MEMORY
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 quite a strange and unfrequented spot,
By all unheeded and by all forgot,
With nothing save the heedless winds to sigh,
And nothing but the dewy morn to weep
About my grave, far hid from the world's eye:
I fain would have some friend to wander nigh
And find a path to where my ashes sleep—
Not the cold heart that merely passes by,
To read who lies beneath, but such as keep
Past memories warm with deeds of other years,
And pay to friendship some few friendly tears.
"The Rural Muse" sold tolerably well for some months, and Mr. Whittaker told Mr. Emmerson that "he thought they would get off" the first edition. But the time was rapidly approaching when literary fame or failure, the constancy or fickleness of friends, the pangs of poverty or the joys of competence were to be alike matters of indifference to John Clare. He began to write in a piteous strain to Mrs. Emmerson, Mr. Taylor, and Dr. Darling, all of whom assured him of their deep sympathy, and promised assistance. Mrs. Emmerson, although completely prostrated by repeated and serious attacks of illness, sent him cheering letters so long as she could hold her pen, while Mr. Taylor wrote:—
"If you think that you can now come here for the advice of Dr. Darling I shall be very happy to see you, and any one who may attend you." The attacks of melancholy from which he had suffered occasionally for many years became more frequent and more intense, his language grew wild and incoherent, and at length he failed to recognize his own wife and children and became the subject of all kinds of hallucinations. There were times when he was perfectly rational, and he returned to work in his garden or in his little study with a zest which filled his family and neighbours with eager anticipations of his recovery, but every succeeding attack of his mental malady was more severe than that which preceded it. Of all that followed little need be said, for it is too painful to be dwelt upon, and the story of Clare's life hurries therefore to its close. His lunacy having been duly certified, Mr. Taylor and other of Clare's old friends in London charged themselves with the responsibility of removing him to the private asylum of Dr. Allen at High Beech, in Epping Forest. Mr. Taylor sending a trustworthy person to Northborough to accompany him to London and take care of him on the road. This was in June or July, 1837, and Clare remained under Mr. Allen's care for four years. Allan Cunningham, Mr. S. C. Hall, and others of Clare's literary friends energetically appealed to the public on behalf of the unhappy bard. Mr. Hall in the "Book of Gems" for 1838 wrote:—
"It is not yet too late: although he has given indications of a brain breaking up, a very envied celebrity may be obtained by some wealthy and good Samaritan who would rescue him from the Cave of Despair," adding, "Strawberry Hill might be gladly sacrificed for the fame of having saved Chatterton."
This appeal brought Mr. Hall a letter from the Marquis of Northampton, whose name is now for the first time associated with that of the poet. The Marquis informed Mr. Hall that he was not one of Clare's exceeding admirers, but he was struck and shocked by what that gentleman had said about "our county poet," and thought it would be "a disgrace to the county," to which Clare was "a credit," if he were left in a state of poverty. The county was neither very wealthy nor very literary, but his lordship thought that a collection of Clare's poems might be published by subscription, and if that suggestion were adopted he would take ten or twenty copies, or he would give a donation of money, if direct assistance of that kind were preferred. Mr. Hall says in his "Memories,":—
"The plan was not carried out, and if the Marquis gave any aid of any kind to the peasant-poet the world, and I verily believe the poet himself, remained in ignorance of the amount."
AT HIGH BEECH ASYLUM
All that was possible was done for Clare at the house of Dr. Allen, one of the early reformers of the treatment of lunatics. He was kept pretty constantly employed in the garden, and soon grew stout and robust. After a time he was allowed to stroll beyond the grounds of the asylum and to ramble about the forest. He was perfectly harmless, and would sometimes carry on a conversation in a rational manner, always, however, losing himself in the end in absolute nonsense. In March, 1841, he wrote a long and intelligible letter to Mrs. Clare, almost the only peculiarity in which is that every word is begun with a capital letter. There is no doubt that at this time he was possessed with the idea that he had two wives—Patty, whom he called his second wife, and his life-long ideal, Mary Joyce. In the letter just referred to he begins "My dear wife Patty," and in a postscript says, "Give my love to the dear boy who wrote to me, and to her who is never forgotten." He wrote verses which he told Dr. Allen were for his wife Mary, and that he intended to take them to her. He made several unsuccessful attempts to escape in the early part of 1841, but in July of that year he contrived to evade both watchers and pursuers, and reached Peterborough after being four days and three nights on the road in a penniless condition, and being so near to dying of starvation that he was compelled to eat grass like the beasts of the field. The day after his return to Northborough he wrote what he called an account of his journey, prefacing the narrative by this remark, "Returned home out of Essex and found no Mary." Mr. Martin gives this extraordinary document in his "Life of Clare." It is a weird, pathetic and pitiful story, "a tragedy all too deep for tears." Having finished the journal of his escape he addressed it with a letter to "Mary Clare, Glinton." In this letter he says:—
"I am not so lonely as I was in Essex, for here I can see Glinton Church, and feeling that my Mary is safe, if not happy I am gratified. Though my home is no home to me, my hopes are not entirely hopeless while even the memory of Mary lives so near to me. God bless you, my dear Mary! Give my love to our dear beautiful family and to your mother, and believe me, as ever I have been and ever shall be, my dearest Mary, your affectionate husband, John Clare." Truly,
"Love's not Time's fool: though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom."
