John Clare

"The World, its hopes and fears, have pass'd away;     No more its trifling thou shalt feel or see;     Thy hopes are ripening in a brighter day,"

"The fir trees taper into twigs and wear     The rich blue green of summer all the year,     Softening the roughest tempest almost calm     And"

"Slow boiling up, on the horizon's brim,     Huge clouds arise, mountainous, dark and grim,     Sluggish and slow upon the air they ride,     As"

"The gipsy's life is a merry life,         And ranting boys we be;         We pay to none or rent or tax,         And live untith'd and free"

"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"

"Dedicated To The Rev. J. Knowles Holland.     The beating snow-clad bell, with sounding dead,     Hath clanked four--the woodman's wak'd again;"

"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,"

"Sweet bottle-shaped flower of lushy red,     Born when the summer wakes her warmest breeze,     Among the meadow's waving grasses spread,     O"

"The linnet sat upon its nest,      By gales of morning softly prest,      His green wing and his greener breast      Were damp with dews of mo"

"Just like the berry brown is my bonny lassie O!      And in the smoky camp lives my bonny lassie O!      Where the scented woodbine weaves"

"Malicious insect, little vengeful bee,     With venom-sting thou'rt whirling round and round     A harmless head that ne'er meant wrong to thee,"

"A beanfield full in blossom smells as sweet      As Araby, or groves of orange flowers;      Black-eyed and white, and feathered to one's feet,"

"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 oa"

"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,"

"The bonny March morning is beaming      In mingled crimson and grey,      White clouds are streaking and creaming      The sky till the noon o"

"Scenes of love and days of pleasure,      I must leave them all, lassie.      Scenes of love and hours of leisure,      All are gone for aye,"

"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 d"

"Once musing o'er an old effaced stone,     Longing to know whose dust it did conceal,     I anxious ponder'd o'er what might reveal,     And so"

"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,"

"The little cottage stood alone, the pride     Of solitude surrounded every side.     Bean fields in blossom almost reached the wall;     A gard"

"Though o'er the darksome northern hill     Old ambush'd winter frowning flies,     And faintly drifts his threatenings still     In snowy sweet"

"O Langley Bush! the shepherd's sacred shade,     Thy hollow trunk oft gain'd a look from me;     Full many a journey o'er the heath I've made,"

"This is the month the nightingale, clod brown,      Is heard among the woodland shady boughs:      This is the time when in the vale, grass-gro"

"Lovely insect, haste away,     Greet once more the sunny day;     Leave, O leave the murky barn,     Ere trapping spiders thee discern;     So"

"Thrice welcome here again, thou flutt'ring thing,     That gaily seek'st about the opening flower,     And opest and shutt'st thy gaudy-spangled"

"In the cowslip pips I lie,     Hidden from the buzzing fly,     While green grass beneath me lies,     Pearled with dew like fishes' eyes,"

"What makes me love thee now, thou dreary scene,     And see in each swell'd heap a peaceful bed?     I well remember that the time has been,"

"Poet of mighty power, I fain     Would court the muse that honoured thee,     And, like Elisha's spirit, gain     A part of thy intensity;"

"The faint sun tipt the rising ground,     No blustering wind, the air was still;     The blue mist, thinly scatter'd round,     Verg'd along th"

"Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn     Her death-bed steeps in tears:--to hail the May     New blooming blossoms 'neath the sun are born,"

"Youth has no fear of ill, by no cloudy days annoyed,         But the old man's all hath fled, and his hopes have met their doom:         The"

"The cataract, whirling down the precipice,     Elbows down rocks and, shouldering, thunders through.     Roars, howls, and stifled murmurs never"

"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"

"Old elm, that murmured in our chimney top     The sweetest anthem autumn ever made     And into mellow whispering calms would drop     When sho"

"Argument. Introduction-Lubin's childhood-his Winter Amusements-Fairy Tales-His superstitious Fancies-Approach of Spring-Mayday-His Parents-Lubin des"

"Surely Lucy love returns,     Though her meaning's not reveal'd;     Surely love her bosom burns,     Which her coyness keeps conceal'd:     E"

"Elia, thy reveries and visioned themes     To care's lorn heart a luscious pleasure prove;     Wild as the mystery of delightful dreams,"

"In life's first years as on a mother's breast,     When Nature nurs'd me in her flowery pride,     I cull'd her bounty, such as seemed best,"

"How sweet it is, when suns get warmly high,     In the mid-noon, as May's first cowslip springs,     And the young cuckoo his soft ditty sings,"

"Old-fashioned uncouth measurer of the day,     I love to watch thy filtering burthen pass;     Though some there are that live would bid thee st"

""What ails my love, where can he be?     He never broke a vow,     Though twice the clock's reminded me     That he's deceiv'd me now.     Thr"

""Adieu, my love, adieu!      Be constant and be true      As the daisies gemmed with dew,      Bonny maid."      The cows their thirst were s"

"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 scho"

"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"

"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"

"Timid and smiling, beautiful and shy,     She drops her head at every passer bye.     Afraid of praise she hurries down the streets     And tur"

"I pluck Summer blossoms,      And think of rich bosoms--      The bosoms I've leaned on, and worshipped, and won.      The rich valley lilies,"

"O once I had a true love,      As blest as I could be:      Patty was my turtle dove,      And Patty she loved me.      We walked the fields"

"I love thee, sweet Mary, but love thee in fear;     Were I but the morning breeze, healthy and airy,     As thou goest a walking I'd breathe in"

"Warm into praises, kindling muse,     With grateful transport raise thy views     To Him, who moves this ball,     Who whirls, in silent harmon"

"Cowslip bud, so early peeping,     Warm'd by April's hazard hours;     O'er thy head though sunshine's creeping,     Close the threatening temp"

"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 s"

"O it was a lorn and a dismal night,         And the storm beat loud and high;         Not a friendly light to guide me right         Was th"

"Black grows the southern sky, betokening rain,     And humming hive-bees homeward hurry bye:     They feel the change; so let us shun the grain,"

"Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,     That overhung a molehill large and round,     I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush     Sing"

"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,"

"Love lives beyond     The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew!     I love the fond,     The faithful, and the true.     Love lives in sleep"

"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"

"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"

"There's the daisy, the woodbine,     And crow-flower so golden;     There's the wild rose, the eglantine,     And May-buds unfolding;     Ther"