely hour,
+Love woos her in the summer wind,
+  And tells her name to every flower;
+But in her sight, no open word
+  Escapes, his fondness to declare;
+The sighs by beauty's magic stirred
+  Are all that speak his passion there.
+
+_Nature's Hymn to the Deity_
+
+All nature owns with one accord
+The great and universal Lord:
+The sun proclaims him through the day,
+The moon when daylight drops away,
+The very darkness smiles to wear
+The stars that show us God is there,
+On moonlight seas soft gleams the sky
+And "God is with us" waves reply.
+
+Winds breathe from God's abode "we come,"
+Storms louder own God is their home,
+And thunder yet with louder call,
+Sounds "God is mightiest over all";
+Till earth right loath the proof to miss
+Echoes triumphantly "He is,"
+And air and ocean makes reply,
+God reigns on earth, in air and sky.
+
+All nature owns with one accord
+The great and universal Lord:
+Insect and bird and tree and flower--
+The witnesses of every hour--
+Are pregnant with his prophesy
+And "God is with us" all reply.
+The first link in the mighty plan
+Is still--and all upbraideth man.
+
+
+_Decay_
+
+O Poesy is on the wane,
+  For Fancy's visions all unfitting;
+I hardly know her face again,
+  Nature herself seems on the flitting.
+The fields grow old and common things,
+  The grass, the sky, the winds a-blowing;
+And spots, where still a beauty clings,
+  Are sighing "going! all a-going!"
+    O Poesy is on the wane,
+    I hardly know her face again.
+
+The bank with brambles overspread,
+  And little molehills round about it,
+Was more to me than laurel shades,
+  With paths of gravel finely clouted;
+And streaking here and streaking there,
+  Through shaven grass and many a border,
+With rutty lanes had no compare,
+  And heaths were in a richer order.
+    But Poesy is on the wane,
+    I hardly know her face again.
+
+I sat beside the pasture stream,
+  When Beauty's self was sitting by,
+The fields did more than Eden seem
+  Nor could I tell the reason why.
+I often drank when not adry
+  To pledge her health in draughts divine;
+Smiles made it nectar from the sky,
+  Love turned een water into wine.
+    O Poesy is on the wane,
+    I cannot find her face again.
+
+The sun those mornings used to find,
+  Its clouds were other-country mountains,
+And heaven looked downward on the mind,
+  Like groves, and rocks, and mottled fountains.
+Those heavens are gone, the mountains grey
+  Turned mist--the sun, a homeless ranger,
+Pursues alone his naked way,
+  Unnoticed like a very stranger.
+    O Poesy is on the wane,
+    Nor love nor joy is mine again.
+
+Love's sun went down without a frown,
+  For very joy it used to grieve us;
+I often think the West is gone,
+  Ah, cruel Time, to undeceive us.
+The stream it is a common stream,
+  Where we on Sundays used to ramble,
+The sky hangs oer a broken dream,
+  The bramble's dwindled to a bramble!
+    O Poesy is on the wane,
+    I cannot find her haunts again.
+
+Mere withered stalks and fading trees,
+  And pastures spread with hills and rushes,
+Are all my fading vision sees;
+  Gone, gone are rapture's flooding gushes!
+When mushrooms they were fairy bowers,
+  Their marble pillars overswelling,
+And Danger paused to pluck the flowers
+  That in their swarthy rings were dwelling.
+    Yes, Poesy is on the wane,
+    Nor joy nor fear is mine again.
+
+Aye, Poesy hath passed away,
+  And Fancy's visions undeceive us;
+The night hath ta'en the place of day,
+  And why should passing shadows grieve us?
+I thought the flowers upon the hills
+  Were flowers from Adam's open gardens;
+But I have had my summer thrills,
+  And I have had my heart's rewardings.
+    So Poesy is on the wane,
+    I hardly know her face again.
+
+And Friendship it hath burned away,
+  Like to a very ember cooling,
+A make-believe on April day
+  That sent the simple heart a-fooling;
+Mere jesting in an earnest way,
+  Deceiving on and still deceiving;
+And Hope is but a fancy-play,
+  And Joy the art of true believing;
+    For Poesy is on the wane,
+    O could I feel her faith again!
+
+
+_The Cellar Door_
+
+By the old tavern door on the causey there lay
+A hogshead of stingo just rolled from a dray,
+And there stood the blacksmith awaiting a drop
+As dry as the cinders that lay in his shop;
+And there stood the cobbler as dry as a bun,
+Almost crackt like a bucket when left in the sun.
+He'd whetted his knife upon pendil and hone
+Till he'd not got a spittle to moisten the stone;
+So ere he could work--though he'd lost the whole day--
+He must wait the new broach and bemoisten his clay.
+
+The cellar was empty, each barrel was drained
+To its dregs--and Sir John like a rebel remained
+In the street--for removal too powerful and large
+For two or three topers to take into charge.
+Odd zooks, said a gipsey, with bellows to mend,
+Had I strength I would just be for helping a friend
+To walk on his legs: but a child in the street
+Had as much power as he to put John on his feet.
+Then up came the blacksmith: Sir Barley, said he,
+I should just like to storm your old tower for a spree;
+
+And my strength for your strength and bar your renown
+I'd soon try your spirit by cracking your crown.
+And the cobbler he tuckt up his apron and spit
+In his hands for a burster--but devil a bit
+Would he move--so as yet they made nothing of land;
+For there lay the knight like a whale in the sand.
+Said the tinker: If I could but drink of his vein
+I should just be as strong and as stubborn again.
+Push along, said the toper, the cellar's adry:
+There's nothing to moisten the mouth of a fly.
+
+Says the host, We shall burn out with thirst, he's so big.
+There's a cag of small swipes half as sour as a wig.
+In such like extremes, why, extremes will come pat;
+So let's go and wet all our whistles with that.
+Says the gipsey, May I never bottom a chair
+If I drink of small swipes while Sir John's lying there.
+And the blacksmith he threw off his apron and swore
+Small swipes should bemoisten his gullet no more:
+Let it out on the floor for the dry cock-a-roach--
+And he held up his hammer with threatens to broach
+
+Sir John in his castle without leave or law
+And suck out his blood with a reed or a straw
+Ere he'd soak at the swipes--and he turned him to start,
+Till the host for high treason came down a full quart.
+Just then passed the dandy and turned up his nose:
+They'd fain have him shove, but he looked at his clothes
+And nipt his nose closer and twirled his stick round
+And simpered, Tis nuisance to lie on the ground.
+But Bacchus, he laughed from the old tavern sign,
+Saying, Go on, thou shadow, and let the sun shine.
+
+Then again they all tried, and the tinker he swore
+That the hogshead had grown twice as heavy or more.
+Nay nay, said the toper, and reeled as he spoke,
+We're all getting weak, that's the end of the joke.
+The ploughman came up and cut short his old tune,
+Hallooed "woi" to his horses and though it was June
+Said he'd help them an hour ere he'd keep them adry;
+Well done, said the blacksmith with hopes running high;
+He moves, and, by jingo, success to the plough!
+Aye aye, said the cobbler, we'll conquer him now.
+
+The hogshead rolled forward, the toper fell back,
+And the host laughed aloud as his sides they would crack
+To see the old tinker's toil make such a gap
+In his coat as to rend it from collar to flap.
+But the tinker he grumbled and cried Fiddle-dee!
+This garment hath been an old tenant with me;
+And a needle and thread with a little good skill
+When I've leisure will make it stand more weathers still.
+Then crack went his breeks from the hip to the knee
+With his thrusting--no matter; for nothing cared he.
+
+So long as Sir John rolled along to the door,
+He's a chip of our block, said the blacksmith, and swore;
+And as sure as I live to drive nails in a shoe
+He shall have at my cost a full pitcher or two.
+And the toper he hiccuped--which hindered an oath--
+So long as he'd credit, he'd pitcher them both.
+But the host stopt to hint when he'd ordered the dray
+Sir Barleycorn's order was purchase and pay.
+And now the old knight is imprisoned and ta'en
+To waste in the tavern man's cellar again.
+
+And now, said the blacksmith, let forfeits come first
+For the insult swipes offered, or his hoops I will burst.
+Here it is, my old hearties--Then drink your thirst full,
+Said the host, for the stingo is worth a strong pull.
+Never fear for your legs if they're broken to-day;
+Winds only blow straws, dust, and feathers away.
+But the cask that is full, like a giant he lies,
+And giants alone can his spirits capsize.
+If he lies in the path, though a king's coming bye,
+John Barleycorn's mighty and there he will lie.
+
+Then the toper sat down with a hiccup and felt
+If he'd still an odd coin in his pocket to melt,
+And he made a wry face, for his pocket was bare.
+--But he laughed and danced up, What, old boy, are you there?
+When he felt that a stiver had got to his knee
+Through a hole in his fob, and right happy was he.
+Says the tinker, I've brawled till no breath I have got
+And not met with twopence to purchase a pot.
+Says the toper, I've powder to charge a long gun,
+And a stiver I've found when I thought I'd got none;
+
+So helping a thirsty old friend in his need
+Is my duty--take heart, thou art welcome indeed.
+Then the smith with his tools in Sir John made a breach,
+And the toper he hiccuped and ended his speech;
+And pulled at the quart, till the snob he declared
+When he went to drink next that the bottom was bared.
+No matter for that, said the toper, and grinned;
+I had but a soak and neer rested for wind.
+That's the law, said the smith, with a look rather vexed,
+But the quart was a forfeit; so pay for the next.
+
+Thus they talked of their skill and their labour till noon
+When the sober man's toil was exactly half done,
+And there the plough lay--people hardly could pass
+And the horses let loose polished up the short grass
+And browsed on the bottle of flags lying there,
+By the gipsey's old budget, for mending a chair.
+The miller's horse tied to the old smithy door
+Stood stamping his feet, by the flies bitten sore,
+Awaiting the smith as he wanted a shoe;
+And he stampt till another fell off and made two:
+
+Till the miller, expecting that all would get loose,
+Went to seek him and cursed him outright for a goose;
+But he dipt his dry beak in the mug once or twice
+And forgot all his passion and toil in a trice.
+And the flybitten horse at the old smithy post
+Might stamp till his shoes and his legs they were lost.
+He sung his old songs and forgot his old mill--
+Blow winds high or low, she might rest her at will.
+And the cobbler, in spite of his bustle for pelf,
+Left the shop all the day to take care of itself.
+
+And the toper who carried his house on his head,
+No wife to be teazing, no bairns to be fed,
+Would sit out the week or the month or the year
+Or a life-time so long as he'd credit for beer.
+The ploughman he talked of his skill as divine,
+How he could plough thurrows as straight as a line;
+And the blacksmith he swore, had he but the command,
+He could shoe the king's hunter the best in the land;
+And the cobbler declared, was his skill but once seen,
+He should soon get an order for shoes from the queen.
+
+But the tinker he swore he could beat them all three,
+For gi' me a pair of old bellows, says he,
+And I'll make them roar out like the wind in a storm
+And make them blow fire out of coal hardly warm.
+The toper said nothing but wished the quart full
+And swore he could toss it all off at a pull.
+Have one, said the tinker; but wit was away,
+When the bet was to bind him he'd nothing to pay.
+And thus in the face of life's sun-and-shower weather
+They drank, bragged, and sung, and got merry together.
+
+The sun he went down--the last gleam from his brow
+Flung a smile of repose on the holiday plough;
+The glooms they approached, and the dews like a rain
+Fell thick and hung pearls on the old sorrel mane
+Of the horse that the miller had brought to be shod,
+And the morning awoke, saw a sight rather odd--
+For a bit of the halter still hung at the door,
+Bit through by the horse now at feed on the moor;
+And the old tinker's budget lay still in the weather,
+While all kept on singing and drinking together.
+
+
+_The Flitting_
+
+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 blue bell's quiet hanging blooms,
+Where envy's sneer was never seen,
+  Where staring malice never comes.
+
+I miss the heath, its yellow furze,
+  Molehills and rabbit tracks that lead
+Through beesom, ling, and teazel 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.
+
+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 crooked 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 bye and bye a brook to cross
+  Oer 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 hawthorns here were hung with may,
+  But still they seem in deader green,
+The sun een seems to lose its way
+  Nor knows the quarter it is in.
+
+I dwell in 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 pleasure fills the song
+  That has no present joys to hear.
+
+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 blossoming still.
+
+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 eer 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 stocks 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 oer many a rural stile,
+And conned my thoughts as joys to me,
+  Nought heeding who might frown or smile.
+Twas nature's beauty that inspired
+  My heart with rapture not its own,
+And she's a fame that never tires;
+  How could I feel myself alone?
