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Contemplative, John Clare, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeJohn Clare

Distant Hills

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 oaks thicken all the woods, With weeds and brakes as here? Does common water make the floods, That's common everywhere? Is grass the green that clothes the ground? Are springs the common springs? Daisies and cowslips dropping round, Are such the flowers she brings? Are cottages of mud and stone, By valley wood and glen, And their calm dwellers little known Men, and but common men,
ContemplativeJohn Clare

The Ants

What wonder strikes the curious, while he views The black ant's city, by a rotten tree, Or woodland bank! In ignorance we muse: Pausing, annoyed,--we know not what we see, Such government and thought there seem to be; Some looking on, and urging some to toil, Dragging their loads of bent-stalks slavishly: And what's more wonderful, when big loads foil One ant or two to carry, quickly then A swarm flock round to help their fellow-men. Surely they speak a language whisperingly, Too fine for us to hear; and sure their ways Prove they have kings and laws, and that they be Deformed remnants of the Fairy-days.
ContemplativeJohn Clare

The Sailor-Boy

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 native fields, where the scarlet poppies grew, And the groundlark left his nest like a neighbour which I knew. The pigeons from the dove cote cooed over the old lane, The crow flocks from the oakwood went flopping oer the grain; Like lots of dear old neighbours whom I shall see no more They greeted me that morning I left the English shore. The sun was just a-rising above the heath of furze, And the shadows grow to giants; that bright ball never stirs: There the shepherds lay with their dogs by their side, And they started up and barked as my shadow they espied.
ContemplativeJohn Clare

Autumn

The thistle-down's flying, though the winds are all still, On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot; Through stones past the counting it bubbles red hot. The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread, The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead. The fallow fields glitter like water indeed, And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed. Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun, And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run; Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
ContemplativeJohn Clare

The Poet's Death

The world is taking little heed And plods from day to day: The vulgar flourish like a weed, The learned pass away. We miss him on the summer path The lonely summer day, Where mowers cut the pleasant swath And maidens make the hay. The vulgar take but little heed; The garden wants his care; There lies the book he used to read, There stands the empty chair. The boat laid up, the voyage oer, And passed the stormy wave, The world is going as before, The poet in his grave.
ContemplativeJohn Clare

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.
ContemplativeJohn Clare

Song's Eternity

What is song's eternity? Come and see. Can it noise and bustle be? Come and see. Praises sung or praises said Can it be? Wait awhile and these are dead-- Sigh, sigh; Be they high or lowly bred They die. What is song's eternity? Come and see. Melodies of earth and sky, Here they be. Song once sung to Adam's ears Can it be? Ballads of six thousand years
ContemplativeJohn Clare

Clock-a-Clay

In the cowslip pips I lie, Hidden from the buzzing fly, While green grass beneath me lies, Pearled with dew like fishes' eyes, Here I lie, a clock-a-clay, Waiting for the time of day. While the forest quakes surprise, And the wild wind sobs and sighs, My home rocks as like to fall, On its pillar green and tall; When the pattering rain drives by Clock-a-clay keeps warm and dry. Day by day and night by night, All the week I hide from sigh; In the cowslip pips I lie, In rain and dew still warm and dry;
ContemplativeJohn Clare

Early Spring

The Spring is come, and Spring flowers coming too, The crocus, patty kay, the rich hearts' ease; The polyanthus peeps with blebs of dew, And daisy flowers; the buds swell on the trees; While oer the odd flowers swim grandfather bees In the old homestead rests the cottage cow; The dogs sit on their haunches near the pail, The least one to the stranger growls "bow wow," Then hurries to the door and cocks his tail, To knaw the unfinished bone; the placid cow Looks oer the gate; the thresher's lumping flail Is all the noise the spring encounters now.
ContemplativeJohn Clare

Gipsies

The snow falls deep; the forest lies alone; The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes, Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back; The gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up, And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow, Beneath the oak which breaks away the wind, And bushes close in snow-like hovel warm; There tainted mutton wastes upon the coals, And the half-wasted dog squats close and rubs, Then feels the heat too strong, and goes aloof; He watches well, but none a bit can spare, And vainly waits the morsel thrown away. Tis thus they live--a picture to the place, A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race.

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