AT NORTHAMPTON
Clare remained for a short time at Northborough, and was then removed under medical advice to the County Lunatic Asylum at Northampton, of which establishment he continued an inmate until his death in 1864. During the whole of that time the charge made by the authorities of the Asylum for his maintenance was paid either by Earl Fitzwilliam or by his son, the Hon. G. W. Fitzwilliam. It is to the credit of the managers of the institution that although the amount paid on his behalf was that usually charged for patients of the humbler classes, Clare was always treated in every respect as a "gentleman patient." He had his favourite window corner in the common sitting room, commanding a view of Northampton and the valley of the Nen, and books and writing materials were provided for him. Unless the Editor's memory is at fault, he was always addressed deferentially as "Mr. Clare," both by the officers of the Asylum and the townspeople; and when Her Majesty passed through Northampton, in 1844, in her progress to Burleigh, a seat was specially reserved for the poet near one of the triumphal arches. There was something very nearly akin to tenderness in the kindly sympathy which was shown for him, and his most whimsical utterances were listened to with gravity, lest he should feel hurt or annoyed. He was classified in the Asylum books among the "harmless," and for several years was allowed to walk in the fields or go into the town at his own pleasure. His favourite resting place at Northampton was a niche under the roof of the spacious portico of All Saints' Church, and here he would sometimes sit for hours, musing, watching the children at play, or jotting down passing thoughts in his pocket note-book.
THE APPROACHING END
In course of time it was found expedient not to allow him to wander beyond the Asylum grounds. He wrote occasionally to his son Charles, but appears never to have been visited by either relatives or friends. The neglect of his wife and children is inexplicable. It was no doubt while smarting under this treatment that he penned the lines given below, of which an eloquent critic has said that "in their sublime sadness and incoherence they sum up, with marvellous effect, the one great misfortune of the poet's life—his mental isolation— his inability to make his deepest character and thoughts intelligible to others. They read like the wail of a nature cut off from all access to other minds, concentrated at its own centre, and conscious of the impassable gulf which separates it from universal humanity:"—
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me, like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise.
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.
Clare's physical powers slowly declined, and at length he had to be wheeled about the Asylum grounds in a Bath chair. As he felt his end approaching he would frequently say "I have lived too long," or "I want to go home." Until within three days of his death he managed to reach his favourite seat in the window, but was then seized with paralysis, and on the afternoon of the 20th of May, 1864, without a struggle or a sigh his spirit passed away. He was taken home.
In accordance with Clare's own wish, his remains were interred in the churchyard at Helpstone, by the side of those of his father and mother, under the shade of a sycamore tree. The expenses of the funeral were paid by the Hon. G. W. Fitzwilliam. Two or three years afterwards a coped monument of Ketton stone was erected over Clare's remains. It bears this inscription:—
"Sacred to the Memory of John Clare, the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet. Born July 13, 1793. Died May 20th, 1864. A Poet is born, not made."
In 1869, another memorial was erected in the principal street of Helpstone. The style is Early English, and it bears suitable inscriptions from Clare's Works.
CONCLUSION
In looking back upon such a life as Clare's, so prominent are the human interests which confront us, that those of poetry, as one of the fine arts, are not unlikely to sink for a time completely out of sight. The long and painful strain upon our sympathy to which we are subject as we read the story is such perhaps as the life of no other English poet puts upon us. The spell of the great moral problems by which the lives of so many of our poets seem to have been more or less surrounded makes itself felt in every step of Clare's career. We are tempted to speak in almost fatalistic language of the disastrous gift of the poetic faculty, and to find in that the source of all Clare's woe. The well-known lines—
We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness—
ring in our ears, and we remember that these are the words of a poet endowed with a well-balanced mind, and who knew far less than Clare the experience of
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills.
In Clare's case we are tempted to say that the Genius of Poetry laid her fearful hand upon a nature too weak to bear her gifts and at the same time to master the untoward circumstances in which his lot was cast. But too well does poor Clare's history illustrate that interpretation of the myth which pictures Great Pan secretly busy among the reeds and fashioning, with sinister thought, the fatal pipe which shall "make a poet out of a man." And yet it may be doubted whether, on the whole, Clare's lot in life, and that of the wife and family who were dependent upon him, was aggravated by the poetic genius which we are thus trying to make the scapegoat for his misfortunes. It may be that the publicity acquired by the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet simply brings to the surface the average life of the English agricultural labourer in the person of one who was more than usually sensitive to suffering. Unhappily there is too good reason to believe that the privations to which Clare and his household were subject cannot be looked upon as exceptional in the class of society to which both husband and wife belonged, although they naturally acquire a deeper shade from the prospect of competency and comfort which Clare's gifts seemed to promise. In this light, while the miseries of the poet are none the less real and claim none the less of our sympathy, the moral problem of Clare's woes belongs rather to humanity at large than to poets in particular. We are at liberty to hope, then, that the world is all the richer, and that Clare's lot was none the harder, by reason of that dispensation of Providence which has given to English literature such a volume as "The Rural Muse." How many are there who not only fail, as Clare failed, to rise above their circumstances, but who, in addition, leave nothing behind them to enrich posterity! We are indeed the richer for Clare, but with what travail of soul to himself only true poets can know.