+
+No, pasture molehills used to lie
+  And talk to me of sunny days,
+And then the glad sheep resting bye
+  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 neer forgets those prickly 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.
+
+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 oer 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 morehen'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 molehill'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 grown in all her days
+  Or een a forest's aged tree.
+
+Een here my simple feelings nurse
+  A love for every simple weed,
+And een 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.
+
+And why? this shepherd's purse that grows
+  In this strange spot, in days gone bye
+Grew in the little garden rows
+  Of my old home now left; and I
+Feel what I never felt before,
+  This weed an ancient neighbour here,
+And though I own the spot no more
+  Its every trifle makes it dear.
+
+The ivy at the parlour end,
+  The woodbine at the garden gate,
+Are all and each affection's friend
+  That render parting desolate.
+But times will change and friends must part
+  And nature still can make amends;
+Their memory lingers round the heart
+  Like life whose essence is its friends.
+
+Time looks on pomp with vengeful mood
+  Or killing apathy's disdain;
+So where old marble cities stood
+  Poor persecuted weeds remain.
+She feels a love for little things
+  That very few can feel beside,
+And still the grass eternal springs
+  Where castles stood and grandeur died.
+
+_Remembrances_
+
+Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one,
+And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on.
+I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are gone
+Far away from heart and eye and forever far away.
+Dear heart, and 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 and play
+On its bank at "clink and bandy," "chock" and "taw" and "ducking stone,"
+Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
+Like a ruin of the past all alone.
+
+When I used to lie and sing by old Eastwell's boiling spring,
+When I used to tie the willow boughs together for a swing,
+And fish with crooked pins and thread and never catch a thing,
+With heart just like a feather, now as heavy as a stone;
+When beneath old Lea Close oak I the bottom branches broke
+To make our harvest cart like so many working folk,
+And then to cut a straw at the brook to have a soak.
+O I never dreamed of parting or that trouble had a sting,
+Or that pleasures like a flock of birds would ever take to wing,
+Leaving nothing but a little naked spring.
+
+When jumping time away on old Crossberry Way,
+And eating awes like sugarplums ere they had lost the may,
+And skipping like a leveret before the peep of day
+On the roly poly up and downs of pleasant Swordy Well,
+When in Round Oak's narrow lane as the south got black again
+We sought the hollow ash that was shelter from the rain,
+With our pockets full of peas we had stolen from the grain;
+How delicious was the dinner time on such a showery day!
+O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away,
+The ancient pulpit trees and the play.
+
+When for school oer Little Field with its brook and wooden brig,
+Where I swaggered like a man though I was not half so big,
+While I held my little plough though twas but a willow twig,
+And drove my team along made of nothing but a name,
+"Gee hep" and "hoit" and "woi"--O I never call to mind
+These pleasant names of places but I leave a sigh behind,
+While I see little mouldiwarps hang sweeing to the wind
+On the only aged willow that in all the field remains,
+And nature hides her face while they're sweeing in their chains
+And in a silent murmuring complains.
+
+Here was commons for their hills, where they seek for freedom still,
+Though every common's gone and though traps are set to kill
+The little homeless miners--O it turns my bosom chill
+When I think of old Sneap Green, Puddock's Nook and Hilly Snow,
+Where bramble bushes grew and the daisy gemmed in dew
+And the hills of silken grass like to cushions to the view,
+Where we threw the pismire crumbs when we'd nothing else to do,
+All levelled like a desert by the never weary plough,
+All banished like the sun where that cloud is passing now
+And settled here for ever on its brow.
+
+O I never thought that joys would run away from boys,
+Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys;
+But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys
+To petrify first feelings like the fable into stone,
+Till I found the pleasure past and a winter come at last,
+Then the fields were sudden bare and the sky got overcast
+And boyhood's pleasing haunt like a blossom in the blast
+Was shrivelled to a withered weed and trampled down and done,
+Till vanished was the morning spring and set the summer sun
+And winter fought her battle strife and won.
+
+By Langley Bush I roam, but the bush hath left its hill,
+On Cowper Green I stray, tis a desert strange and chill,
+And the spreading Lea Close oak, ere decay had penned its will,
+To the axe of the spoiler and self-interest fell a prey,
+And Crossberry Way and old Round Oak's narrow lane
+With its hollow trees like pulpits I shall never see again,
+Enclosure like a Buonaparte let not a thing remain,
+It levelled every bush and tree and levelled every hill
+And hung the moles for traitors--though the brook is running still
+It runs a sicker brook, cold and chill.
+
+O had I known as then joy had left the paths of men,
+I had watched her night and day, be sure, and never slept agen,
+And when she turned to go, O I'd caught her mantle then,
+And wooed her like a lover by my lonely side to stay;
+Ay, knelt and worshipped on, as love in beauty's bower,
+And clung upon her smiles as a bee upon a flower,
+And gave her heart my posies, all cropt in a sunny hour,
+As keepsakes and pledges all to never fade away;
+But love never heeded to treasure up the may,
+So it went the common road to decay.
+
+
+_The Cottager_
+
+True as the church clock hand the hour pursues
+He plods about his toils and reads the news,
+And at the blacksmith's shop his hour will stand
+To talk of "Lunun" as a foreign land.
+For from his cottage door in peace or strife
+He neer went fifty miles in all his life.
+His knowledge with old notions still combined
+Is twenty years behind the march of mind.
+He views new knowledge with suspicious eyes
+And thinks it blasphemy to be so wise.
+On steam's almighty tales he wondering looks
+As witchcraft gleaned from old blackletter books.
+Life gave him comfort but denied him wealth,
+He toils in quiet and enjoys his health,
+He smokes a pipe at night and drinks his beer
+And runs no scores on tavern screens to clear.
+He goes to market all the year about
+And keeps one hour and never stays it out.
+Een at St. Thomas tide old Rover's bark
+Hails Dapple's trot an hour before it's dark.
+He is a simple-worded plain old man
+Whose good intents take errors in their plan.
+Oft sentimental and with saddened vein
+He looks on trifles and bemoans their pain,
+And thinks the angler mad, and loudly storms
+With emphasis of speech oer murdered worms.
+And hunters cruel--pleading with sad care
+Pity's petition for the fox and hare,
+Yet feels self-satisfaction in his woes
+For war's crushed myriads of his slaughtered foes.
+He is right scrupulous in one pretext
+And wholesale errors swallows in the next.
+He deems it sin to sing, yet not to say
+A song--a mighty difference in his way.
+And many a moving tale in antique rhymes
+He has for Christmas and such merry times,
+When "Chevy Chase," his masterpiece of song,
+Is said so earnest none can think it long.
+Twas the old vicar's way who should be right,
+For the late vicar was his heart's delight,
+And while at church he often shakes his head
+To think what sermons the old vicar made,
+Downright and orthodox that all the land
+Who had their ears to hear might understand,
+But now such mighty learning meets his ears
+He thinks it Greek or Latin which he hears,
+Yet church receives him every sabbath day
+And rain or snow he never keeps away.
+All words of reverence still his heart reveres,
+Low bows his head when Jesus meets his ears,
+And still he thinks it blasphemy as well
+Such names without a capital to spell.
+In an old corner cupboard by the wall
+His books are laid, though good, in number small,
+His Bible first in place; from worth and age
+Whose grandsire's name adorns the title page,
+And blank leaves once, now filled with kindred claims,
+Display a world's epitome of names.
+Parents and children and grandchildren all
+Memory's affections in the lists recall.
+And prayer-book next, much worn though strongly bound,
+Proves him a churchman orthodox and sound.
+The "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Death of Abel"
+Are seldom missing from his Sunday table,
+And prime old Tusser in his homely trim,
+The first of bards in all the world with him,
+And only poet which his leisure knows;
+Verse deals in fancy, so he sticks to prose.
+These are the books he reads and reads again
+And weekly hunts the almanacks for rain.
+Here and no further learning's channels ran;
+Still, neighbours prize him as the learned man.
+His cottage is a humble place of rest
+With one spare room to welcome every guest,
+And that tall poplar pointing to the sky
+His own hand planted when an idle boy,
+It shades his chimney while the singing wind
+Hums songs of shelter to his happy mind.
+Within his cot the largest ears of corn
+He ever found his picture frames adorn:
+Brave Granby's head, De Grosse's grand defeat;
+He rubs his hands and shows how Rodney beat.
+And from the rafters upon strings depend
+Beanstalks beset with pods from end to end,
+Whose numbers without counting may be seen
+Wrote on the almanack behind the screen.
+Around the corner up on worsted strung
+Pooties in wreaths above the cupboard hung.
+Memory at trifling incidents awakes
+And there he keeps them for his children's sakes,
+Who when as boys searched every sedgy lane,
+Traced every wood and shattered clothes again,
+Roaming about on rapture's easy wing
+To hunt those very pooty shells in spring.
+And thus he lives too happy to be poor
+While strife neer pauses at so mean a door.
+Low in the sheltered valley stands his cot,
+He hears the mountain storm and feels it not;
+Winter and spring, toil ceasing ere tis dark,
+Rests with the lamb and rises with the lark,
+Content his helpmate to the day's employ
+And care neer comes to steal a single joy.
+Time, scarcely noticed, turns his hair to grey,
+Yet leaves him happy as a child at play.
+
+
+_Insects_
+
+These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
+And happy units of a numerous herd
+Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,
+Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings,
+How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
+No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
+Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
+And where they fly for dinner no one knows--
+The dew-drops feed them not--they love the shine
+Of noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine.
+All day they're playing in their Sunday dress--
+Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less;
+Then, to the heath bell's silken hood they fly,
+And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
+Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all,
+In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
+So merrily they spend their summer day,
+Now in the cornfields, now the new-mown hay.
+One almost fancies that such happy things,
+With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings,
+Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
+Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,
+Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still,
+Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+_Evening Primrose_
+
+When once the sun sinks in the west,
+And dew-drops pearl the evening's breast;
+Almost as pale as moonbeams are,
+Or its companionable star,
+The evening primrose opes anew
+Its delicate blossoms to the dew;
+And, shunning-hermit of the light,
+Wastes its fair bloom upon the night;
+Who, blindfold to its fond caresses,
+Knows not the beauty he possesses.
+Thus it blooms on till night is bye
+And day looks out with open eye,
+Abashed at the gaze it cannot shun,
+It faints and withers, and is done.
+
+
+_The Shepherd's Tree_
+
+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.
+
+
+_Wild Bees_
+
+These children of the sun which summer brings
+As pastoral minstrels in her merry train
+Pipe rustic ballads upon busy wings
+And glad the cotters' quiet toils again.
+The white-nosed bee that bores its little hole
+In mortared walls and pipes its symphonies,
+And never absent couzen, black as coal,
+That Indian-like bepaints its little thighs,
+With white and red bedight for holiday,
+Right earlily a-morn do pipe and play
+And with their legs stroke slumber from their eyes.
+And aye so fond they of their singing seem
+That in their holes abed at close of day
+They still keep piping in their honey dreams,
+And larger ones that thrum on ruder pipe
+Round the sweet smelling closen and rich woods
+Where tawny white and red flush clover buds
+Shine bonnily and bean fields blossom ripe,
+Shed dainty perfumes and give honey food
+To these sweet poets of the summer fields;
+Me much delighting as I stroll along
+The narrow path that hay laid meadow yields,
+Catching the windings of their wandering song.
+The black and yellow bumble first on wing
+To buzz among the sallow's early flowers,
+Hiding its nest in holes from fickle spring
+Who stints his rambles with her frequent showers;
+And one that may for wiser piper pass,
+In livery dress half sables and half red,
+Who laps a moss ball in the meadow grass
+And hoards her stores when April showers have fled;
+And russet commoner who knows the face
+Of every blossom that the meadow brings,
+Starting the traveller to a quicker pace
+By threatening round his head in many rings:
+These sweeten summer in their happy glee
+By giving for her honey melody.
+
+
+_The Firetail's Nest_
+
+"Tweet" pipes the robin as the cat creeps by
+Her nestling young that in the elderns lie,
+And then the bluecap tootles in its glee,
+Picking the flies from orchard apple tree,
+And "pink" the chaffinch cries its well-known strain,
+Urging its kind to utter "pink" again,
+While in a quiet mood hedgesparrows try
+An inward stir of shadowed melody.
+Around the rotten tree the firetail mourns
+As the old hedger to his toil returns,
+Chopping the grain to stop the gap close by
+The hole where her blue eggs in safety lie.
+Of everything that stirs she dreameth wrong
+And pipes her "tweet tut" fears the whole day long.
