Chapter 10
Summer's 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 from heart and eye and forever far away. Dear heart, and can it be that such raptures meet decay? I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay, I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout and play On its bank at "clink and bandy," "chock" and "taw" and "ducking stone," Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own Like a ruin of the past all alone.
When I used to lie and sing by old Eastwell's boiling spring, When I used to tie the willow boughs together for a swing, And fish with crooked pins and thread and never catch a thing, With heart just like a feather, now as heavy as a stone; When beneath old Lea Close oak I the bottom branches broke To make our harvest cart like so many working folk, And then to cut a straw at the brook to have a soak. O I never dreamed of parting or that trouble had a sting, Or that pleasures like a flock of birds would ever take to wing, Leaving nothing but a little naked spring.
When jumping time away on old Crossberry Way, And eating awes like sugarplums ere they had lost the may, And skipping like a leveret before the peep of day On the roly poly up and downs of pleasant Swordy Well, When in Round Oak's narrow lane as the south got black again We sought the hollow ash that was shelter from the rain, With our pockets full of peas we had stolen from the grain; How delicious was the dinner time on such a showery day! O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away, The ancient pulpit trees and the play.
When for school oer Little Field with its brook and wooden brig, Where I swaggered like a man though I was not half so big, While I held my little plough though twas but a willow twig, And drove my team along made of nothing but a name, "Gee hep" and "hoit" and "woi"--O I never call to mind These pleasant names of places but I leave a sigh behind, While I see little mouldiwarps hang sweeing to the wind On the only aged willow that in all the field remains, And nature hides her face while they're sweeing in their chains And in a silent murmuring complains.
Here was commons for their hills, where they seek for freedom still, Though every common's gone and though traps are set to kill The little homeless miners--O it turns my bosom chill When I think of old Sneap Green, Puddock's Nook and Hilly Snow, Where bramble bushes grew and the daisy gemmed in dew And the hills of silken grass like to cushions to the view, Where we threw the pismire crumbs when we'd nothing else to do, All levelled like a desert by the never weary plough, All banished like the sun where that cloud is passing now And settled here for ever on its brow.
O I never thought that joys would run away from boys, Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys; But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys To petrify first feelings like the fable into stone, Till I found the pleasure past and a winter come at last, Then the fields were sudden bare and the sky got overcast And boyhood's pleasing haunt like a blossom in the blast Was shrivelled to a withered weed and trampled down and done, Till vanished was the morning spring and set the summer sun And winter fought her battle strife and won.
By Langley Bush I roam, but the bush hath left its hill, On Cowper Green I stray, tis a desert strange and chill, And the spreading Lea Close oak, ere decay had penned its will, To the axe of the spoiler and self-interest fell a prey, And Crossberry Way and old Round Oak's narrow lane With its hollow trees like pulpits I shall never see again, Enclosure like a Buonaparte let not a thing remain, It levelled every bush and tree and levelled every hill And hung the moles for traitors--though the brook is running still It runs a sicker brook, cold and chill.
O had I known as then joy had left the paths of men, I had watched her night and day, be sure, and never slept agen, And when she turned to go, O I'd caught her mantle then, And wooed her like a lover by my lonely side to stay; Ay, knelt and worshipped on, as love in beauty's bower, And clung upon her smiles as a bee upon a flower, And gave her heart my posies, all cropt in a sunny hour, As keepsakes and pledges all to never fade away; But love never heeded to treasure up the may, So it went the common road to decay.