ASYLUM POEMS
'TIS SPRING, MY LOVE, 'TIS SPRING
'T is Spring, my love, 'tis Spring,
And the birds begin to sing:
If 'twas Winter, left alone with you,
Your bonny form and face
Would make a Summer place,
And be the finest flower that ever grew.
'T is Spring, my love, 'tis Spring,
And the hazel catkins hing,
While the snowdrop has its little blebs of dew;
But that's not so white within
As your bosom's hidden skin—
That sweetest of all flowers that ever grew.
The sun arose from bed,
All strewn with roses red,
But the brightest and the loveliest crimson place
Is not so fresh and fair,
Or so sweet beyond compare,
As thy blushing, ever smiling, happy face.
I love Spring's early flowers,
And their bloom in its first hours,
But they never half so bright or lovely seem
As the blithe and happy grace
Of my darling's blushing face,
And the happiness of love's young dream.
LOVE OF NATURE
I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens? There lives happiness for me!
My pulse beats calmer while His lightnings play!
My eye, with earth's delusions waxing dim,
Clears with the brightness of eternal day!
The elements crash round me! It is He!
Calmly I hear His voice and never start.
From Eve's posterity I stand quite free,
Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart.
Love is not here. Hope is, and at His voice—
The rolling thunder and the roaring sea—
My pulses leap, and with the hills rejoice;
Then strife and turmoil are at end for me.
No matter where life's ocean leads me on,
For Nature is my mother, and I rest,
When tempests trouble and the sun is gone,
Like to a weary child upon her breast.
THE INVITATION
Come hither, my dear one, my choice one, and rare one,
And let us be walking the meadows so fair,
Where on pilewort and daisies the eye fondly gazes,
And the wind plays so sweet in thy bonny brown hair.
Come with thy maiden eye, lay silks and satins by;
Come in thy russet or grey cotton gown;
Come to the meads, dear, where flags, sedge, and reeds appear,
Rustling to soft winds and bowing low down.
Come with thy parted hair, bright eyes, and forehead bare;
Come to the whitethorn that grows in the lane;
To banks of primroses, where sweetness reposes,
Come, love, and let us be happy again.
Come where the violet flowers, come where the morning showers
Pearl on the primrose and speedwell so blue;
Come to that clearest brook that ever runs round the nook
Where you and I pledged our first love so true.
TO THE LARK
Bird of the morn,
When roseate clouds begin
To show the opening dawn
Thou gladly sing'st it in,
And o'er the sweet green fields and happy vales
Thy pleasant song is heard, mixed with the morning gales.
Bird of the morn,
What time the ruddy sun
Smiles on the pleasant corn
Thy singing is begun,
Heartfelt and cheering over labourers' toil,
Who chop in coppice wild and delve the russet soil.
Bird of the sun,
How dear to man art thou!
When morning has begun
To gild the mountain's brow,
How beautiful it is to see thee soar so blest,
Winnowing thy russet wings above thy twitchy nest.
Bird of the Summer's day,
How oft I stand to hear
Thee sing thy airy lay,
With music wild and clear,
Till thou becom'st a speck upon the sky,
Small as the clods that crumble where I lie.
Thou bird of happiest song,
The Spring and Summer too
Are thine, the months along,
The woods and vales to view.
If climes were evergreen thy song would be
The sunny music of eternal glee.
GRAVES OF INFANTS
Infants' gravemounds are steps of angels, where
Earth's brightest gems of innocence repose.
God is their parent, so they need no tear;
He takes them to his bosom from earth's woes,
A bud their lifetime and a flower their close.
Their spirits are the Iris of the skies,
Needing no prayers; a sunset's happy close.
Gone are the bright rays of their soft blue eyes;
Flowers weep in dew-drops o'er them, and the gale gently sighs.
Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower,
Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye.
Each death
Was tolled on flowers as Summer gales went by.
They bowed and trembled, yet they heaved no sigh,
And the sun smiled to show the end was well.
Infants have nought to weep for ere they die;
All prayers are needless, beads they need not tell,
White flowers their mourners are, Nature their passing bell.
BONNIE LASSIE O!
O the evening's for the fair, bonny lassie O!
To meet the cooler air and join an angel there,
With the dark dishevelled hair,
Bonny lassie O!
The bloom's on the brere, bonny lassie O!
Oak apples on the tree; and wilt thou gang to see
The shed I've made for thee,
Bonny lassie O!
'T is agen the running brook, bonny lassie O!
In a grassy nook hard by, with a little patch of sky,
And a bush to keep us dry,
Bonny lassie O!
There's the daisy all the year, bonny lassie O!
There's the king-cup bright as gold, and the speedwell never cold,
And the arum leaves unrolled,
Bonny lassie O!
O meet me at the shed, bonny lassie O!
With the woodbine peeping in, and the roses like thy skin
Blushing, thy praise to win,
Bonny lassie O!
I will meet thee there at e'en, bonny lassie O!
When the bee sips in the beau, and grey willow branches lean,
And the moonbeam looks between,
Bonny lassie O!
PHOEBE OF THE SCOTTISH GLEN
Agen I'll take my idle pen
And sing my bonny mountain maid—
Sweet Phoebe of the Scottish glen,
Nor of her censure feel afraid.
I'll charm her ear with beauty's praise,
And please her eye with songs agen—
The ballads of our early days—
To Phoebe of the Scottish glen.
There never was a fairer thing
All Scotland's glens and mountains through.