+
+
+_The Fear of Flowers_
+
+The nodding oxeye bends before the wind,
+The woodbine quakes lest boys their flowers should find,
+And prickly dogrose spite of its array
+Can't dare the blossom-seeking hand away,
+While thistles wear their heavy knobs of bloom
+Proud as a warhorse wears its haughty plume,
+And by the roadside danger's self defy;
+On commons where pined sheep and oxen lie
+In ruddy pomp and ever thronging mood
+It stands and spreads like danger in a wood,
+And in the village street where meanest weeds
+Can't stand untouched to fill their husks with seeds,
+The haughty thistle oer all danger towers,
+In every place the very wasp of flowers.
+
+
+_Summer Evening_
+
+The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
+And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
+Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
+My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
+Till past,--and then the cricket sings more strong,
+And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
+The short night weary with their fretting song.
+Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
+Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
+The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
+From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
+And drops again when no more noise it hears.
+Thus nature's human link and endless thrall,
+Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.
+
+
+_Emmonsail's Heath in Winter_
+
+I love to see the old heath's withered brake
+Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling,
+While the old heron from the lonely lake
+Starts slow and flaps his melancholy wing,
+And oddling crow in idle motions swing
+On the half rotten ashtree's 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
+And for the awe round fields and closen rove,
+And coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
+Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
+And hang on little twigs and start again.
+
+_Pleasures of Fancy_
+
+A path, old tree, goes by thee crooking on,
+And through this little gate that claps and bangs
+Against thy rifted trunk, what steps hath gone?
+Though but a lonely way, yet mystery hangs
+Oer crowds of pastoral scenes recordless here.
+The boy might climb the nest in thy young boughs
+That's slept half an eternity; in fear
+The herdsman may have left his startled cows
+For shelter when heaven's thunder voice was near;
+Here too the woodman on his wallet laid
+For pillow may have slept an hour away;
+And poet pastoral, lover of the shade,
+Here sat and mused half some long summer day
+While some old shepherd listened to the lay.
+
+
+_To Napoleon_
+
+The heroes of the present and the past
+  Were puny, vague, and nothingness to thee:
+Thou didst a span grasp mighty to the last,
+  And strain for glory when thy die was cast.
+That little island, on the Atlantic sea,
+  Was but a dust-spot in a lake: thy mind
+Swept space as shoreless as eternity.
+  Thy giant powers outstript this gaudy age
+Of heroes; and, as looking at the sun,
+  So gazing on thy greatness, made men blind
+To merits, that had adoration won
+  In olden times. The world was on thy page
+  Of victories but a comma. Fame could find
+  No parallel, thy greatness to presage.
+
+
+_The Skylark_
+
+Above the russet clods the corn is seen
+Sprouting its spiry points of tender green,
+Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake,
+Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break.
+Opening their golden caskets to the sun,
+The buttercups make schoolboys eager run,
+To see who shall be first to pluck the prize--
+Up from their hurry see the Skylark flies,
+And oer her half-formed nest, with happy wings,
+Winnows the air till in the cloud she sings,
+Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies,
+And drops and drops till in her nest she lies,
+Which they unheeded passed--not dreaming then
+That birds, which flew so high, would drop again
+To nests upon the ground, which anything
+May come at to destroy. Had they the wing
+Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud
+And build on nothing but a passing cloud!
+As free from danger as the heavens are free
+From pain and toil, there would they build and be,
+And sail about the world to scenes unheard
+Of and unseen,--O were they but a bird!
+So think they, while they listen to its song,
+And smile and fancy and so pass along;
+While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn,
+Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.
+
+
+_The Flood_
+
+Waves trough, rebound, and furious boil again,
+  Like plunging monsters rising underneath,
+Who at the top curl up a shaggy mane,
+  A moment catching at a surer breath,
+Then plunging headlong down and down, and on
+  Each following whirls the shadow of the last;
+And other monsters rise when those are gone,
+  Crest their fringed waves, plunge onward and are past.
+The chill air comes around me oceanly,
+  From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread;
+Strange birds like snowspots oer the whizzing sea
+  Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled.
+    On roars the flood, all restless to be free,
+    Like Trouble wandering to Eternity.
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+_November_
+
+Sybil of months, and worshipper of winds,
+  I love thee, rude and boisterous as thou art;
+And scraps of joy my wandering ever finds
+  Mid thy uproarious madness--when the start
+Of sudden tempests stirs the forest leaves
+  Into hoarse fury, till the shower set free
+Stills the huge swells. Then ebb the mighty heaves,
+  That sway the forest like a troubled sea.
+I love thy wizard noise, and rave in turn
+  Half-vacant thoughts and rhymes of careless form;
+Then hide me from the shower, a short sojourn,
+  Neath ivied oak; and mutter to the storm,
+Wishing its melody belonged to me,
+That I might breathe a living song to thee.
+
+
+_Earth's Eternity_
+
+Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay:
+  But hath it nothing of eternal kin?
+No majesty that shall not pass away?
+  No soul of greatness springing up within?
+Thought marks without hoar shadows of sublime,
+  Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win
+Eternity, stand laughing at old Time
+  For ages: in the grand ancestral line
+Of things eternal, mounting to divine,
+  I read Magnificence where ages pay
+Worship like conquered foes to the Apennine,
+  Because they could not conquer. There sits Day
+Too high for Night to come at--mountains shine,
+  Outpeering Time, too lofty for decay.
+
+
+_Autumn_
+
+Autumn comes laden with her ripened load
+Of fruitage and so scatters them abroad
+That each fern-smothered heath and mole-hill waste
+Are black with bramble berries--where in haste
+The chubby urchins from the village hie
+To feast them there, stained with the purple dye;
+While painted woods around my rambles be
+In draperies worthy of eternity.
+Yet will the leaves soon patter on the ground,
+And death's deaf voice awake at every sound:
+One drops--then others--and the last that fell
+Rings for those left behind their passing bell.
+Thus memory every where her tidings brings
+How sad death robs us of life's dearest things.
+
+
+_Signs of Winter_
+
+The cat runs races with her tail. The dog
+Leaps oer the orchard hedge and knarls the grass.
+The swine run round and grunt and play with straw,
+Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack.
+Sudden upon the elmtree tops the crow
+Unceremonious visit pays and croaks,
+Then swops away. From mossy barn the owl
+Bobs hasty out--wheels round and, scared as soon,
+As hastily retires. The ducks grow wild
+And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel
+A circle round the village and soon, tired,
+Plunge in the pond again. The maids in haste
+Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizzled clothes
+And laughing hurry in to keep them dry.
+
+
+_Nightwind_
+
+Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods
+Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain,
+Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods
+To spread and foam and deluge all the plain.
+The cotter listens at his door again,
+Half doubting whether it be floods or wind,
+And through the thickening darkness looks afraid,
+Thinking of roads that travel has to find
+Through night's black depths in danger's garb arrayed.
+And the loud glabber round the flaze soon stops
+When hushed to silence by the lifted hand
+Of fearing dame who hears the noise in dread
+And thinks a deluge comes to drown the land;
+Nor dares she go to bed until the tempest drops.
+
+NOTE.--The remaining poems in this section are taken from a series,
+numbering several hundred brief pieces, written by Clare in the winter
+of 1835-6. Perhaps it is unjust to Clare to consider them out of their
+environment; it would be more unjust not to represent this phase of
+his poetry.
+
+_Birds in Alarm_
+
+The firetail tells the boys when nests are nigh
+And tweets and flies from every passer-bye.
+The yellowhammer never makes a noise
+But flies in silence from the noisy boys;
+The boys will come and take them every day,
+And still she lays as none were ta'en away.
+
+The nightingale keeps tweeting-churring round
+But leaves in silence when the nest is found.
+The pewit hollos "chewrit" as she flies
+And flops about the shepherd where he lies;
+But when her nest is found she stops her song
+And cocks [her] coppled crown and runs along.
+Wrens cock their tails and chitter loud and play,
+And robins hollo "tut" and fly away.
+
+
+_Dyke Side_
+
+The frog croaks loud, and maidens dare not pass
+But fear the noisome toad and shun the grass;
+And on the sunny banks they dare not go
+Where hissing snakes run to the flood below.
+The nuthatch noises loud in wood and wild,
+Like women turning skreeking to a child.
+The schoolboy hears and brushes through the trees
+And runs about till drabbled to the knees.
+The old hawk winnows round the old crow's nest;
+The schoolboy hears and wonder fills his breast.
+He throws his basket down to climb the tree
+And wonders what the red blotched eggs can be:
+The green woodpecker bounces from the view
+And hollos as he buzzes bye "kew kew."
+
+
+_Badger_
+
+When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
+Go out and track the badger to his den,
+And put a sack within the hole, and lie
+Till the old grunting badger passes bye.
+He comes and hears--they let the strongest loose.
+The old fox hears the noise and drops the goose.
+The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
+And the old hare half wounded buzzes bye.
+They get a forked stick to bear him down
+And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
+And bait him all the day with many dogs,
+And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
+He runs along and bites at all he meets:
+They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.
+
+He turns about to face the loud uproar
+And drives the rebels to their very door.
+The frequent stone is hurled where eer they go;
+When badgers fight, then every one's a foe.
+The dogs are clapt and urged to join the fray;
+The badger turns and drives them all away.
+Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
+He fights with dogs for bones and beats them all.
+The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
+Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
+The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
+The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
+He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
+And bites them through--the drunkard swears and reels.
+
+The frighted women take the boys away,
+The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
+He tries to reach the woods, an awkward race,
+But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chace.
+He turns agen and drives the noisy crowd
+And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
+He drives away and beats them every one,
+And then they loose them all and set them on.
+He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
+Then starts and grins and drives the crowd agen;
+Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
+And leaves his hold and cackles, groans, and dies.
+
+
+_The Fox_
+
+The shepherd on his journey heard when nigh
+His dog among the bushes barking high;
+The ploughman ran and gave a hearty shout,
+He found a weary fox and beat him out.
+The ploughman laughed and would have ploughed him in
+But the old shepherd took him for the skin.
+He lay upon the furrow stretched for dead,
+The old dog lay and licked the wounds that bled,
+The ploughman beat him till his ribs would crack,
+And then the shepherd slung him at his back;
+And when he rested, to his dog's surprise,
+The old fox started from his dead disguise;
+And while the dog lay panting in the sedge
+He up and snapt and bolted through the hedge.
+
+He scampered to the bushes far away;
+The shepherd called the ploughman to the fray;
+The ploughman wished he had a gun to shoot.
+The old dog barked and followed the pursuit.
+The shepherd threw his hook and tottered past;
+The ploughman ran but none could go so fast;
+The woodman threw his faggot from the way
+And ceased to chop and wondered at the fray.
+But when he saw the dog and heard the cry
+He threw his hatchet--but the fox was bye.
+The shepherd broke his hook and lost the skin;
+He found a badger hole and bolted in.
+They tried to dig, but, safe from danger's way,
+He lived to chase the hounds another day.
+
+
+_The Vixen_
+
+Among the taller wood with ivy hung,
+The old fox plays and dances round her young.
+She snuffs and barks if any passes bye
+And swings her tail and turns prepared to fly.
+The horseman hurries bye, she bolts to see,
+And turns agen, from danger never free.
+If any stands she runs among the poles
+And barks and snaps and drives them in the holes.
+The shepherd sees them and the boy goes bye
+And gets a stick and progs the hole to try.
+They get all still and lie in safety sure
+And out again when every thing's secure
+And start and snap at blackbirds bouncing bye
+To fight and catch the great white butterfly.
+
+
+_Turkeys_
+
+The turkeys wade the close to catch the bees
+In the old border full of maple trees
+And often lay away and breed and come
+And bring a brood of chelping chickens home.
+The turkey gobbles loud and drops his rag
+And struts and sprunts his tail and then lets drag
+His wing on ground and makes a huzzing noise,
+Nauntles at passer-bye and drives the boys
+And bounces up and flies at passer-bye.
+The old dog snaps and grins nor ventures nigh.
+He gobbles loud and drives the boys from play;
+They throw their sticks and kick and run away.
+
+
+_The Poet's Death_
+
+The world is taking little heed
+  And plods from day to day:
+The vulgar flourish like a weed,
+  The learned pass away.
+
+We miss him on the summer path
+  The lonely summer day,
+Where mowers cut the pleasant swath
+  And maidens make the hay.
+
+The vulgar take but little heed;
+  The garden wants his care;
+There lies the book he used to read,
+  There stands the empty chair.
+
+The boat laid up, the voyage oer,
+  And passed the stormy wave,
+The world is going as before,
+  The poet in his grave.
