John Clare

Hen's Nest

Among the orchard weeds, from every search, Snugly and sure, the old hen’s nest is made, Who cackles every morning from her perch To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid; Who lays

The Winter's Spring

The winter comes; I walk alone, I want no bird to sing; To those who keep their hearts their own The winter is the spring. No flowers to please-no bees to hum- The coming

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 by And swings her tail and turns prepared to fly. The

Remembrances

Summer 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

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

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

The Landrail

How sweet and pleasant grows the way Through summer time again While Landrails call from day to day Amid the grass and grain We hear it in the weeding time When knee deep waves

The Instinct Of Hope

Is there another world for this frail dust To warm with life and be itself again? Something about me daily speaks there must, And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain? ‘Tis nature’s prophesy

Clock-O'-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-o’-clay, Waiting for the time o’ day.

Evening

‘Tis evening; the black snail has got on his track, And gone to its nest is the wren, And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back, Clings to the bowed bents

Wood Rides

Who hath not felt the influence that so calms The weary mind in summers sultry hours When wandering thickest woods beneath the arms Of ancient oaks and brushing nameless flowers That verge the little

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 on their glittering wings, How merrily they creep, and run, and

The Mores

Far spread the moorey ground a level scene Bespread with rush and one eternal green That never felt the rage of blundering plough Though centurys wreathed spring’s blossoms on its brow Still meeting plains

Love Lives Beyond The Tomb

Love lives beyond the tomb, And earth, which fades like dew! I love the fond, The faithful, and the true. Love lives in sleep: ‘Tis happiness of healthy dreams: Eve’s dews may weep, But

The Flood

On Lolham Brigs in wild and lonely mood I’ve seen the winter floods their gambols play Through each old arch that trembled while I stood Bent o’er its wall to watch the dashing spray

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 shadows

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

Farewell

Farewell to the bushy clump close to the river And the flags where the butter-bump hides in forever; Farewell to the weedy nook, hemmed in by waters; Farewell to the miller’s brook and his

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

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

Early Nightingale

When first we hear the shy-come nightingales, They seem to mutter o’er their songs in fear, And, climb we e’er so soft the spinney rails, All stops as if no bird was anywhere. The

Summer

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, And the crow is on the oak a-building of her

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 by.

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 o’er the

Autumn Birds

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought, And heron slow as if it might be caught. The flopping crows on weary wings go by And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly. The

Christmass

Christmass is come and every hearth Makes room to give him welcome now Een want will dry its tears in mirth And crown him wi a holly bough Tho tramping neath a winters sky

To A 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

May

Come queen of months in company Wi all thy merry minstrelsy The restless cuckoo absent long And twittering swallows chimney song And hedge row crickets notes that run From every bank that fronts the

The Nightingale's Nest

Up this green woodland-ride let’s softly rove, And list the nightingale – she dwells just here. Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear The noise might drive her from her home of love

Evening Primrose

When once the sun sinks in the west, And dewdrops 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

The Cuckoo

The cuckoo, like a hawk in flight, With narrow pointed wings Whews o’er our heads-soon out of sight And as she flies she sings: And darting down the hedgerow side She scares the little

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

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;

The Maple Tree

The Maple with its tassell flowers of green That turns to red, a stag horn shapèd seed Just spreading out its scallopped leaves is seen, Of yellowish hue yet beautifully green. Bark ribb’d like