The siller gowans of the Spring,
Besprent with pearls of mountain dew,
The maiden blush upon the brere,
Far distant from the haunts of men,
Are nothing half so sweet or dear
As Phoebe of the Scottish glen.
How handsome is her naked foot,
Moist with the pearls of Summer dew:
The siller daisy's nothing to 't,
Nor hawthorn flowers so white to view,
She's sweeter than the blooming brere,
That blossoms far away from men:
No flower in Scotland's half so dear
As Phoebe of the Scottish glen.
MAID OF THE WILDERNESS
Maid of the wilderness,
Sweet in thy rural dress,
Fond thy rich lips I press
Under this tree.
Morning her health bestows,
Sprinkles dews on the rose,
That by the bramble grows:
Maid happy be.
Womanhood round thee glows,
Wander with me.
The restharrow blooming,
The sun just a-coming,
Grass and bushes illuming,
And the spreading oak tree;
Come hither, sweet Nelly,
* * *
The morning is loosing
Its incense for thee.
The pea-leaf has dews on;
Love wander with me.
We'll walk by the river,
And love more than ever;
There's nought shall dissever
My fondness from thee.
Soft ripples the water,
Flags rustle like laughter,
And fish follow after;
Leaves drop from the tree.
Nelly, Beauty's own daughter,
Love, wander with me.
MARY BATEMAN
My love she wears a cotton plaid,
A bonnet of the straw;
Her cheeks are leaves of roses spread,
Her lips are like the haw.
In truth she is as sweet a maid
As true love ever saw.
Her curls are ever in my eyes,
As nets by Cupid flung;
Her voice will oft my sleep surprise,
More sweet than ballad sung.
O Mary Bateman's curling hair!
I wake, and there is nothing there.
I wake, and fall asleep again,
The same delights in visions rise;
There's nothing can appear more plain
Than those rose cheeks and those bright eyes.
I wake again, and all alone
Sits Darkness on his ebon throne.
All silent runs the silver Trent,
The cobweb veils are all wet through,
A silver bead's on every bent,
On every leaf a bleb of dew.
I sighed, the moon it shone so clear:
Was Mary Bateman walking here?
WHEN SHALL WE MEET AGAIN?
How many times Spring blossoms meek
Have faded on the land
Since last I kissed that pretty cheek,
Caressed that happy hand.
Eight time the green's been painted white
With daisies in the grass
Since I looked on thy eyes so bright,
And pressed my bonny lass.
The ground lark sung about the farms,
The blackbird in the wood,
When fast locked in each other's arms
By hedgerow thorn we stood.
It was a pleasant Sabbath day,
The sun shone bright and round,
His light through dark oaks passed, and lay
Like gold upon the ground.
How beautiful the blackbird sung,
And answered soft the thrush;
And sweet the pearl-like dew-drops hung
Upon the white thorn bush.
O happy day, eight years ago!
We parted without pain:
The blackbird sings, primroses blow;
When shall we meet again?
THE LOVER'S INVITATION
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, at the close o' eve, wilt thou, dear, thy cottage leave,
And walk with one that loves thee?
When the even's tiny tears bead upon the grassy spears,
And the spider's lace is wet with its pinhead blebs of dew,
Wilt thou lay thy work aside and walk by brooklets dim descried,
Where I delight to love thee?
While thy footfall lightly press'd tramples by the skylark's nest,
And the cockle's streaky eyes mark the snug place where it lies,
Mary, put thy work away, and walk at dewy close o' day
With me to kiss and love thee.
There's something in the time so sweet, when lovers in the evening
meet,
The air so still, the sky so mild, like slumbers of the cradled
child,
The moon looks over fields of love, among the ivy sleeps the dove:
To see thee is to love thee.
NATURE'S DARLING
Sweet comes the morning
In Nature's adorning,
And bright shines the dew on the buds of the thorn,
Where Mary Ann rambles
Through the sloe trees and brambles;
She's sweeter than wild flowers that open at morn;
She's a rose in the dew;
She's pure and she's true;
She's as gay as the poppy that grows in the corn.
Her eyes they are bright,
Her bosom's snow white,
And her voice is like songs of the birds in the grove.
She's handsome and bonny,
And fairer than any,
And her person and actions are Nature's and love.
She has the bloom of all roses,
She's the breath of sweet posies,
She's as pure as the brood in the nest of the dove.
Of Earth's fairest daughters,
Voiced like falling waters,
She walks down the meadows, than blossoms more fair.
O her bosom right fair is,
And her rose cheek so rare is,
And parted and lovely her glossy black hair.
Her bosom's soft whiteness!
The sun in its brightness
Has never been seen so bewilderingly fair.
The dewy grass glitters,
The house swallow twitters,
And through the sky floats in its visions of bliss;
The lark soars on high,
On cowslips dews lie,
And the last days of Summer are nothing like this.
When Mary Ann rambles
Through hedgerows and brambles,
The soft gales of Spring are the seasons of bliss.
I'LL DREAM UPON THE DAYS TO COME
I'll lay me down on the green sward,
Mid yellowcups and speedwell blue,
And pay the world no more regard,
But be to Nature leal and true.
Who break the peace of hapless man
But they who Truth and Nature wrong?
I'll hear no more of evil's plan,
But live with Nature and her song.
Where Nature's lights and shades are green,
Where Nature's place is strewn with flowers.