+
+
+_The Beautiful Stranger_
+
+I cannot know what country owns thee now,
+With France's forest lilies on thy brow.
+When England knew thee thou wert passing fair;
+I never knew a foreign face so rare.
+The world of waters rolls and rushes bye,
+Nor lets me wander where thy vallies lie.
+But surely France must be a pleasant place
+That greets the stranger with so fair a face;
+The English maiden blushes down the dance,
+But few can equal the fair maid of France.
+I saw thee lovely and I wished thee mine,
+And the last song I ever wrote is thine.
+
+Thy country's honour on thy face attends;
+Men may be foes but beauty makes us friends.
+
+
+_The Tramp_
+
+He eats (a moment's stoppage to his song)
+The stolen turnip as he goes along;
+And hops along and heeds with careless eye
+The passing crowded stage coach reeling bye.
+He talks to none but wends his silent way,
+And finds a hovel at the close of day,
+Or under any hedge his house is made.
+He has no calling and he owns no trade.
+An old smoaked blanket arches oer his head,
+A whisp of straw or stubble makes his bed.
+He knows a lawless law that claims no kin
+But meet and plunder on and feel no sin--
+No matter where they go or where they dwell
+They dally with the winds and laugh at hell.
+
+
+_Farmer's Boy_
+
+He waits all day beside his little flock
+And asks the passing stranger what's o'clock,
+But those who often pass his daily tasks
+Look at their watch and tell before he asks.
+He mutters stories to himself and lies
+Where the thick hedge the warmest house supplies,
+And when he hears the hunters far and wide
+He climbs the highest tree to see them ride--
+He climbs till all the fields are blea and bare
+And makes the old crow's nest an easy chair.
+And soon his sheep are got in other grounds--
+He hastens down and fears his master come,
+He stops the gap and keeps them all in bounds
+And tends them closely till it's time for home.
+
+
+_Braggart_
+
+With careful step to keep his balance up
+He reels on warily along the street,
+Slabbering at mouth and with a staggering stoop
+Mutters an angry look at all he meets.
+Bumptious and vain and proud he shoulders up
+And would be something if he knew but how;
+To any man on earth he will not stoop
+But cracks of work, of horses and of plough.
+Proud of the foolish talk, the ale he quaffs,
+He never heeds the insult loud that laughs:
+With rosy maid he tries to joke and play,--
+Who shrugs and nettles deep his pomp and pride.
+And calls him "drunken beast" and runs away--
+King to himself and fool to all beside.
+
+
+_Sunday Dip_
+
+The morning road is thronged with merry boys
+Who seek the water for their Sunday joys;
+They run to seek the shallow pit, and wade
+And dance about the water in the shade.
+The boldest ventures first and dashes in,
+And others go and follow to the chin,
+And duck about, and try to lose their fears,
+And laugh to hear the thunder in their ears.
+They bundle up the rushes for a boat
+And try across the deepest place to float:
+Beneath the willow trees they ride and stoop--
+The awkward load will scarcely bear them up.
+Without their aid the others float away,
+And play about the water half the day.
+
+
+_Merry Maid_
+
+Bonny and stout and brown, without a hat,
+She frowns offended when they call her fat--
+Yet fat she is, the merriest in the place,
+And all can know she wears a pretty face.
+But still she never heeds what praise can say,
+But does the work, and oft runs out to play,
+To run about the yard and ramp and noise
+And spring the mop upon the servant boys.
+When old hens noise and cackle every where
+She hurries eager if the eggs are dear,
+And runs to seek them when they lay away
+To get them ready for the market day.
+She gambols with the men and laughs aloud
+And only quarrels when they call her proud.
+
+
+_Scandal_
+
+She hastens out and scarcely pins her clothes
+To hear the news and tell the news she knows;
+She talks of sluts, marks each unmended gown,
+Her self the dirtiest slut in all the town.
+She stands with eager haste at slander's tale,
+And drinks the news as drunkards drink their ale.
+Excuse is ready at the biggest lie--
+She only heard it and it passes bye.
+The very cat looks up and knows her face
+And hastens to the chair to get the place;
+When once set down she never goes away,
+Till tales are done and talk has nought to say.
+She goes from house to house the village oer,
+Her slander bothers everybody's door.
+
+
+_Quail's Nest_
+
+I wandered out one rainy day
+  And heard a bird with merry joys
+Cry "wet my foot" for half the way;
+  I stood and wondered at the noise,
+
+When from my foot a bird did flee--
+  The rain flew bouncing from her breast
+I wondered what the bird could be,
+  And almost trampled on her nest.
+
+The nest was full of eggs and round--
+  I met a shepherd in the vales,
+And stood to tell him what I found.
+  He knew and said it was a quail's,
+
+For he himself the nest had found,
+  Among the wheat and on the green,
+When going on his daily round,
+  With eggs as many as fifteen.
+
+Among the stranger birds they feed,
+  Their summer flight is short and low;
+There's very few know where they breed,
+  And scarcely any where they go.
+
+
+_Market Day_
+
+With arms and legs at work and gentle stroke
+That urges switching tail nor mends his pace,
+On an old ribbed and weather beaten horse,
+The farmer goes jogtrotting to the fair.
+Both keep their pace that nothing can provoke
+Followed by brindled dog that snuffs the ground
+With urging bark and hurries at his heels.
+His hat slouched down, and great coat buttoned close
+Bellied like hooped keg, and chuffy face
+Red as the morning sun, he takes his round
+And talks of stock: and when his jobs are done
+And Dobbin's hay is eaten from the rack,
+He drinks success to corn in language hoarse,
+And claps old Dobbin's hide, and potters back.
+
+
+_Stonepit_
+
+The passing traveller with wonder sees
+A deep and ancient stonepit full of trees;
+So deep and very deep the place has been,
+The church might stand within and not be seen.
+The passing stranger oft with wonder stops
+And thinks he een could walk upon their tops,
+And often stoops to see the busy crow,
+And stands above and sees the eggs below;
+And while the wild horse gives its head a toss,
+The squirrel dances up and runs across.
+The boy that stands and kills the black nosed bee
+Dares down as soon as magpies' nests are found,
+And wonders when he climbs the highest tree
+To find it reaches scarce above the ground.
+
+
+_"The Lass With The Delicate Air"_
+
+Timid and smiling, beautiful and shy,
+She drops her head at every passer bye.
+Afraid of praise she hurries down the streets
+And turns away from every smile she meets.
+The forward clown has many things to say
+And holds her by the gown to make her stay,
+The picture of good health she goes along,
+Hale as the morn and happy as her song.
+Yet there is one who never feels a fear
+To whisper pleasing fancies in her ear;
+Yet een from him she shuns a rude embrace,
+And stooping holds her hands before her face,--
+She even shuns and fears the bolder wind,
+And holds her shawl, and often looks behind.
+
+
+_The Lout_
+
+For Sunday's play he never makes excuse,
+But plays at taw, and buys his Spanish juice.
+Hard as his toil, and ever slow to speak,
+Yet he gives maidens many a burning cheek;
+For none can pass him but his witless grace
+Of bawdry brings the blushes in her face.
+As vulgar as the dirt he treads upon
+He calls his cows or drives his horses on;
+He knows the lamest cow and strokes her side
+And often tries to mount her back and ride,
+And takes her tail at night in idle play,
+And makes her drag him homeward all the way.
+He knows of nothing but the football match,
+And where hens lay, and when the duck will hatch.
+
+
+_Hodge_
+
+He plays with other boys when work is done,
+But feels too clumsy and too stiff to run,
+Yet where there's mischief he can find a way
+The first to join and last [to run] away.
+What's said or done he never hears or minds
+But gets his pence for all the eggs he finds.
+He thinks his master's horses far the best,
+And always labours longer than the rest.
+In frost and cold though lame he's forced to go--
+The call's more urgent when he journeys slow.
+In surly speed he helps the maids by force
+And feeds the cows and hallos till he's hoarse;
+And when he's lame they only jest and play
+And bid him throw his kiby heels away.
+
+
+_Farm Breakfast_
+
+Maids shout to breakfast in a merry strife,
+And the cat runs to hear the whetted knife,
+And dogs are ever in the way to watch
+The mouldy crust and falling bone to catch.
+The wooden dishes round in haste are set,
+And round the table all the boys are met;
+All know their own save Hodge who would be first,
+But every one his master leaves the worst.
+On every wooden dish, a humble claim,
+Two rude cut letters mark the owner's name;
+From every nook the smile of plenty calls,
+And rusty flitches decorate the walls,
+Moore's Almanack where wonders never cease--
+All smeared with candle snuff and bacon grease.
+
+
+_Love and Solitude_
+
+I hate the very noise of troublous man
+Who did and does me all the harm he can.
+Free from the world I would a prisoner be
+And my own shadow all my company;
+And lonely see the shooting stars appear,
+Worlds rushing into judgment all the year.
+O lead me onward to the loneliest shade,
+The darkest place that quiet ever made,
+Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold
+And shut up green and open into gold.
+Farewell to poesy--and leave the will;
+Take all the world away--and leave me still
+The mirth and music of a woman's voice,
+That bids the heart be happy and rejoice.
+
+
+
+
+
+ASYLUM POEMS
+
+
+_Gipsies_
+
+The snow falls deep; the forest lies alone;
+The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes,
+Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back;
+The gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up,
+And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow,
+Beneath the oak which breaks away the wind,
+And bushes close in snow-like hovel warm;
+There tainted mutton wastes upon the coals,
+And the half-wasted dog squats close and rubs,
+Then feels the heat too strong, and goes aloof;
+He watches well, but none a bit can spare,
+And vainly waits the morsel thrown away.
+Tis thus they live--a picture to the place,
+A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race.
+
+
+_The Frightened Ploughman_
+
+I went in the fields with the leisure I got,
+The stranger might smile but I heeded him not,
+The hovel was ready to screen from a shower,
+And the book in my pocket was read in an hour.
+
+The bird came for shelter, but soon flew away;
+The horse came to look, and seemed happy to stay;
+He stood up in quiet, and hung down his head,
+And seemed to be hearing the poem I read.
+
+The ploughman would turn from his plough in the day
+And wonder what being had come in his way,
+To lie on a molehill and read the day long
+And laugh out aloud when he'd finished his song.
+
+The pewit turned over and stooped oer my head
+Where the raven croaked loud like the ploughman ill-bred,
+But the lark high above charmed me all the day long,
+So I sat down and joined in the chorus of song.
+
+The foolhardy ploughman I well could endure,
+His praise was worth nothing, his censure was poor,
+Fame bade me go on and I toiled the day long
+Till the fields where he lived should be known in my song.
+
+
+_Farewell_
+
+Farewell to the bushy clump close to the river
+And the flags where the butter-bump hides in for ever;
+Farewell to the weedy nook, hemmed in by waters;
+Farewell to the miller's brook and his three bonny daughters;
+Farewell to them all while in prison I lie--
+In the prison a thrall sees nought but the sky.
+
+Shut out are the green fields and birds in the bushes;
+In the prison yard nothing builds, blackbirds or thrushes,
+Farewell to the old mill and dash of the waters,
+To the miller and, dearer still, to his three bonny daughters.
+
+In the nook, the large burdock grows near the green willow;
+In the flood, round the moorcock dashes under the billow;
+To the old mill farewell, to the lock, pens, and waters,
+To the miller himsel', and his three bonny daughters.
+
+
+_The Old Year_
+
+The Old Year's gone away
+  To nothingness and night:
+We cannot find him all the day
+  Nor hear him in the night:
+He left no footstep, mark or place
+  In either shade or sun:
+The last year he'd a neighbour's face,
+  In this he's known by none.
+
+All nothing everywhere:
+  Mists we on mornings see
+Have more of substance when they're here
+  And more of form than he.
+He was a friend by every fire,
+  In every cot and hall--
+A guest to every heart's desire,
+  And now he's nought at all.
+
+Old papers thrown away,
+  Old garments cast aside,
+The talk of yesterday,
+  Are things identified;
+But time once torn away
+  No voices can recall:
+The eve of New Year's Day
+  Left the Old Year lost to all.
+
+
+_The Yellowhammer_
+
+When shall I see the white-thorn leaves agen,
+  And yellowhammers gathering the dry bents
+By the dyke side, on stilly moor or fen,
+  Feathered with love and nature's good intents?
+Rude is the tent this architect invents,
+  Rural the place, with cart ruts by dyke side.
+Dead grass, horse hair, and downy-headed bents
+  Tied to dead thistles--she doth well provide,
+Close to a hill of ants where cowslips bloom
+And shed oer meadows far their sweet perfume.
