John Clare

"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,     S"

"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"

"The setting Sun withdraws his yellow light,     A gloomy staining shadows over all,     While the brown beetle, trumpeter of Night,     Proclai"

"Where the broad sheepwalk bare and brown     [Yields] scant grass pining after showers,     And winds go fanning up and down     The little str"

"The Autumn day now fades away,      The fields are wet and dreary;      The rude storm takes the flowers of May,      And Nature seemeth weary"

"When nature's beauty shone complete.     With summer's lovely weather,     And even, shadowing day's retreat,     Brought swains and maids toge"

"There was a time, when love's young flowers     With many a joy my bosom prest:     Sweet hours of bliss!--but short are hours,     Those hours"

"Sweet tiny flower of darkly hue,     Lone dweller in the pathless shade;     How much I love thy pensive blue     Of innocence so well display'"

"Upon a day, a merry day,      When summer in her best,      Like Sunday belles, prepares for play,      And joins each merry guest,      A ma"

"The Spring of life is o'er with me,      And love and all gone by;      Like broken bough upon yon tree,      I'm left to fade and die."

"Checq'd Autumn, doubly sweet is thy declining,     To meditate within this 'wilder'd shade;     To view the wood in its pied lustre shining,"

"The nodding oxeye bends before the wind,     The woodbine quakes lest boys their flowers should find,     And prickly dogrose spite of its array"

"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 t"

"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 obs"

"My Anna, summer laughs in mirth,     And we will of the party be,     And leave the crickets in the hearth     For green fields' merry minstrel"

"Nature, thou accept the song,     To thee the simple lines belong,     Inspir'd as brushing hill and dell     I stroll'd the way to Holywell."

""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,"

"O meet me to-night by the bright starlight,      Now the pleasant Spring's begun.      My own dear maid, by the greenwood shade,      In the c"

"The whitethorn is budding and rushes are green,      The ivy leaves rustle around the ash tree,      On the sweet sunny bank blue violets are s"

"O sweetly wild and 'witching Poesy!     Thou light of this world's hermitage I prove thee;     And surely none helps loving thee that knows thee"

"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 t"

"Ye injur'd fields, ye once were gay,     When nature's hand display'd     Long waving rows of willows grey,     And clumps of hawthorn shade;"

"Beyond expression, delicately fine,     Beneath her slender fingers swept the sound     Of 'witching tones, melodious, divine;     Soothing and"

"All nature owns with one accord     The great and universal Lord:     The sun proclaims him through the day,     The moon when daylight drops a"

"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 s"

"Dream not of love, to think it like         What waking love may prove to be,         For I dreamed so and broke my heart,         When my"

"Maid of Jerusalem, by the Dead Sea,     I wandered all sorrowing thinking of thee,--     Thy city in ruins, thy kindred deplored,     All falle"

"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"

"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 ni"

"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 croak"

"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"

"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 s"

"What wonder strikes the curious, while he views     The black ant's city, by a rotten tree,     Or woodland bank! In ignorance we muse:     Pau"

"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"

"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,"

"The eve put on her sweetest shroud,     The summer-dress she's often in,     Freck'd with white and purple cloud,     Dappled like a leopard's"

"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,     Ye"

"Now the wheat is in the ear, and the rose is on the brere,      And bluecaps so divinely blue, with poppies of bright scarlet hue,      Maiden,"

"Maid of the wilderness,      Sweet in thy rural dress,      Fond thy rich lips I press      Under this tree.      Morning her health bestows"

"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"

"I would not that my memory all should die,      And pass away with every common lot:      I would not that my humble dust should lie      In q"

"Upon the sabbath, sweet it is to walk     'Neath wood-side shelter of oak's spreading tree,     Or by a hedge-row track, or padded balk;     Or"

"Love, meet me in the green glen,     Beside the tall elm tree,     Where the sweet briar smells so sweet agen;     There come with me,     Mee"

"Bowing adorers of the gale,         Ye cowslips delicately pale,         Upraise your loaded stems;         Unfold your cups in splendour;"

"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 nat"

"There is a wilder'd spot delights me well,     Pent in a corner of my native vale,     Where tiny blossoms with a purple bell     Shiver their"

"O for that sweet, untroubled rest      That poets oft have sung!--      The babe upon its mother's breast,      The bird upon its young,"

"Night spreads upon the plain her ebon pall,     Day seems unable to wash out the stain;     A pausing truce kind nature gives to all,     And f"

"Be where I may when Death brings in his bill,     Demanding payment for life's ling'ring debt,     Or in my native village nestling still,"

"When shall I see the white-thorn leaves agen,     And yellowhammers gathering the dry bents     By the dyke side, on stilly moor or fen,     Fe"

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. -Solomon     What are life's joys and gains?     What pleasures crowd its ways,     That man should take such"

"O who can witness with a careless eye     The countless lamps that light an evening sky,     And not be struck with wonder at the sight!     To"

"Stopt by the storm, that long in sullen black     From the south-west stained its encroaching track,     Haymakers, hustling from the rain to hi"

"When once the sun sinks in the west,     And dew-drops pearl the evening's breast;     Almost as pale as moonbeams are,     Or its companionabl"

"On gloomy eve I roam'd about     'Neath Oxey's hazel bowers,     While timid hares were darting out,     To crop the dewy flowers;     And soo"

"Infant' graves are steps of angels, where     Earth's brightest gems of innocence repose.     God is their parent, and they need no tear;     H"

"The Spring is come, and Spring flowers coming too,     The crocus, patty kay, the rich hearts' ease;     The polyanthus peeps with blebs of dew,"

"Love, though it is not chill and cold,     But burning like eternal fire,     Is yet not of approaches bold,     Which gay dramatic tastes admi"

"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 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 footst"