_The Cottager_
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 stand To talk of "Lunun" as a foreign land. For from his cottage door in peace or strife He neer went fifty miles in all his life. His knowledge with old notions still combined Is twenty years behind the march of mind. He views new knowledge with suspicious eyes And thinks it blasphemy to be so wise. On steam's almighty tales he wondering looks As witchcraft gleaned from old blackletter books. Life gave him comfort but denied him wealth, He toils in quiet and enjoys his health, He smokes a pipe at night and drinks his beer And runs no scores on tavern screens to clear. He goes to market all the year about And keeps one hour and never stays it out. Een at St. Thomas tide old Rover's bark Hails Dapple's trot an hour before it's dark. He is a simple-worded plain old man Whose good intents take errors in their plan. Oft sentimental and with saddened vein He looks on trifles and bemoans their pain, And thinks the angler mad, and loudly storms With emphasis of speech oer murdered worms. And hunters cruel--pleading with sad care Pity's petition for the fox and hare, Yet feels self-satisfaction in his woes For war's crushed myriads of his slaughtered foes. He is right scrupulous in one pretext And wholesale errors swallows in the next. He deems it sin to sing, yet not to say A song--a mighty difference in his way. And many a moving tale in antique rhymes He has for Christmas and such merry times, When "Chevy Chase," his masterpiece of song, Is said so earnest none can think it long. Twas the old vicar's way who should be right, For the late vicar was his heart's delight, And while at church he often shakes his head To think what sermons the old vicar made, Downright and orthodox that all the land Who had their ears to hear might understand, But now such mighty learning meets his ears He thinks it Greek or Latin which he hears, Yet church receives him every sabbath day And rain or snow he never keeps away. All words of reverence still his heart reveres, Low bows his head when Jesus meets his ears, And still he thinks it blasphemy as well Such names without a capital to spell. In an old corner cupboard by the wall His books are laid, though good, in number small, His Bible first in place; from worth and age Whose grandsire's name adorns the title page, And blank leaves once, now filled with kindred claims, Display a world's epitome of names. Parents and children and grandchildren all Memory's affections in the lists recall. And prayer-book next, much worn though strongly bound, Proves him a churchman orthodox and sound. The "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Death of Abel" Are seldom missing from his Sunday table, And prime old Tusser in his homely trim, The first of bards in all the world with him, And only poet which his leisure knows; Verse deals in fancy, so he sticks to prose. These are the books he reads and reads again And weekly hunts the almanacks for rain. Here and no further learning's channels ran; Still, neighbours prize him as the learned man. His cottage is a humble place of rest With one spare room to welcome every guest, And that tall poplar pointing to the sky His own hand planted when an idle boy, It shades his chimney while the singing wind Hums songs of shelter to his happy mind. Within his cot the largest ears of corn He ever found his picture frames adorn: Brave Granby's head, De Grosse's grand defeat; He rubs his hands and shows how Rodney beat. And from the rafters upon strings depend Beanstalks beset with pods from end to end, Whose numbers without counting may be seen Wrote on the almanack behind the screen. Around the corner up on worsted strung Pooties in wreaths above the cupboard hung. Memory at trifling incidents awakes And there he keeps them for his children's sakes, Who when as boys searched every sedgy lane, Traced every wood and shattered clothes again, Roaming about on rapture's easy wing To hunt those very pooty shells in spring. And thus he lives too happy to be poor While strife neer pauses at so mean a door. Low in the sheltered valley stands his cot, He hears the mountain storm and feels it not; Winter and spring, toil ceasing ere tis dark, Rests with the lamb and rises with the lark, Content his helpmate to the day's employ And care neer comes to steal a single joy. Time, scarcely noticed, turns his hair to grey, Yet leaves him happy as a child at play.
_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 in their glittering wings, How merrily they creep, and run, and fly! No kin they bear to labour's drudgery, Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose; And where they fly for dinner no one knows-- The dew-drops feed them not--they love the shine Of noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine. All day they're playing in their Sunday dress-- Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less; Then, to the heath bell's silken hood they fly, And like to princes in their slumbers lie, Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all, In silken beds and roomy painted hall. So merrily they spend their summer day, Now in the cornfields, now the new-mown hay. One almost fancies that such happy things, With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings, Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid, Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still, Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.
_Sudden Shower_
Black grows the southern sky, betokening rain, And humming hive-bees homeward hurry bye: They feel the change; so let us shun the grain, And take the broad road while our feet are dry. Ay, there some dropples moistened on my face, And pattered on my hat--tis coming nigh! Let's look about, and find a sheltering place. The little things around, like you and I, Are hurrying through the grass to shun the shower. Here stoops an ash-tree--hark! the wind gets high, But never mind; this ivy, for an hour, Rain as it may, will keep us dryly here: That little wren knows well his sheltering bower, Nor leaves his dry house though we come so near.
_Evening Primrose_
When once the sun sinks in the west, And dew-drops 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 dew; And, shunning-hermit of the light, Wastes its fair bloom upon the night; Who, blindfold to its fond caresses, Knows not the beauty he possesses. Thus it blooms on till night is bye And day looks out with open eye, Abashed at the gaze it cannot shun, It faints and withers, and is done.