Where strife and care are never seen,
There I'll retire to happy hours,
And stretch my body on the green,
And sleep among the flowers in bloom,
By eyes of malice seldom seen,
And dream upon the days to come.
I'll lay me by the forest green,
I'll lay me on the pleasant grass;
My life shall pass away unseen;
I'll be no more the man I was.
The tawny bee upon the flower,
The butterfly upon the leaf,
Like them I'll live my happy hour,
A life of sunshine, bright and brief.
In greenwood hedges, close at hand,
Build, brood, and sing the little birds,
The happiest things in the green land,
While sweetly feed the lowing herds,
While softly bleat the roving sheep.
Upon the green grass will I lie,
A Summer's day, to think and sleep.
Or see the clouds sail down the sky.
TO ISABEL
Arise, my Isabel, arise!
The sun shoots forth his early ray,
The hue of love is in the skies,
The birds are singing, come away!
O come, my Isabella, come,
With inky tendrils hanging low;
Thy cheeks like roses just in bloom,
That in the healthy Summer glow.
That eye it turns the world away
From wanton sport and recklessness;
That eye beams with a cheerful ray,
And smiles propitiously to bless.
O come, my Isabella, dear!
O come, and fill these longing arms!
Come, let me see thy beauty here,
And bend in worship o'er thy charms.
O come, my Isabella, love!
My dearest Isabella, come!
Thy heart's affection, let me prove,
And kiss thy beauty in its bloom.
My Isabella, young and fair,
Thou darling of my home and heart,
Come, love, my bosom's truth to share,
And of its being form a part.
THE SHEPHERD'S DAUGHTER
How sweet is every lengthening day,
And every change of weather,
When Summer comes, on skies blue grey,
And brings her hosts together,
Her flocks of birds, her crowds of flowers,
Her sunny-shining water!
I dearly love the woodbine bowers,
That hide the Shepherd's Daughter—
In gown of green or brown or blue,
The Shepherd's Daughter, leal and true.
How bonny is her lily breast!
How sweet her rosy face!
She'd give my aching bosom rest,
Where love would find its place.
While earth is green, and skies are blue,
And sunshine gilds the water,
While Summer's sweet and Nature true,
I'll love the Shepherd's Daughter—
Her nut brown hair, her clear bright eye,
My daily thought, my only joy.
She's such a simple, sweet young thing,
Dressed in her country costume.
My wits had used to know the Spring,
Till I saw, and loved, and lost 'em.
How quietly the lily lies
Upon the deepest water!
How sweet to me the Summer skies!
And so's the Shepherd's Daughter—
With lily breast and rosy face
The sweetest maid in any place.
My singing bird, my bonny flower,
How dearly could I love thee!
To sit with thee one pleasant hour,
If thou would'st but approve me!
I swear by lilies white and yellow,
That flower on deepest water,
Would'st thou but make me happy fellow,
I'd wed the Shepherd's Daughter!
By all that's on the earth or water,
I more than love the Shepherd's Daughter.
LASSIE, I LOVE THEE
Lassie, I love thee!
The heavens above thee
Look downwards to move thee,
And prove my love true.
My arms round thy waist, love,
My head on thy breast, love;
By a true man caressed love,
Ne'er bid me adieu.
Thy cheek's full o' blushes,
Like the rose in the bushes,
While my love ardent gushes
With over delight.
Though clouds may come o'er thee,
Sweet maid, I'll adore thee,
As I do now before thee:
I love thee outright.
It stings me to madness
To see thee all gladness,
While I'm full of sadness
Thy meaning to guess.
Thy gown is deep blue, love,
In honour of true love:
Ever thinking of you, love,
My love I'll confess.
My love ever showing,
Thy heart worth the knowing,
It is like the sun glowing,
And hid in thy breast.
Thy lover behold me;
To my bosom I'll fold thee,
For thou, love, thou'st just told me,
So here thou may'st rest.
THE GIPSY LASS
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
Round the white-thorn's glossy leaves:
The sweetest maid on earth is my gipsy lassie O!
The brook it runs so clear by my bonny lassie O!
And the blackbird singeth near my bonny lassie O!
And there the wild briar rose
Wrinkles the clear stream as it flows
By the smoky camp of my bonny lassie O!
The groundlark singeth high o'er my bonny lassie O!
The nightingale lives nigh my gipsy lassie O!
They're with her all the year,
By the brook that runs so clear,
And there's none in all the world like my gipsy lassie O!
With a bosom white as snow is my gipsy lassie O!
With a foot like to the roe is my bonny lassie O!
Like the sweet birds she will sing,
While echo it will ring:
Sure there's none in the world like my bonny lassie O!
AT THE FOOT OF CLIFFORD HILL
Who loves the white-thorn tree,
And the river running free?
There a maiden stood with me
In Summer weather.
Near a cottage far from town,
While the sun went brightly down
O'er the meadows green and brown,
We loved together.
How sweet her drapery flowed,
While the moor-cock oddly crowed;
I took the kiss which love bestowed,
Under the white-thorn tree.
Soft winds the water curled,
The trees their branches furled;
Sweetest nook in all the world
Is where she stood with me.
Calm came the evening air,
The sky was sweet and fair,
In the river shadowed there,
Close by the hawthorn tree.
Round her neck I clasped my arms,
And kissed her rosy charms;
O'er the flood the hackle swarms,
Where the maiden stood with me.