+  In early spring, when winds blow chilly cold,
+The yellowhammer, trailing grass, will come
+To fix a place and choose an early home,
+  With yellow breast and head of solid gold.
+
+
+_Autumn_
+
+The thistle-down's flying, though the winds are all still,
+On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
+The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
+Through stones past the counting it bubbles red hot.
+
+The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
+The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
+The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
+And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.
+
+Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
+And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
+Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
+Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
+
+
+_Song_
+
+I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too
+From the grey peeling willow as idlers do,
+And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
+Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone.
+My illness was love, though I knew not the smart,
+But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart.
+Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
+And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
+Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
+Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids--
+The hermit bees find them but once and away.
+There I'll bury alive and in silence decay.
+
+I looked on the eyes of fair woman too long,
+Till silence and shame stole the use of my tongue:
+When I tried to speak to her I'd nothing to say,
+So I turned myself round and she wandered away.
+When she got too far off, why, I'd something to tell,
+So I sent sighs behind her and walked to my cell.
+Willow switches I broke and peeled bits of straws,
+Ever lonely in crowds, in Nature's own laws--
+My ball room the pasture, my music the bees,
+My drink was the fountain, my church the tall trees.
+Who ever would love or be tied to a wife
+When it makes a man mad all the days of his life?
+
+
+_The Winter's Come_
+
+Sweet chestnuts brown like soling leather turn;
+  The larch trees, like the colour of the Sun;
+That paled sky in the Autumn seemed to burn,
+  What a strange scene before us now does run--
+Red, brown, and yellow, russet, black, and dun;
+  White thorn, wild cherry, and the poplar bare;
+The sycamore all withered in the sun.
+  No leaves are now upon the birch tree there:
+  All now is stript to the cold wintry air.
+
+See, not one tree but what has lost its leaves--
+  And yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue.
+The winter chill on his cold bed receives
+  Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue.
+Naked and bare the leafless trees repose.
+  Blue-headed titmouse now seeks maggots rare,
+Sluggish and dull the leaf-strewn river flows;
+  That is not green, which was so through the year
+  Dark chill November draweth to a close.
+
+Tis Winter, and I love to read indoors,
+  When the Moon hangs her crescent up on high;
+While on the window shutters the wind roars,
+  And storms like furies pass remorseless by.
+How pleasant on a feather bed to lie,
+  Or, sitting by the fire, in fancy soar
+With Dante or with Milton to regions high,
+  Or read fresh volumes we've not seen before,
+  Or oer old Burton's Melancholy pore.
+
+
+_Summer Winds_
+
+The wind waves oer the meadows green
+  And shakes my own wild flowers
+And shifts about the moving scene
+  Like the life of summer hours;
+The little bents with reedy head,
+  The scarce seen shapes of flowers,
+All kink about like skeins of thread
+  In these wind-shaken hours.
+
+All stir and strife and life and bustle
+  In everything around one sees;
+The rushes whistle, sedges rustle,
+  The grass is buzzing round like bees;
+The butterflies are tossed about
+  Like skiffs upon a stormy sea;
+The bees are lost amid the rout
+  And drop in [their] perplexity.
+
+Wilt thou be mine, thou bonny lass?
+  Thy drapery floats so gracefully;
+We'll walk along the meadow grass,
+  We'll stand beneath the willow tree.
+We'll mark the little reeling bee
+  Along the grassy ocean rove,
+Tossed like a little boat at sea,
+  And interchange our vows of love.
+
+
+_Bonny Lassie O!_
+
+O the evening's for the fair, bonny lassie O!
+To meet the cooler air and walk an angel there,
+    With the dark dishevelled hair,
+            Bonny lassie O!
+
+The bloom's on the brere, bonny lassie O!
+Oak apples on the tree; and wilt thou gang to see
+      The shed I've made for thee,
+              Bonny lassie O!
+
+Tis agen the running brook, bonny lassie O!
+In a grassy nook hard by, with a little patch of sky,
+      And a bush to keep us dry,
+              Bonny lassie O!
+
+There's the daisy all the year, bonny lassie O!
+There's the king-cup bright as gold, and the speedwell never cold,
+      And the arum leaves unrolled,
+              Bonny lassie O!
+
+O meet me at the shed, bonny lassie O!
+With a woodbine peeping in, and the roses like thy skin
+      Blushing, thy praise to win,
+              Bonny lassie O!
+
+I will meet thee there at e'en, bonny lassie O!
+When the bee sips in the bean, and grey willow branches lean,
+      And the moonbeam looks between,
+              Bonny lassie O!
+
+
+_Meet Me in the Green Glen_
+
+Love, meet me in the green glen,
+  Beside the tall elm tree,
+Where the sweet briar smells so sweet agen;
+  There come with me,
+      Meet me in the green glen.
+
+Meet me at the sunset
+  Down in the green glen,
+Where we've often met
+  By hawthorn tree and foxes' den,
+      Meet me in the green glen.
+
+Meet me in the green glen,
+  By sweet briar bushes there;
+Meet me by your own sen,
+  Where the wild thyme blossoms fair.
+      Meet me in the green glen.
+
+Meet me by the sweet briar,
+  By the mole hill swelling there;
+When the West glows like a fire
+  God's crimson bed is there.
+      Meet me in the green glen.
+
+
+_Love Cannot Die_
+
+In crime and enmity they lie
+Who sin and tell us love can die,
+Who say to us in slander's breath
+That love belongs to sin and death.
+From heaven it came on angel's wing
+To bloom on earth, eternal spring;
+In falsehood's enmity they lie
+Who sin and tell us love can die.
+
+Twas born upon an angel's breast.
+The softest dreams, the sweetest rest,
+The brightest sun, the bluest sky,
+Are love's own home and canopy.
+The thought that cheers this heart of mine
+Is that of love; love so divine
+They sin who say in slander's breath
+That love belongs to sin and death.
+
+The sweetest voice that lips contain,
+The sweetest thought that leaves the brain,
+The sweetest feeling of the heart--
+There's pleasure in its very smart.
+The scent of rose and cinnamon
+Is not like love remembered on;
+In falsehood's enmity they lie
+Who sin and tell us love can die.
+
+
+_Peggy_
+
+Peggy said good morning and I said good bye,
+When farmers dib the corn and laddies sow the rye.
+Young Peggy's face was common sense and I was rather shy
+When I met her in the morning when the farmers sow the rye.
+
+Her half laced boots fit tightly as she tripped along the grass,
+And she set her foot so lightly where the early bee doth pass.
+Oh Peggy was a young thing, her face was common sense,
+I courted her about the spring and loved her ever thence.
+
+Oh Peggy was the young thing and bonny as to size;
+Her lips were cherries of the spring and hazel were her eyes.
+Oh Peggy she was straight and tall as is the poplar tree,
+Smooth as the freestone of the wall, and very dear to me.
+
+Oh Peggy's gown was chocolate and full of cherries white;
+I keep a bit on't for her sake and love her day and night.
+I drest myself just like a prince and Peggy went to woo,
+But she's been gone some ten years since, and I know not what to do.
+
+
+_The Crow Sat on the Willow_
+
+The crow sat on the willow tree
+  A-lifting up his wings,
+And glossy was his coat to see,
+  And loud the ploughman sings,
+"I love my love because I know
+  The milkmaid she loves me";
+And hoarsely croaked the glossy crow
+  Upon the willow tree.
+"I love my love" the ploughman sung,
+  And all the fields with music rung.
+
+"I love my love, a bonny lass,
+  She keeps her pails so bright,
+And blythe she trips the dewy grass
+  At morning and at night.
+A cotton dress her morning gown,
+  Her face was rosy health:
+She traced the pastures up and down
+  And nature was her wealth."
+He sung, and turned each furrow down,
+His sweetheart's love in cotton gown.
+
+"My love is young and handsome
+  As any in the town,
+She's worth a ploughman's ransom
+  In the drab cotton gown."
+He sang and turned his furrow oer
+  And urged his team along,
+While on the willow as before
+  The old crow croaked his song:
+The ploughman sung his rustic lay
+  And sung of Phoebe all the day.
+
+The crow he was in love no doubt
+  And [so were] many things:
+The ploughman finished many a bout,
+  And lustily he sings,
+"My love she is a milking maid
+  With red rosy cheek;
+Of cotton drab her gown was made,
+  I loved her many a week."
+His milking maid the ploughman sung
+Till all the fields around him rung.
+
+
+_Now is Past_
+
+_Now_ is past--the happy _now_
+  When we together roved
+Beneath the wildwood's oak-tree bough
+  And Nature said we loved.
+       Winter's blast
+The _now_ since then has crept between,
+  And left us both apart.
+Winters that withered all the green
+  Have froze the beating heart.
+        Now is past.
+
+_Now_ is past since last we met
+  Beneath the hazel bough;
+Before the evening sun was set
+  Her shadow stretched below.
+       Autumn's blast
+Has stained and blighted every bough;
+  Wild strawberries like her lips
+Have left the mosses green below,
+  Her bloom's upon the hips.
+        Now is past.
+
+_Now_ is past, is changed agen,
+  The woods and fields are painted new.
+Wild strawberries which both gathered then,
+  None know now where they grew.
+        The skys oercast.
+Wood strawberries faded from wood sides,
+  Green leaves have all turned yellow;
+No Adelaide walks the wood rides,
+  True love has no bed-fellow.
+        Now is past.
+
+
+_Song_
+
+I wish I was where I would be,
+  With love alone to dwell,
+Was I but her or she but me,
+  Then love would all be well.
+I wish to send my thoughts to her
+  As quick as thoughts can fly,
+But as the winds the waters stir
+  The mirrors change and fly.
+
+
+_First Love_
+
+I ne'er was struck before that hour
+  With love so sudden and so sweet.
+Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
+  And stole my heart away complete.
+My face turned pale as deadly pale,
+  My legs refused to walk away,
+And when she looked "what could I ail?"
+  My life and all seemed turned to clay.
+
+And then my blood rushed to my face
+  And took my sight away.
+The trees and bushes round the place
+  Seemed midnight at noonday.
+I could not see a single thing,
+  Words from my eyes did start;
+They spoke as chords do from the string
+  And blood burnt round my heart.
+
+Are flowers the winter's choice?
+  Is love's bed always snow?
+She seemed to hear my silent voice
+  And love's appeal to know.
+I never saw so sweet a face
+  As that I stood before:
+My heart has left its dwelling-place
+  And can return no more.
+
+
+_Mary Bayfield_
+
+How beautiful the summer night
+  When birds roost on the mossy tree,
+When moon and stars are shining bright
+  And home has gone the weary bee!
+Then Mary Bayfield seeks the glen,
+  The white hawthorn and grey oak tree,
+And nought but heaven can tell me then
+  How dear thy beauty is to me.
+
+Dear is the dewdrop to the flower,
+  The old wall to the weary bee,
+And silence to the evening hour,
+  And ivy to the stooping tree.
+Dearer than these, than all beside,
+  Than blossoms to the moss-rose tree,
+The maid who wanders by my side--
+  Sweet Mary Bayfield is to me.
+
+Sweet is the moonlight on the tree,
+  The stars above the glassy lake,
+That from the bottom look at me
+  Through shadows of the crimping brake.
+Such are sweet things--but sweeter still
+  Than these and all beside I see
+The maid whose look my heart can thrill,
+  My Mary Bayfield's look to me.
+
+O Mary with the dark brown hair,
+  The rosy cheek, the beaming eye,
+I would thy shade were ever near;
+  Then would I never grieve or sigh.
+I love thee, Mary dearly love--
+  There's nought so fair on earth I see,
+There's nought so dear in heaven above,
+  As Mary Bayfield is to me.
+
+
+_The Maid of Jerusalem_
+
+Maid of Jerusalem, by the Dead Sea,
+I wandered all sorrowing thinking of thee,--
+Thy city in ruins, thy kindred deplored,
+All fallen and lost by the Ottoman's sword.
+
+I saw thee sit there in disconsolate sighs,
+Where the hall of thy fathers a ruined heap lies.
+Thy fair finger showed me the place where they trod,
+In thy childhood where flourished the city of God.
+
+The place where they fell and the scenes where they lie,
+In the tomb of Siloa--the tear in her eye
+She stifled: transfixed there it grew like a pearl,
+Beneath the dark lash of the sweet Jewish Girl.
+
+Jerusalem is fallen! still thou art in bloom,
+As fresh as the ivy around the lone tomb,
+And fair as the lily of morning that waves
+Its sweet-scented bells over desolate graves.
+
+When I think of Jerusalem in kingdoms yet free,
+I shall think of its ruins and think upon thee;
+Thou beautiful Jewess, content thou mayest roam;
+A bright spot in Eden still blooms as thy home.
