(13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864 / Northamptonshire / England)

poet John Clare
#80 on top 500 poets
Previous Month October 2013 Next Month
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
31 1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 1 2 3
Poem of the Day
Select a day from the calendar.
Would you like to see the poem of the day in your e-mail box every morning?
Your email address:
  Subscribe FREE
  Unsubscribe
What do you think this poem is about?

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 its melancholy wing,
An oddling crow in idle motion swing
On the half-rotten ash-tree's topmost twig,
Beside whose trunk the gypsy 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 haw 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.

Submitted: Friday, January 03, 2003


Read poems about / on: lonely, tree, winter, love

Comments about this poem (Emmonsail's Heath in Winter by John Clare )

Enter the verification code :

  • Kevin Patrick (10/25/2012 10:07:00 PM)

    Clare's life was tragic even by poet standards he followed the tradition of troubled souls who used the pen to escape the horrors of their mind. What I love about his nature poems is how he can fill every scene with naturalistic beauty with rich cascading language. I know I could never walk under moonlight glade and come up with what he came. His was a true passion for the world, even though it ate his being.
    A good work from a great man

    0 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • Kevin Straw (10/25/2012 7:09:00 PM)

    The word love at the beginning is indicative. This lovely poem shows Clare's psychic downward trend. Out of the darkness of the soul soars the light.

    0 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • John Shea (10/25/2012 2:58:00 PM)

    I see the quagmire in the write. The evil crow in its flight.Frozen hedgehogs in the hedgerows.Then I hang my hat and start a party beside the trunk where the gypsy makes his bed. Certainly he was surely a dead head fan back in the day.

    0 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • Michael Harmon (10/26/2009 10:09:00 PM)

    So, PH, why was my comment removed?

    2 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • Ramesh T A (10/25/2009 1:53:00 AM)

    A model sonnet of poetic stuff about Natural vegetation in winter is good for reading pleasure rather than for ideas commendable!

    1 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • Myrtle Thomas (2/1/2009 12:39:00 PM)

    I loved this poem although much of the descriptions I dont understand.But it is good poetry, the words are just old English descriptors, but lovely just the same

    1 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • Marcy Jarvis (10/25/2005 12:45:00 AM)

    Mark, we should all be as idiotic.

    1 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • Mark Smith (10/25/2004 2:10:00 PM)

    I know I have just made an idiot of my self but at least I know good poetry when I read it that the only seed of comfort I have

    1 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • Mark Smith (10/25/2004 2:05:00 PM)

    Too good to only read on this site I hope you get published in the real world

    1 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
Read all 9 comments »

People who read John Clare also read

Top 500 Poems

  1. Phenomenal Woman
    Maya Angelou
  2. The Road Not Taken
    Robert Frost
  3. Still I Rise
    Maya Angelou
  4. If You Forget Me
    Pablo Neruda
  5. Dreams
    Langston Hughes
  6. Annabel Lee
    Edgar Allan Poe
  7. If
    Rudyard Kipling
  8. A Dream Within A Dream
    Edgar Allan Poe
  9. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
    Maya Angelou
  10. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
    Robert Frost
The Complete List of Top 500 Poems »
[Hata Bildir]