O there's something falls so dear
On the music of the ear,
Where the river runs so clear,
And my lover met with me.
At the foot of Clifford Hill
Still I hear the clacking mill,
And the river's running still
Under the trysting tree.
TO MY WIFE—A VALENTINE
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 together,
By roses and woodbine,
In Summer's sunshine weather,
And Patty she was mine.
We stopped to gather primroses,
And violets white and blue,
In pastures and green closes
All glistening with the dew.
We sat upon green mole-hills,
Among the daisy flowers,
To hear the small birds' merry trills,
And share the sunny hours.
The blackbird on her grassy nest
We would not scare away,
Who nuzzling sat with brooding breast
On her eggs for half the day.
The chaffinch chirruped on the thorn,
And a pretty nest had she;
The magpie chattered all the morn
From her perch upon the tree.
And I would go to Patty's cot,
And Patty came to me;
Each knew the other's very thought
Under the hawthorn tree.
And Patty had a kiss to give,
And Patty had a smile,
To bid me hope and bid me love,
At every stopping stile.
We loved one Summer quite away,
And when another came,
The cowslip close and sunny day,
It found us much the same.
We both looked on the selfsame thing,
Till both became as one;
The birds did in the hedges sing,
And happy time went on.
The brambles from the hedge advance,
In love with Patty's eyes:
On flowers, like ladies at a dance,
Flew scores of butterflies.
I claimed a kiss at every stile,
And had her kind replies.
The bees did round the woodbine toil,
Where sweet the small wind sighs.
Then Patty was a slight young thing;
Now she's long past her teens;
And we've been married many springs,
And mixed in many scenes.
And I'll be true for Patty's sake,
And she'll be true for mine;
And I this little ballad make,
To be her valentine.
MY TRUE LOVE IS A SAILOR
'T was somewhere in the April time,
Not long before the May,
A-sitting on a bank o' thyme
I heard a maiden say,
"My true love is a sailor,
And ere he went away
We spent a year together,
And here my lover lay.
The gold furze was in blossom,
So was the daisy too;
The dew-drops on the little flowers
Were emeralds in hue.
On this same Summer morning,
Though then the Sabbath day,
He crop't me Spring pol'ant'uses,
Beneath the whitethorn may.
He crop't me Spring pol'ant'uses,
And said if they would keep
They'd tell me of love's fantasies,
For dews on them did weep.
And I did weep at parting,
Which lasted all the week;
And when he turned for starting
My full heart could not speak.
The same roots grow pol'ant'us' flowers
Beneath the same haw-tree;
I crop't them in morn's dewy hours,
And here love's offerings be.
O come to me my sailor beau
And ease my aching breast;
The storms shall cease to rave and blow,
And here thy life find rest."
THE SAILOR'S RETURN
The whitethorn is budding and rushes are green,
The ivy leaves rustle around the ash tree,
On the sweet sunny bank blue violets are seen,
That tremble beneath the wild hum of the bee.
The sunbeams they play on the brook's plashy ripples,
Like millions of suns in each swirl looking on;
The rush nods and bows till its tasseled head tipples
Right into the wimpled flood, kissing the stones.
'T was down in the cow pasture, just at the gloaming,
I met a young woman sweet tempered and mild,
I said "Pretty maiden, say, where are you roving?"
"I'm walking at even," she answered, and smiled.
"Here my sweetheart and I gathered posies at even;
It's eight years ago since they sent him to sea.
Wild flowers hung with dew are like angels from heaven:
They look up in my face and keep whispering to me.
They whisper the tales that were told by my true love;
In the evening and morning they glisten with dew;
They say (bonny blossoms) 'I'll ne'er get a new love;
I love her; she's kindly.' I say, 'I love him too.'"
The passing-by stranger's a stranger no longer;
He kissed off the teardrop which fell from her e'e;
With blue-jacket and trousers he is bigger and stronger;
'T is her own constant Willy returned from the sea.
BIRDS, WHY ARE YE SILENT?
Why are ye silent, Birds?
Where do ye fly?
Winter's not violent,
With such a Spring sky.
The wheatlands are green, snow and frost are away,
Birds, why are ye silent on such a sweet day?
By the slated pig-stye
The redbreast scarce whispers:
Where last Autumn's leaves lie
The hedge sparrow just lispers.
And why are the chaffinch and bullfinch so still,
While the sulphur primroses bedeck the wood hill?
The bright yellow-hammers
Are strutting about,
All still, and none stammers
A single note out.
From the hedge starts the blackbird, at brook side to drink:
I thought he'd have whistled, but he only said "prink."
The tree-creeper hustles
Up fir's rusty bark;
All silent he bustles;
We needn't say hark.
There's no song in the forest, in field, or in wood,
Yet the sun gilds the grass as though come in for good.
How bright the odd daisies
Peep under the stubbs!
How bright pilewort blazes
Where ruddled sheep rubs
The old willow trunk by the side of the brook,
Where soon for blue violets the children will look!
By the cot green and mossy
Feed sparrow and hen:
On the ridge brown and glossy
They cluck now and then.
The wren cocks his tail o'er his back by the stye,
Where his green bottle nest will be made by and bye.
Here's bunches of chickweed,
With small starry flowers,
Where red-caps oft pick seed
In hungry Spring hours.
And blue cap and black cap, in glossy Spring coat,
Are a-peeping in buds without singing a note.
