Am meisten gelesen ▸
John Clare
I wandered out one rainy day
And heard a bird with merry joys
Cry "wet my foot" for half the way;
I stood and wondered at the noise,
When from my foot a bird did flee--
The rain flew bouncing from her breast
I wondered what the bird could be,
And almost trampled on her nest.
The nest was full of eggs and round--
I met a shepherd in the vales,
And stood to tell him what I found.
He knew and said it was a quail's,
For he himself the nest had found,
Among the wheat and on the green,
When going on his daily round,
With eggs as many as fifteen.
Rearrange a "Wife's" affection!
When they dislocate my Brain!
Amputate my freckled Bosom!
Make me bearded like a man!
Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness --
Blush, my unacknowledged clay --
Seven years of troth have taught thee
More than Wifehood every may!
Love that never leaped its socket --
Trust entrenched in narrow pain --
Constancy thro' fire -- awarded --
Anguish -- bare of anodyne!
Burden -- borne so far triumphant --
None suspect me of the crown,
For I wear the "Thorns" till Sunset --
Then -- my Diadem put on.
Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours' eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.
When they see my songs
They will sigh and say,
"Poor soul, wistful soul,
Lonely night and day."
They will never know
All your love for me
Surer than the spring,
Stronger than the sea;
Hidden out of sight
Like a miser's gold
In forsaken fields
Where the wind is cold.
Out in the garden,
Out in the windy, swinging dark,
Under the trees and over the flower-beds,
Over the grass and under the hedge border,
Someone is sweeping, sweeping,
Some old gardener.
Out in the windy, swinging dark,
Someone is secretly putting in order,
Someone is creeping, creeping.
I was a peasant girl from Germany,
Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.
And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene’s.
On a summer’s day when she was away
He stole into the kitchen and took me
Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat,
I turning my head. Then neither of us
Seemed to know what happened.
And I cried for what would become of me.
And cried and cried as my secret began to show.
One day Mrs. Greene said she understood,
And would make no trouble for me,
And, being childless, would adopt it.
(He had given her a farm to be still.)
So she hid in the house and sent out rumors,
As if it were going to happen to her.
A creature slender as a reed,
And sad-eyed as a doe
Lies here (but take my word for it,
And do not pry below).
One lovely name adorns my song,
And, dwelling in the heart,
Forever falters at the tongue,
And trembles to depart.
Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid:
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.
But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
Shall we roam, my love,
To the twilight grove,
When the moon is rising bright;
Oh, I'll whisper there,
In the cool night-air,
What I dare not in broad daylight!
I'll tell thee a part
Of the thoughts that start
To being when thou art nigh;
And thy beauty, more bright
Than the stars' soft light,
Shall seem as a weft from the sky.
When the pale moonbeam
On tower and stream
Sheds a flood of silver sheen,
How I love to gaze
I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where eer I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good bye.
I met her in the greenest dells
Where dewdrops pearl the wood blue bells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.
Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm
Nor question much
That subtle wreath of hair which crowns my arm;
The mystery, the sign, you must not touch,
For 'tis my outward Soul,
Viceroy to that which then to heaven being gone
Will leave this to control
And keep these limbs, her Provinces, from dissolution.
For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall
Through every part
Can tie those parts, and make me one of all,
These hairs, which upward grew, and strength and art
Have from a better brain,
Can better do't; except she meant that I
By this should know my pain,
As prisoners then are manacled when they're condemned to die.