+
+
+Song
+
+I would not feign a single sigh
+  Nor weep a single tear for thee:
+The soul within these orbs burns dry;
+  A desert spreads where love should be.
+I would not be a worm to crawl
+  A writhing suppliant in thy way;
+For love is life, is heaven, and all
+  The beams of an immortal day.
+
+For sighs are idle things and vain,
+  And tears for idiots vainly fall.
+I would not kiss thy face again
+  Nor round thy shining slippers crawl.
+Love is the honey, not the bee,
+  Nor would I turn its sweets to gall
+For all the beauty found in thee,
+  Thy lily neck, rose cheek, and all.
+
+I would not feign a single tale
+  Thy kindness or thy love to seek;
+Nor sigh for Jenny of the Vale,
+  Her ruby smile or rosy cheek.
+I would not have a pain to own
+  For those dark curls and those bright eyes
+A frowning lip, a heart of stone,
+  False love and folly I despise.
+
+
+_Thou Flower of Summer_
+
+      When in summer thou walkest
+        In the meads by the river,
+      And to thyself talkest,
+        Dost thou think of one ever--
+      A lost and a lorn one
+        That adores thee and loves thee?
+      And when happy morn's gone,
+        And nature's calm moves thee,
+Leaving thee to thy sleep like an angel at rest,
+Does the one who adores thee still live in thy breast?
+
+      Does nature eer give thee
+        Love's past happy vision,
+      And wrap thee and leave thee
+        In fancies elysian?
+      Thy beauty I clung to,
+        As leaves to the tree;
+      When thou fair and young too
+        Looked lightly on me,
+Till love came upon thee like the sun to the west
+And shed its perfuming and bloom on thy breast.
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+_The Sailor-Boy_
+
+Tis three years and a quarter since I left my own fireside
+To go aboard a ship through love, and plough the ocean wide.
+I crossed my native fields, where the scarlet poppies grew,
+And the groundlark left his nest like a neighbour which I knew.
+
+The pigeons from the dove cote cooed over the old lane,
+The crow flocks from the oakwood went flopping oer the grain;
+Like lots of dear old neighbours whom I shall see no more
+They greeted me that morning I left the English shore.
+
+The sun was just a-rising above the heath of furze,
+And the shadows grow to giants; that bright ball never stirs:
+There the shepherds lay with their dogs by their side,
+And they started up and barked as my shadow they espied.
+
+A maid of early morning twirled her mop upon the moor;
+I wished her my farewell before she closed the door.
+My friends I left behind me for other places new,
+Crows and pigeons all were strangers as oer my head they flew.
+
+Trees and bushes were all strangers, the hedges and the lanes,
+The steeples and the houses and broad untrodden plains.
+I passed the pretty milkmaid with her red and rosy face;
+I knew not where I met her, I was strange to the place.
+
+At last I saw the ocean, a pleasing sight to me:
+I stood upon the shore of a mighty glorious sea.
+The waves in easy motion went rolling on their way,
+English colours were a-flying where the British squadron lay.
+
+I left my honest parents, the church clock and the village;
+I left the lads and lasses, the labour and the tillage;
+To plough the briny ocean, which soon became my joy--
+I sat and sang among the shrouds, a lonely sailor-boy.
+
+
+_The Sleep of Spring_
+
+O for that sweet, untroubled rest
+          That poets oft have sung!--
+The babe upon its mother's breast,
+          The bird upon its young,
+The heart asleep without a pain--
+When shall I know that sleep again?
+
+When shall I be as I have been
+          Upon my mother's breast
+Sweet Nature's garb of verdant green
+          To woo to perfect rest--
+Love in the meadow, field, and glen,
+And in my native wilds again?
+
+The sheep within the fallow field,
+          The herd upon the green,
+The larks that in the thistle shield,
+          And pipe from morn to e'en--
+O for the pasture, fields, and fen!
+When shall I see such rest again?
+
+I love the weeds along the fen,
+          More sweet than garden flowers,
+For freedom haunts the humble glen
+          That blest my happiest hours.
+Here prison injures health and me:
+I love sweet freedom and the free.
+
+The crows upon the swelling hills,
+          The cows upon the lea,
+Sheep feeding by the pasture rills,
+          Are ever dear to me,
+Because sweet freedom is their mate,
+While I am lone and desolate.
+
+I loved the winds when I was young,
+            When life was dear to me;
+I loved the song which Nature sung,
+            Endearing liberty;
+I loved the wood, the vale, the stream,
+For there my boyhood used to dream.
+
+There even toil itself was play;
+            Twas pleasure een to weep;
+Twas joy to think of dreams by day,
+            The beautiful of sleep.
+When shall I see the wood and plain,
+And dream those happy dreams again?
+
+
+_Mary Bateman_
+
+My love she wears a cotton plaid,
+  A bonnet of the straw;
+Her cheeks are leaves of roses spread,
+  Her lips are like the haw.
+In truth she is as sweet a maid
+As true love ever saw.
+
+Her curls are ever in my eyes,
+  As nets by Cupid flung;
+Her voice will oft my sleep surprise,
+  More sweet then ballad sung.
+O Mary Bateman's curling hair!
+I wake, and there is nothing there.
+
+I wake, and fall asleep again,
+  The same delights in visions rise;
+There's nothing can appear more plain
+  Than those rose cheeks and those bright eyes.
+I wake again, and all alone
+Sits Darkness on his ebon throne.
+
+All silent runs the silver Trent,
+  The cobweb veils are all wet through,
+A silver bead's on every bent,
+  On every leaf a bleb of dew.
+I sighed, the moon it shone so clear;
+Was Mary Bateman walking here?
+
+
+_Bonny Mary O!_
+
+  The morning opens fine, bonny Mary O!
+  The robin sings his song by the dairy O!
+Where the little Jenny wrens cock their tails among the hens,
+  Singing morning's happy songs with Mary O!
+
+  The swallow's on the wing, bonny Mary O!
+  Where the rushes fringe the spring, bonny Mary O!
+Where the cowslips do unfold, shaking tassels all of gold,
+  Which make the milk so sweet, bonny Mary O!
+
+  There's the yellowhammer's nest, bonny Mary O!
+  Where she hides her golden breast, bonny Mary O!
+On her mystic eggs she dwells, with strange writing on their shells,
+  Hid in the mossy grass, bonny Mary O!
+
+  There the spotted cow gets food, bonny Mary O!
+  And chews her peaceful cud, bonny Mary O!
+In the mole-hills and the bushes, and the clear brook fringed with rushes
+  To fill the evening pail, bonny Mary O!
+
+  The cowpond once agen, bonny Mary O!
+  Lies dimpled like thy sen, bonny Mary O!
+Where the gnat swarms fall and rise under evening's mellow skies,
+  And on flags sleep dragon flies, bonny Mary O!
+
+  And I will meet thee there, bonny Mary O!
+  When a-milking you repair, bonny Mary O!
+And I'll kiss thee on the grass, my buxom, bonny lass,
+  And be thine own for aye, bonny Mary O!
+
+
+_Where She Told Her Love_
+
+         I saw her crop a rose
+           Right early in the day,
+         And I went to kiss the place
+           Where she broke the rose away
+         And I saw the patten rings
+           Where she oer the stile had gone,
+         And I love all other things
+           Her bright eyes look upon.
+If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,
+The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer things to me.
+
+         I have a pleasant hill
+           Which I sit upon for hours,
+         Where she cropt some sprigs of thyme
+           And other little flowers;
+         And she muttered as she did it
+           As does beauty in a dream,
+         And I loved her when she hid it
+           On her breast, so like to cream,
+Near the brown mole on her neck that to me a diamond shone
+Then my eye was like to fire, and my heart was like to stone.
+
+         There is a small green place
+           Where cowslips early curled,
+         Which on Sabbath day I trace,
+           The dearest in the world.
+         A little oak spreads oer it,
+           And throws a shadow round,
+         A green sward close before it,
+           The greenest ever found:
+There is not a woodland nigh nor is there a green grove,
+Yet stood the fair maid nigh me and told me all her love.
+
+
+_Autumn_
+
+I love the fitful gust that shakes
+  The casement all the day,
+And from the glossy elm tree takes
+  The faded leaves away,
+Twirling them by the window pane
+With thousand others down the lane.
+
+I love to see the shaking twig
+  Dance till the shut of eve,
+The sparrow on the cottage rig,
+  Whose chirp would make believe
+That Spring was just now flirting by
+In Summer's lap with flowers to lie.
+
+I love to see the cottage smoke
+  Curl upwards through the trees,
+The pigeons nestled round the cote
+  On November days like these;
+The cock upon the dunghill crowing,
+The mill sails on the heath a-going.
+
+The feather from the raven's breast
+  Falls on the stubble lea,
+The acorns near the old crow's nest
+  Drop pattering down the tree;
+The grunting pigs, that wait for all,
+Scramble and hurry where they fall.
+
+
+_Invitation to Eternity_
+
+Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
+Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
+Through the valley-depths of shade,
+Of bright and dark obscurity;
+Where the path has lost its way,
+Where the sun forgets the day,
+Where there's nor light nor life to see,
+Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me?
+
+Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
+Where plains will rise like ocean's waves,
+Where life will fade like visioned dreams
+And darkness darken into caves,
+Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
+Through this sad non-identity
+Where parents live and are forgot,
+And sisters live and know us not?
+
+Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
+In this strange death of life to be,
+To live in death and be the same,
+Without this life or home or name,
+At once to be and not to be--
+That was and is not--yet to see
+Things pass like shadows, and the sky
+Above, below, around us lie?
+
+The land of shadows wilt thou trace,
+Nor look nor know each other's face;
+The present marred with reason gone,
+And past and present both as one?
+Say, maiden, can thy life be led
+To join the living and the dead?
+Then trace thy footsteps on with me:
+We are wed to one eternity.
+
+
+_The Maple Tree_
+
+The maple with its tassel flowers of green,
+That turns to red a staghorn-shaped seed,
+Just spreading out its scolloped leaves is seen,
+Of yellowish hue, yet beautifully green;
+Bark ribbed like corderoy in seamy screed,
+That farther up the stem is smoother seen,
+Where the white hemlock with white umbel flowers
+Up each spread stoven to the branches towers;
+And moss around the stoven spreads, dark green,
+And blotched leaved orchis, and the blue bell flowers;
+Thickly they grow and neath the leaves are seen;
+I love to see them gemmed with morning hours,
+I love the lone green places where they be,
+And the sweet clothing of the maple tree.
+
+
+_House or Window Flies_
+
+These little window dwellers, in cottages and halls, were always
+entertaining to me; after dancing in the window all day from sunrise
+to sunset they would sip of the tea, drink of the beer, and eat of the
+sugar, and be welcome all summer long. They look like things of mind
+or fairies, and seem pleased or dull as the weather permits. In many
+clean cottages and genteel houses, they are allowed every liberty to
+creep, fly, or do as they like; and seldom or ever do wrong. In fact
+they are the small or dwarfish portion of our own family, and so many
+fairy familiars that we know and treat as one of ourselves.
+
+
+_Dewdrops_
+
+The dewdrops on every blade of grass are so much like silver drops
+that I am obliged to stoop down as I walk to see if they are pearls,
+and those sprinkled on the ivy-woven beds of primroses underneath the
+hazels, whitethorns and maples are so like gold beads that I stooped
+down to feel if they were hard, but they melted from my finger. And
+where the dew lies on the primrose, the violet and whitethorn leaves
+they are emerald and beryl, yet nothing more than the dews of the
+morning on the budding leaves; nay, the road grasses are covered with
+gold and silver beads, and the further we go the brighter they seem to
+shine, like solid gold and silver. It is nothing more than the sun's
+light and shade upon them in the dewy morning; every thorn-point and
+every bramble-spear has its trembling ornament: till the wind gets
+a little brisker, and then all is shaken off, and all the shining
+jewelry passes away into a common spring morning full of budding
+leaves, primroses, violets, vernal speedwell, bluebell and orchis, and
+commonplace objects.
+
+
+
+_Fragment_
+
+The cataract, whirling down the precipice,
+  Elbows down rocks and, shouldering, thunders through.
+Roars, howls, and stifled murmurs never cease;
+  Hell and its agonies seem hid below.
+Thick rolls the mist, that smokes and falls in dew;
+  The trees and greenwood wear the deepest green.
+Horrible mysteries in the gulph stare through,
+  Roars of a million tongues, and none knows what they mean.
+
+
+_From "A Rhapsody"_
+
+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 and 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
+  Gathering sweets from little flowers like stars.