Why silent should birds be
And sunshine so warm?
Larks hide where the herds be
By cottage and farm.
If wild flowers were blooming and fully set in the Spring
May-be all the birdies would cheerfully sing.
MEET ME TO-NIGHT
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 crimson set of the sun,
Meet me to-night.
The sun he goes down with a ruby crown
To a gold and crimson bed;
And the falling dew, from heaven so blue,
Hangs pearls on Phoebe's head.
Love, leave the town.
Come thou with me; 'neath the green-leaf tree
We'll crop the bonny sweet brere.
O come, dear maid, 'neath the hazlewood shade,
For love invites us there.
Come then with me.
The owl pops, scarce seen, from the ivy green,
With his spectacles on I ween:
See the moon's above and the stars twinkle, love;
Better time was never seen.
O come, my queen.
The fox he stops, and down he drops
His head beneath the grass.
The birds are gone; we're all alone;
O come, my bonny lass.
Come, O come!
YOUNG JENNY
The cockchafer hums down the rut-rifted lane
Where the wild roses hang and the woodbines entwine,
And the shrill squeaking bat makes his circles again
Round the side of the tavern close by the sign.
The sun is gone down like a wearisome queen,
In curtains the richest that ever were seen.
The dew falls on flowers in a mist of small rain,
And, beating the hedges, low fly the barn owls;
The moon with her horns is just peeping again,
And deep in the forest the dog-badger howls;
In best bib and tucker then wanders my Jane
By the side of the woodbines which grow in the lane.
On a sweet eventide I walk by her side;
In green hoods the daisies have shut up their eyes.
Young Jenny is handsome without any pride;
Her eyes (O how bright!) have the hue of the skies.
O 'tis pleasant to walk by the side of my Jane
At the close of the day, down the mossy green lane.
We stand by the brook, by the gate, and the stile,
While the even star hangs out his lamp in the sky;
And on her calm face dwells a sweet sunny smile,
While her soul fondly speaks through the light of her eye.
Sweet are the moments while waiting for Jane;
'T is her footsteps I hear coming down the green lane.
ADIEU!
"Adieu, my love, adieu!
Be constant and be true
As the daisies gemmed with dew,
Bonny maid."
The cows their thirst were slaking,
Trees the playful winds were shaking;
Sweet songs the birds were making
In the shade.
The moss upon the tree
Was as green as green could be,
The clover on the lea
Ruddy glowed;
Leaves were silver with the dew,
Where the tall sowthistles grew,
And I bade the maid adieu
On the road.
Then I took myself to sea,
While the little chiming bee
Sung his ballad on the lea,
Humming sweet;
And the red-winged butterfly
Was sailing through the sky,
Skimming up and bouncing by
Near my feet.
I left the little birds,
And sweet lowing of the herds,
And couldn't find out words,
Do you see,
To say to them good bye,
Where the yellow cups do lie;
So heaving a deep sigh,
Took to sea.
MY BONNY ALICE AND HER PITCHER
There's a bonny place in Scotland,
Where a little spring is found;
There Nature shows her honest face
The whole year round.
Where the whitethorn branches, full of may,
Hung near the fountain's rim,
Where comes sweet Alice every day
And dips her pitcher in;
A gallon pitcher without ear,
She fills it with the water clear.
My bonny Alice she is fair;
There's no such other to be found.
Her rosy cheek and dark brown hair—
The fairest maid on Scotland's ground.
And there the heather's pinhead flowers
All blossom over bank and brae,
While Alice passes by the bowers
To fill her pitcher every day;
The pitcher brown without an ear
She dips into the fountain clear.
O Alice, bonny, sweet, and fair,
With roses on her cheeks!
The little birds come drinking there,
The throstle almost speaks.
He dips his wings and wimples makes
Upon the fountain clear,
Then vanishes among the brakes
For ever singing near;
While Alice, listening, stands to hear,
And dips her pitcher without ear.
O Alice, bonny Alice, fair,
Thy pleasant face I love;
Thy red-rose cheek, thy dark brown hair,
Thy soft eyes, like a dove.
I see thee by the fountain stand,
With the sweet smiling face;
There's not a maid in all the land
With such bewitching grace
As Alice, who is drawing near,
To dip the pitcher without ear.
THE MAIDEN I LOVE
How sweet are Spring wild flowers! They grow past the counting.
How sweet are the wood-paths that thread through the grove!
But sweeter than all the wild flowers of the mountain
Is the beauty that walks here—the maiden I love.
Her black hair in tangles
The rose briar mangles;
Her lips and soft cheeks,
Where love ever speaks:
O there's nothing so sweet as the maiden I love.
It was down in the wild flowers, among brakes and brambles,
I met the sweet maiden so dear to my eye,
In one of my Sunday morn midsummer rambles,
Among the sweet wild blossoms blooming close by.
Her hair it was coal black,
Hung loose down her back;
In her hand she held posies
Of blooming primroses,
The maiden who passed on the morning of love.
Coal black was her silk hair that shaded white shoulders;
Ruby red were her ripe lips, her cheeks of soft hue;
Her sweet smiles, enchanting the eyes of beholders,
Thrilled my heart as she rambled the wild blossoms through.
Like the pearl, her bright eye;
In trembling delight I
Kissed her cheek, like a rose
In its gentlest repose.
O there's nothing so sweet as the maiden I love!
