John Clare Poems

What is song's eternity?
Come and see.
Can it noise and bustle be?
Come and see.
...

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;
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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.
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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
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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,
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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
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Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned,
Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring;
And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank'd, and crown'd,
A wild and giddy thing,
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The schoolboys still their morning ramble take
To neighboring village school with playing speed,
Loitering with passtime's leisure till they quake,
Oft looking up the wild-geese droves to heed,
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How sweet and pleasant grows the way
Through summer time again
While Landrails call from day to day
Amid the grass and grain
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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!
...