+
+The wind seems calling, though not understood.
+  A voice is speaking; hark, it louder calls.
+It echoes in the far-outstretching wood.
+  First twas a hum, but now it loudly squalls;
+And then the pattering rain begins to fall,
+  And it is hushed--the fern leaves scarcely shake,
+The tottergrass it scarcely stirs at all.
+  And then the rolling thunder gets awake,
+  And from black clouds the lightning flashes break.
+
+The sunshine's gone, and now an April evening
+  Commences with a dim and mackerel sky.
+Gold light and woolpacks in the west are leaving,
+  And leaden streaks their splendid place supply.
+Sheep ointment seems to daub the dead-hued sky,
+  And night shuts up the lightsomeness of day,
+All dark and absent as a corpse's eye.
+  Flower, tree, and bush, like all the shadows grey,
+  In leaden hues of desolation fade away.
+
+Tis May; and yet the March flower Dandelion
+  Is still in bloom among the emerald grass,
+Shining like guineas with the sun's warm eye on--
+  We almost think they are gold as we pass,
+Or fallen stars in a green sea of grass.
+  They shine in fields, or waste grounds near the town.
+They closed like painter's brush when even was.
+  At length they turn to nothing else but down,
+  While the rude winds blow off each shadowy crown.
+
+
+_Secret Love_
+
+I hid my love when young till I
+Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
+I hid my love to my despite
+Till I could not bear to look at light:
+I dare not gaze upon her face
+But left her memory in each place;
+Where eer I saw a wild flower lie
+I kissed and bade my love good bye.
+
+I met her in the greenest dells
+Where dewdrops pearl the wood blue bells
+The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
+The bee kissed and went singing by,
+A sunbeam found a passage there,
+A gold chain round her neck so fair;
+As secret as the wild bee's song
+She lay there all the summer long.
+
+I hid my love in field and town
+Till een the breeze would knock me down,
+The bees seemed singing ballads oer,
+The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
+And even silence found a tongue,
+To haunt me all the summer long;
+The riddle nature could not prove
+Was nothing else but secret love.
+
+
+_Bantry Bay_
+
+On the eighteenth of October we lay in Bantry Bay,
+  All ready to set sail, with a fresh and steady gale:
+A fortnight and nine days we in the harbour lay,
+  And no breeze ever reached us or strained a single sail.
+Three ships of war had we, and the great guns loaded all;
+  But our ships were dead and beaten that had never feared a foe.
+The winds becalmed around us cared for no cannon ball;
+  They locked us in the harbour and would not let us go.
+
+On the nineteenth of October, by eleven of the clock,
+  The sky turned black as midnight and a sudden storm came on--
+Awful and sudden--and the cables felt the shock;
+  Our anchors they all broke away and every sheet was gone.
+The guns fired off amid the strife, but little hope had we;
+  The billows broke above the ship and left us all below.
+The crew with one consent cried "Bear further out to sea,"
+  But the waves obeyed no sailor's call, and we knew not where to go.
+
+She foundered on a rock, while we clambered up the shrouds,
+  And staggered like a mountain drunk, wedged in the waves almost.
+The red hot boiling billows foamed in the stooping clouds,
+  And in that fatal tempest the whole ship's crew were lost.
+Have pity for poor mariners, ye landsmen, in a storm.
+  O think what they endure at sea while safe at home you stay.
+All ye that sleep on beds at night in houses dry and warm,
+  O think upon the whole ship's crew, all lost at Bantry Bay.
+
+
+_Peggy's the Lady of the Hall_
+
+And will she leave the lowly clowns
+  For silk and satins gay,
+Her woollen aprons and drab gowns
+  For lady's cold array?
+And will she leave the wild hedge rose,
+  The redbreast and the wren,
+And will she leave her Sunday beaus
+  And milk shed in the glen?
+And will she leave her kind friends all
+To be the Lady of the Hall?
+
+The cowslips bowed their golden drops,
+  The white thorn white as sheets;
+The lamb agen the old ewe stops,
+  The wren and robin tweets.
+And Peggy took her milk pails still,
+  And sang her evening song,
+To milk her cows on Cowslip Hill
+  For half the summer long.
+But silk and satins rich and rare
+Are doomed for Peggy still to wear.
+
+But when the May had turned to haws,
+  The hedge rose swelled to hips,
+Peggy was missed without a cause,
+  And left us in eclipse.
+The shepherd in the hovel milks,
+  Where builds the little wren,
+And Peggy's gone, all clad in silks--
+  Far from the happy glen,
+From dog-rose, woodbine, clover, all
+To be the Lady of the Hall.
+
+
+_I Dreamt of Robin_
+
+I opened the casement this morn at starlight,
+  And, the moment I got out of bed,
+The daisies were quaking about in their white
+  And the cowslip was nodding its head.
+The grass was all shivers, the stars were all bright,
+  And Robin that should come at e'en--
+I thought that I saw him, a ghost by moonlight,
+  Like a stalking horse stand on the green.
+
+I went bed agen and did nothing but dream
+  Of Robin and moonlight and flowers.
+He stood like a shadow transfixed by a stream,
+  And I couldn't forget him for hours.
+I'd just dropt asleep when I dreamed Robin spoke,
+  And the casement it gave such a shake,
+As if every pane in the window was broke;
+  Such a patter the gravel did make.
+
+So I up in the morning before the cock crew
+  And to strike me a light I sat down.
+I saw from the door all his track in the dew
+  And, I guess, called "Come in and sit down."
+And one, sure enough, tramples up to the door,
+  And who but young Robin his sen?
+And ere the old folks were half willing to stir
+  We met, kissed, and parted agen.
+
+
+_The Peasant Poet_
+
+He loved the brook's soft sound,
+  The swallow swimming by.
+He loved the daisy-covered ground,
+  The cloud-bedappled sky.
+To him the dismal storm appeared
+  The very voice of God;
+And when the evening rack was reared
+  Stood Moses with his rod.
+And everything his eyes surveyed,
+  The insects in the brake,
+Were creatures God Almighty made,
+  He loved them for His sake--
+A silent man in life's affairs,
+  A thinker from a boy,
+A peasant in his daily cares,
+  A poet in his joy.
+
+
+_To John Clare_
+
+Well, honest John, how fare you now at home?
+The spring is come, and birds are building nests;
+The old cock robin to the stye is come,
+With olive feathers and its ruddy breast;
+And the old cock, with wattles and red comb,
+Struts with the hens, and seems to like some best,
+Then crows, and looks about for little crumbs,
+Swept out by little folks an hour ago;
+The pigs sleep in the stye; the bookman comes--
+The little boy lets home-close nesting go,
+And pockets tops and taws, where daisies bloom,
+To look at the new number just laid down,
+With lots of pictures, and good stories too,
+And Jack the Giant-killer's high renown.
+
+_Feb._ 10, 1860.
+
+
+_Early Spring_
+
+The Spring is come, and Spring flowers coming too,
+    The crocus, patty kay, the rich hearts' ease;
+The polyanthus peeps with blebs of dew,
+    And daisy flowers; the buds swell on the trees;
+    While oer the odd flowers swim grandfather bees
+In the old homestead rests the cottage cow;
+    The dogs sit on their haunches near the pail,
+The least one to the stranger growls "bow wow,"
+    Then hurries to the door and cocks his tail,
+To knaw the unfinished bone; the placid cow
+    Looks oer the gate; the thresher's lumping flail
+Is all the noise the spring encounters now.
+
+_May_ 28, 1860.
+
+
+_Clock-a-Clay_
+
+In the cowslip pips I lie,
+Hidden from the buzzing fly,
+While green grass beneath me lies,
+Pearled with dew like fishes' eyes,
+Here I lie, a clock-a-clay,
+Waiting for the time of day.
+
+While the forest quakes surprise,
+And the wild wind sobs and sighs,
+My home rocks as like to fall,
+On its pillar green and tall;
+When the pattering rain drives by
+Clock-a-clay keeps warm and dry.
+
+Day by day and night by night,
+All the week I hide from sigh;
+In the cowslip pips I lie,
+In rain and dew still warm and dry;
+Day and night, and night and day,
+Red, black-spotted clock-a-clay.
+
+My home shakes in wind and showers,
+Pale green pillar topped with flowers,
+Bending at the wild wind's breath,
+Till I touch the grass beneath;
+Here I live, lone clock-a-clay,
+Watching for the time of day.
+
+
+_Little Trotty Wagtail_
+
+Little trotty wagtail he went in the rain,
+And tittering, tottering sideways he neer got straight again,
+He stooped to get a worm, and looked up to get a fly,
+And then he flew away ere his feathers they were dry.
+
+Little trotty wagtail, he waddled in the mud,
+And left his little footmarks, trample where he would.
+He waddled in the water-pudge, and waggle went his tail,
+And chirrupt up his wings to dry upon the garden rail.
+
+Little trotty wagtail, you nimble all about,
+And in the dimpling water-pudge you waddle in and out;
+Your home is nigh at hand, and in the warm pig-stye,
+So, little Master Wagtail, I'll bid you a good-bye.
+
+
+_Graves of Infants_
+
+    Infant' graves are steps of angels, where
+      Earth's brightest gems of innocence repose.
+    God is their parent, and they need no tear;
+      He takes them to His bosom from earth's woes,
+    A bud their lifetime and a flower their close.
+      Their spirits are an Iris of the skies,
+    Needing no prayers; a sunset's happy close.
+      Gone are the bright rays of their soft blue eyes;
+Flowers weep in dew-drops oer them, and the gale gently sighs
+
+    Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower,
+      Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye.
+    Their deaths were dew-drops on Heaven's amaranth bower,
+      And tolled on flowers as Summer gales went by.
+    They bowed and trembled, and they left no sigh,
+      And the sun smiled to show their 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.
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+_Love Lives Beyond the Tomb_
+
+  Love lives beyond
+The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew!
+  I love the fond,
+The faithful, and the true.
+
+  Love lives in sleep,
+The happiness of healthy dreams:
+  Eve's dews may weep,
+But love delightful seems.
+
+  Tis seen in flowers,
+And in the morning's pearly dew;
+  In earth's green hours,
+And in the heaven's eternal blue.
+
+  Tis heard in Spring
+When light and sunbeams, warm and kind,
+  On angel's wing
+Bring love and music to the mind.
+
+  And where is voice,
+So young, so beautiful, and sweet
+  As Nature's choice,
+Where Spring and lovers meet?
+
+  Love lives beyond
+The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew.
+  I love the fond,
+The faithful, young and true.