_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 thy buttressed roots to sit, and lean In careless attitude, and there reflect On times, and deeds, and darings that have been-- Old castaways, now swallowed in neglect; While thou art towering in thy strength of heart, Stirring the soul to vain imaginings, In which life's sordid being hath no part. The wind of that eternal ditty sings, Humming of future things, that burn the mind To leave some fragment of itself behind.
_Wild Bees_
These children of the sun which summer brings As pastoral minstrels in her merry train Pipe rustic ballads upon busy wings And glad the cotters' quiet toils again. The white-nosed bee that bores its little hole In mortared walls and pipes its symphonies, And never absent couzen, black as coal, That Indian-like bepaints its little thighs, With white and red bedight for holiday, Right earlily a-morn do pipe and play And with their legs stroke slumber from their eyes. And aye so fond they of their singing seem That in their holes abed at close of day They still keep piping in their honey dreams, And larger ones that thrum on ruder pipe Round the sweet smelling closen and rich woods Where tawny white and red flush clover buds Shine bonnily and bean fields blossom ripe, Shed dainty perfumes and give honey food To these sweet poets of the summer fields; Me much delighting as I stroll along The narrow path that hay laid meadow yields, Catching the windings of their wandering song. The black and yellow bumble first on wing To buzz among the sallow's early flowers, Hiding its nest in holes from fickle spring Who stints his rambles with her frequent showers; And one that may for wiser piper pass, In livery dress half sables and half red, Who laps a moss ball in the meadow grass And hoards her stores when April showers have fled; And russet commoner who knows the face Of every blossom that the meadow brings, Starting the traveller to a quicker pace By threatening round his head in many rings: These sweeten summer in their happy glee By giving for her honey melody.
_The Firetail's Nest_
"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, Picking the flies from orchard apple tree, And "pink" the chaffinch cries its well-known strain, Urging its kind to utter "pink" again, While in a quiet mood hedgesparrows try An inward stir of shadowed melody. Around the rotten tree the firetail mourns As the old hedger to his toil returns, Chopping the grain to stop the gap close by The hole where her blue eggs in safety lie. Of everything that stirs she dreameth wrong And pipes her "tweet tut" fears the whole day long.
_The Fear of Flowers_
The nodding oxeye bends before the wind, The woodbine quakes lest boys their flowers should find, And prickly dogrose spite of its array Can't dare the blossom-seeking hand away, While thistles wear their heavy knobs of bloom Proud as a warhorse wears its haughty plume, And by the roadside danger's self defy; On commons where pined sheep and oxen lie In ruddy pomp and ever thronging mood It stands and spreads like danger in a wood, And in the village street where meanest weeds Can't stand untouched to fill their husks with seeds, The haughty thistle oer all danger towers, In every place the very wasp of flowers.
_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 then the cricket sings more strong, And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear The short night weary with their fretting song. Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare, Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank The yellowhammer flutters in short fears From off its nest hid in the grasses rank, And drops again when no more noise it hears. Thus nature's human link and endless thrall, Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.
_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 his melancholy wing, And oddling crow in idle motions swing On the half rotten ashtree's topmost twig, Beside whose trunk the gipsy 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 awe 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.
_Pleasures of Fancy_
A path, old tree, goes by thee crooking on, And through this little gate that claps and bangs Against thy rifted trunk, what steps hath gone? Though but a lonely way, yet mystery hangs Oer crowds of pastoral scenes recordless here. The boy might climb the nest in thy young boughs That's slept half an eternity; in fear The herdsman may have left his startled cows For shelter when heaven's thunder voice was near; Here too the woodman on his wallet laid For pillow may have slept an hour away; And poet pastoral, lover of the shade, Here sat and mused half some long summer day While some old shepherd listened to the lay.
_To Napoleon_
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 strain for glory when thy die was cast. That little island, on the Atlantic sea, Was but a dust-spot in a lake: thy mind Swept space as shoreless as eternity. Thy giant powers outstript this gaudy age Of heroes; and, as looking at the sun, So gazing on thy greatness, made men blind To merits, that had adoration won In olden times. The world was on thy page Of victories but a comma. Fame could find No parallel, thy greatness to presage.
_The Skylark_
Above the russet clods the corn is seen Sprouting its spiry points of tender green, Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake, Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break. Opening their golden caskets to the sun, The buttercups make schoolboys eager run, To see who shall be first to pluck the prize-- Up from their hurry see the Skylark flies, And oer her half-formed nest, with happy wings, Winnows the air till in the cloud she sings, Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies, And drops and drops till in her nest she lies, Which they unheeded passed--not dreaming then That birds, which flew so high, would drop again To nests upon the ground, which anything May come at to destroy. Had they the wing Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud And build on nothing but a passing cloud! As free from danger as the heavens are free From pain and toil, there would they build and be, And sail about the world to scenes unheard Of and unseen,--O were they but a bird! So think they, while they listen to its song, And smile and fancy and so pass along; While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn, Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.