+
+
+_I Am_
+
+I AM: yet what I am none cares or knows,
+  My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
+I am the self-consumer of my woes,
+  They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
+Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
+And yet I am, and live with shadows tost
+
+Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
+  Into the living sea of waking dreams,
+Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
+  But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
+And een the dearest--that I loved the best--
+Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
+
+I long for scenes where man has never trod;
+  A place where woman never smiled or wept;
+There to abide with my Creator, GOD,
+  And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
+Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
+The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+
+_Fragment_
+
+_A Specimen of Clare's rough drafts_
+
+In a huge cloud of mountain hue
+The sun sets dark nor shudders through
+One single beam to shine again
+Tis night already in the lane
+
+The settled clouds in ridges lie
+And some swell mountains calm and high
+
+Clouds rack and drive before the wind
+In shapes and forms of every kind
+Like waves that rise without the roars
+And rocks that guard untrodden shores
+Now castles pass majestic bye
+And ships in peaceful havens lie
+These gone ten thousand shapes ensue
+For ever beautiful and new
+
+The scattered clouds lie calm and still
+And day throws gold on every hill
+Their thousand heads in glorys run
+As each were worlds and owned a sun
+The rime it clings to every thing
+It beards the early buds of spring
+The mossy pales the orchard spray
+Are feathered with its silver grey
+
+Rain drizzles in the face so small
+We scarce can say it rains at all
+
+The cows turned to the pelting rain
+No longer at their feed remain
+But in the sheltering hovel hides
+That from two propping dotterels strides
+
+The sky was hilled with red and blue
+With lighter shadows waking through
+Till beautiful and beaming day
+Shed streaks of gold for miles away
+
+The linnet stopt her song to clean
+Her spreading wings of yellow green
+And turn his head as liking well
+To smooth the dropples as they fell
+
+One scarce could keep one's path aright
+From gazing upward at the sight
+
+The boys for wet are forced to pass
+The cuckoo flowers among the grass
+To hasten on as well they may
+For hedge or tree or stack of hay
+Where they for shelter can abide
+Safe seated by its sloping side
+That by the blackthorn thicket cowers
+A shelter in the strongest showers
+
+The gardens golden gilliflowers
+Are paled with drops of amber showers
+
+Dead leaves from hedges flirt about
+The chaff from barn doors winnows out
+And down without a wing to flye
+As fast as bees goes sailing bye
+The feather finds a wing to flye
+And dust in wirl puffs winnows bye
+
+When the rain at midday stops
+Spangles glitter in the drops
+And as each thread a sunbeam was
+Cobwebs glitter in the grass
+
+The sheep all loaded with the rain
+Try to shake it off in vain
+And ere dryed by wind and sun
+The load will scarcely let them run
+
+The shepherds foot is sodden through
+And leaves will clout his brushing shoe
+The buttercups in gold alloyed
+And daiseys by the shower destroyed
+
+The sun is overcast clouds lie
+And thicken over all the sky
+
+Crows morn and eve will flock in crowds
+To fens and darken like the clouds
+So many is their cumberous flight
+The dull eve darkens into night
+
+Clouds curl and curdle blue and grey
+And dapple the young summers day
+
+Through the torn woods the violent rain
+Roars and rattles oer the plain
+And bubbles up in every pool
+Till dykes and ponds are brimming full
+
+The thickening clouds move slowly on
+Till all the many clouds are one
+That spreads oer all the face of day
+And turns the sunny shine to grey
+
+Now the meadow water smokes
+And hedgerows dripping oaks
+Fitter patter all around
+And dimple the once dusty ground
+The spinners threads about the weeds
+Are hung with little drops in beads
+Clover silver green becomes
+And purple blue surrounds the plumbs
+And every place breaths fresh and fair
+When morning pays her visit there
+
+The day is dull the heron trails
+On flapping wings like heavy sails
+And oer the mead so lowly swings
+She fans the herbage with her wings
+
+The waterfowl with suthering wings
+Dive down the river splash and spring
+Up to the very clouds again
+That sprinkle scuds of coming rain
+That flye and drizzle all the day
+Till dripping grass is turned to grey
+
+The various clouds that move or lye
+Like mighty travellers in the sky
+All mountainously ridged or curled
+That may have travelled round the world
+
+The water ruckles into waves
+And loud the neighbouring woodland raves
+All telling of the coming storm
+That fills the village with alarm
+
+Ere yet the sun is two hours high
+Winds find all quarters of the sky
+With sudden shiftings all around
+And now the grass upon the ground
+And now the leaves they wirl and wirl
+With many a flirting flap and curl
+JOHN CLARE: A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE
+
+_Works_
+
+1
+
+POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF RURAL LIFE AND SCENERY. By John Clare, a
+Northamptonshire Peasant. London: Printed for Taylor and Hessey. 1820.
+12mo. Pp. xxxii, 222. The second and third editions, 1820; excisions
+and alterations occur, but not in all copies. Fourth edition, 1821.
+
+2
+
+THE VILLAGE MINSTREL AND OTHER POEMS. Taylor and Hessey. 1821. Two
+volumes 12mo. Pp. xxviii, 216; vi, 211. Second edition, 1823. The
+two volumes were also, at a later date, bound in one cover lettered
+"Poetic Souvenir."
+
+3
+
+THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR; WITH VILLAGE STORIES, AND OTHER POEMS.
+Taylor. 1827. 12mo. Pp. viii, 238.
+
+4
+
+THE RURAL MUSE. London: Whittaker & Co. 1835. 12mo. Pp. x, 175.
+
+
+_Biographies and Selections_
+
+5
+
+THE LIFE OF JOHN CLARE. By Frederick Martin, London and Cambridge:
+Macmillan & Co. 1865. Fcp. 8vo. Pp. viii, 301.
+
+
+6
+
+LIFE AND REMAINS OF JOHN CLARE. By J. L. Cherry. London: Frederick
+Warne & Co. Northampton: J. Taylor & Son. 1873. (Issued in the
+_Chandos Classics_, 1873-1877.) Fcap. 8vo. Pp. xiii, 349.
+
+
+7
+
+POEMS BY JOHN CLARE, selected and introduced by Norman Gale. With a
+Bibliography by C. Ernest Smith. Geo. E. Over, Rugby, 1901. Fcp. 8vo.
+Pp. 206.
+
+
+8
+
+POEMS BY JOHN CLARE, edited with an Introduction by Arthur Symons.
+Frowde, London, 1908. I2mo. Pp. 208.
+
+
+9
+
+NORTHAMPTONSHIRE BOTANOLOGIA. JOHN CLARE. By G. Claridge Druce.
+Pamphlet: no printer's name. 1912. (It includes a memoir, and a
+classification of the flowers described in Clare's poems.)
+
+
+_Miscellaneous Clare Volumes_
+
+10
+
+FOUR LETTERS from the Rev. W. Allen, to the Right Honourable Lord
+Radstock, G.C.B., on the Poems of John Clare, the Northamptonshire
+Peasant. Hatchards' (1823). 12mo. Pp. 77.
+
+
+11
+
+THREE VERY INTERESTING LETTERS (two in curious rhyme) by the
+celebrated poets Clare, Cowper, and Bird. With an Appendix (Clare's
+"Familiar Epistle to a Friend"). ff.13. Charles Clarke's private
+press, Great Totham, 1837. 8vo. Only 25 copies printed. THE JOHN CLARE
+CENTENARY EXHIBITION CATALOGUE. Introduction by C. Dack. Peterborough
+Natural History Society, 1893. Pamphlet. Pp. viii, 28. An edition of
+50 copies was printed on large paper.
+
+
+_Clare's Contributions to Periodicals_
+
+A detailed list of Clare's work in the magazines is a lengthy affair.
+His main connections were with the "London Magazine" (1821-1823),
+"European Magazine" (1825, 1826), "Literary Magnet" (1826, 1827),
+"Spirit and Manners of the Age" (1828, 1829), the publications of
+William Hone, "Athenaeum" (1831), "Englishman's Magazine" (1831),
+"Literary Receptacle" (1835). He contributed once or twice to the
+"Sheffield Iris," "Morning Post," and the "Champion"; and much of his
+best work seems to have been printed in local papers, such as the
+"Stamford Bee." The annuals often included short poems by him: the
+"Amulet," "Forget-Me-Not," "Friendship's Offering," "Gem," "Juvenile
+Forget-Me-Not," "Literary Souvenir," etc.
+
+Clare's magazine writings are not always signed, and in the annuals
+his poems often bear no ascription except "By the Northamptonshire
+Peasant." After 1837 he appears not to have contributed poems to
+any journals other than local; though Cyrus Redding in the "English
+Journal," 1841, gives many of his later verses.
+
+_Incidental Reference Volumes_
+
+ALLIBONE, S. A.--Dictionary of English Literature.
+
+ASKHAM, JOHN--Sonnets on the Months ("To John Clare," p. 185)--1863.
+
+BAKER, Miss A. E.--Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases
+(Clare contributed)--1854.
+
+CARY, H. F.--MEMOIR OF; ii. 52-53, 94-95--1847.
+
+CHAMBERS, R.--Cyclopaedia of English Literature, ii. 386-390--1861.
+
+DE QUINCZY, T.--London Reminiscences, pp. 143-145--1897.
+
+DE WILDE, G.--Rambles Round About, and Poems: pp. 30-49--1872.
+
+DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY.
+
+DOBELL, B.--Sidelights on Charles Lamb--1903.
+
+ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.
+
+(GALIGNANI'S)--Living Poets of England: pp.172-174--1827.
+
+HALL, S. C.--Book of Gems: pp. 162-166--1838.
+           --A Book of Memories: pp. 107-109.
+
+HEATH, RICHARD--The English Peasant: pp. 292-319--1893.
+
+HOLLAND, J.--James Montgomery: iv. 96, 175--1854.
+
+HOOD, E. P.--The Peerage of Poverty--1870.
+
+HOOD, THOMAS--Works, ii. 374-377--1882.
+
+LAMB, CHARLES--LETTERS (Ed. W. Macdonald), ii. 22--1903.
+
+LOMBROSO, CESARE--The Man of Genius, 162, 205--1891.
+
+MEN OF THE TIME--_earlier issues_.
+
+MILES, A. H.--Poets and Poetry of the Nineteenth Century. Vol. "Keats
+to Lytton," pp. 79-106 (by Roden Noel)--1905.
+
+MITFORD, M. R.--Recollections of a Literary Life. I. 147-163--1857.
+
+REDDING, CYRUS--Fifty Years' Recollections: ii. 211--1858.
+              --Past Celebrities Whom I Have Known: ii. 132 _sq_.
+
+STODDARD, R. H.--Under the Evening Lamp: pp.120-134--1893.
+
+SYMONS, ARTHUR--The Romantic Movement in English Poetry: pp. 288-293--1908.
+
+TAYLOR, JOHN--Bibliotheca Northantonesis--1869.
+
+THOMAS, EDWARD--Feminine Influence on the Poets--1908.
+              --A Literary Pilgrim in England--1917.
+
+WALKER, HUGH--The Literature of the Victorian Era: pp. 241-245--1913.
+
+WILSON, JOHN--Recreations of Christopher North, i. 313-318--1842.
+
+
+_Magazine Articles, &c._
+
+1820                        Analectic Magazine
+     June                   Antijacobin Review
+     April                  Eclectic Review
+     February               Gentleman's Magazine
+     January, March         London Magazine
+     July                   Monthly Magazine
+     March                  New Monthly
+     January, May           New Times
+     February               Northamptonshire County Magazine
+     May                    Quarterly Review
+
+1821 October                Ackermann's Repository
+     June                   British Critic
+                            Eclectic Review
+     November               European Magazine
+                            Gentleman's Magazine
+     October                Literary Chronicle
+     October                Literary Gazette
+     November               London Magazine
+                            Monthly Review
+
+1822 January                Eclectic Review
+
+1823                        London Magazine
+
+1827 June                   Ackermann's Repository
+     June                   Eclectic Review
+                            John Bull
+                            Literary Chronicle
+     March                  Literary Gazette
+                            Morning Chronicle
+
+1829                        British Almanac and Companion
+
+1831 November               Blackwood's
+1832 October                The Alfred
+                            Athenaeum
+     August                 True Sun
+
+1835 July 25                Athenaeum
+     August                 Blackwood's
+     July 25                Literary Gazette
+                            New Monthly
+
+1840 June                   Athenaeum
+     June                   Times
+
+1841 May                    English Journal
+     May                    Gentleman's Magazine
+
+1852 August 28              Notes and Queries
+
+1855 March 31               Illustrated London News
+
+1857 November 21            London Journal
+     January                Quarterly
+
+1858 March 6                Notes and Queries
+
+1860                        Living Age (U.S.A.)
+
+1863 October 31             Notes and Queries
+                            Once a Week
+
+1864                        Annual Register
+     July                   Gentleman's Magazine
+     July                   St. James's Magazine
+
+1865 June 17                Athenaeum
+                            Chambers' Journal
+     August                 Eclectic Review
+     November 11            Leisure Hour
+                            Spectator
+
+1866 January                Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine
+
+1869 November               Harper's New Monthly
+
+1870 June 17                Literary World
+
+1872 February 3             Notes and Queries
+                            Overland (U.S.A.)
+
+1873 April                  Athenaeum
+                            Leisure Hour
+     January                Literary World
+                            Notes and Queries
+                            Saturday Review, and many other
+                              reviews of Cherry's volume
+
+1874 October 17             Notes and Queries
+
+1877                        Living Age
+
+1886                        Northamptonshire Notes and Queries; 97.
+
+1890 December 13            All the Year Round
+     September 6            Notes and Queries
+
+1893 August, September      Literary World
+
+1901 July                   Current Literature (U.S.A.)
+                            Freethinker
+                            Monthly Review
+
+1902 April                  Gentleman's Magazine
+
+1908 December 17            Nation (New York)
+
+1909 March                  Current Literature
+                            T.P.'s Weekly
+
+1913 January                South Atlantic Quarterly
+
+1914 October                Yale Review
+
+1915 May                    Fortnightly Review
+
+1917 July 19                Dial (U.S.A.)
+
+1919 September              Cornhill Magazine
+
+1920 February 22            Nation
+     March, April           Athenaeum
+     May                    Oxford Outlook
+     July                   London Mercury
+     October                Poetry Review
+
+In addition to these references, valuable material is contained in
+such local papers as the Northampton Herald, Northampton Mercury,
+Stamford Mercury, Stamford Guardian, and the Peterborough Express,
+and the Peterborough Standard; particularly under the important dates
+1820, 1864, 1873, and 1893.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS CHIEFLY FROM MANUSCRIPT ***
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