_The Flood_
Waves trough, rebound, and furious boil again, Like plunging monsters rising underneath, Who at the top curl up a shaggy mane, A moment catching at a surer breath, Then plunging headlong down and down, and on Each following whirls the shadow of the last; And other monsters rise when those are gone, Crest their fringed waves, plunge onward and are past. The chill air comes around me oceanly, From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread; Strange birds like snowspots oer the whizzing sea Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled. On roars the flood, all restless to be free, Like Trouble wandering to Eternity.
_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; and, often an intruding guest, I watched her secret toils from day to day-- How true she warped the moss, to form a nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay; And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted-over shells of greeny blue; And there I witnessed in the sunny hours A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.
_November_
Sybil of months, and worshipper of winds, I love thee, rude and boisterous as thou art; And scraps of joy my wandering ever finds Mid thy uproarious madness--when the start Of sudden tempests stirs the forest leaves Into hoarse fury, till the shower set free Stills the huge swells. Then ebb the mighty heaves, That sway the forest like a troubled sea. I love thy wizard noise, and rave in turn Half-vacant thoughts and rhymes of careless form; Then hide me from the shower, a short sojourn, Neath ivied oak; and mutter to the storm, Wishing its melody belonged to me, That I might breathe a living song to thee.
_Earth's Eternity_
Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay: But hath it nothing of eternal kin? No majesty that shall not pass away? No soul of greatness springing up within? Thought marks without hoar shadows of sublime, Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win Eternity, stand laughing at old Time For ages: in the grand ancestral line Of things eternal, mounting to divine, I read Magnificence where ages pay Worship like conquered foes to the Apennine, Because they could not conquer. There sits Day Too high for Night to come at--mountains shine, Outpeering Time, too lofty for decay.
_Autumn_
Autumn comes laden with her ripened load Of fruitage and so scatters them abroad That each fern-smothered heath and mole-hill waste Are black with bramble berries--where in haste The chubby urchins from the village hie To feast them there, stained with the purple dye; While painted woods around my rambles be In draperies worthy of eternity. Yet will the leaves soon patter on the ground, And death's deaf voice awake at every sound: One drops--then others--and the last that fell Rings for those left behind their passing bell. Thus memory every where her tidings brings How sad death robs us of life's dearest things.
_Signs of Winter_
The cat runs races with her tail. The dog Leaps oer the orchard hedge and knarls the grass. The swine run round and grunt and play with straw, Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack. Sudden upon the elmtree tops the crow Unceremonious visit pays and croaks, Then swops away. From mossy barn the owl Bobs hasty out--wheels round and, scared as soon, As hastily retires. The ducks grow wild And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel A circle round the village and soon, tired, Plunge in the pond again. The maids in haste Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizzled clothes And laughing hurry in to keep them dry.
_Nightwind_
Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain, Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods To spread and foam and deluge all the plain. The cotter listens at his door again, Half doubting whether it be floods or wind, And through the thickening darkness looks afraid, Thinking of roads that travel has to find Through night's black depths in danger's garb arrayed. And the loud glabber round the flaze soon stops When hushed to silence by the lifted hand Of fearing dame who hears the noise in dread And thinks a deluge comes to drown the land; Nor dares she go to bed until the tempest drops.
NOTE.--The remaining poems in this section are taken from a series, numbering several hundred brief pieces, written by Clare in the winter of 1835-6. Perhaps it is unjust to Clare to consider them out of their environment; it would be more unjust not to represent this phase of his poetry.
_Birds in Alarm_
The firetail tells the boys when nests are nigh And tweets and flies from every passer-bye. The yellowhammer never makes a noise But flies in silence from the noisy boys; The boys will come and take them every day, And still she lays as none were ta'en away.
The nightingale keeps tweeting-churring round But leaves in silence when the nest is found. The pewit hollos "chewrit" as she flies And flops about the shepherd where he lies; But when her nest is found she stops her song And cocks [her] coppled crown and runs along. Wrens cock their tails and chitter loud and play, And robins hollo "tut" and fly away.
_Dyke Side_