TO JENNY LIND
I cannot touch the harp again,
And sing another idle lay,
To cool a maddening, burning brain,
And drive the midnight fiend away.
Music, own sister to the soul.
Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale;
And sweet her joys and sorrows roll
When sings the Swedish Nightingale.
* * * * *
I cannot touch the harp again;
No chords will vibrate on the string;
Like broken flowers upon the plain,
My heart e'en withers while I sing.
Aeolian harps have witching tones,
On morning or the evening gale;
No melody their music owns
As sings the Swedish nightingale.
LITTLE TROTTY WAGTAIL
Little trotty wagtail he went in the rain,
And twittering, tottering sideways he ne'er got straight again.
He stooped to get a worm, and looked up to get a fly,
And then he flew away ere his feathers they were dry.
Little trotty wagtail he waddled in the mud,
And left his little footmarks, trample where he would.
He waddled in the water-pudge, and waggle went his tail,
And chirrupt up his wings to dry upon the garden rail.
Little trotty wagtail, you nimble all about,
And in the dimpling water-pudge you waddle in and out;
Your home is nigh at hand, and in the warm pig-stye,
So, little Master Wagtail, I'll bid you a good bye.
THE FOREST MAID
O once I loved a pretty girl, and dearly love her still;
I courted her in happiness for two short years or more.
And when I think of Mary it turns my bosom chill,
For my little of life's happiness is faded and is o'er.
O fair was Mary Littlechild, and happy as the bee,
And sweet was bonny Mary as the song of forest bird;
And the smile upon her red lips was very dear to me,
And her tale of love the sweetest that my ear has ever heard.
O the flower of all the forest was Mary Littlechild;
There's few could be so dear to me and none could be so fair.
While many love the garden flowers I still esteem the wild,
And Mary of the forest is the fairest blossom there.
She's fairer than the may flowers that bloom among the thorn,
She's dearer to my eye than the rose upon the brere;
Her eye is brighter far than the bonny pearls of morn,
And the name of Mary Littlechild is to me ever dear.
O once I loved a pretty girl. The linnet in its mirth
Was never half so blest as I with Mary Littlechild—
The rose of the creation, and the pink of all the earth,
The flower of all the forest, and the best for being wild.
O sweet are dews of morning, ere the Autumn blows so chill,—
And sweet are forest flowers in the hawthorn's mossy shade,
But nothing is so fair, and nothing ever will
Bloom like the rosy cheek of my bonny Forest Maid.
BONNY MARY O!
The morning opens fine, bonny Mary O!
The robin sings his song by the dairy O!
Where the little Jenny wrens cock their tails among the hens,
Singing morning's happy songs with Mary O!
The swallow's on the wing, bonny Mary O!
Where the rushes fringe the spring, bonny Mary O!
Where the cowslips do unfold, shaking tassels all of gold,
Which make the milk so sweet, bonny Mary O!
There's the yellowhammer's nest, bonny Mary O!
Where she hides her golden breast, bonny Mary O!
On her mystic eggs she dwells, with strange writing on their
shells,
Hid in the mossy grass, bonny Mary O!
There the spotted cow gets food, bonny Mary O!
And chews her peaceful cud, bonny Mary O!
In the molehills and the bushes, and the clear brook fringed with
rushes,
To fill the evening pail, bonny Mary O!
Where the gnat swarms fall and rise under evenings' mellow skies,
And on flags sleep dragon flies, bonny Mary O!
And I will meet thee there, bonny Mary O!
When a-milking you repair, bonny Mary O!
And I'll kiss thee on the grass, my buxom, bonny lass,
And be thine own for aye, bonny Mary O!
LOVE'S EMBLEM
Go rose, my Chloe's bosom grace:
How happy should I prove,
Could I supply that envied place
With never-fading love.
Accept, dear maid, now Summer glows,
This pure, unsullied gem,
Love's emblem in a full-blown rose,
Just broken from the stem.
Accept it as a favourite flower
For thy soft breast to wear;
'Twill blossom there its transient hour,
A favourite of the fair.
Upon thy cheek its blossom glows,
As from a mirror clear,
Making thyself a living rose,
In blossom all the year.
It is a sweet and favourite flower
To grace a maiden's brow,
Emblem of love without its power—
A sweeter rose art thou.
The rose, like hues of insect wing,
May perish in an hour;
'T is but at best a fading thing,
But thou'rt a living flower.
The roses steeped in morning dews
Would every eye enthrall,
But woman, she alone subdues;
Her beauty conquers all.
THE MORNING WALK
The linnet sat upon its nest,
By gales of morning softly prest,
His green wing and his greener breast
Were damp with dews of morning:
The dog-rose near the oaktree grew,
Blush'd swelling 'neath a veil of dew,
A pink's nest to its prickles grew,
Right early in the morning.
The sunshine glittered gold, the while
A country maiden clomb the stile;
Her straw hat couldn't hide the smile
That blushed like early morning.
The lark, with feathers all wet through,
Looked up above the glassy dew,
And to the neighbouring corn-field flew,
Fanning the gales of morning.
In every bush was heard a song,
On each grass blade, the whole way long,
A silver shining drop there hung,
The milky dew of morning.
Where stepping-stones stride o'er the brook
The rosy maid I overtook.
How ruddy was her healthy look,
So early in the morning!
I took her by the well-turned arm,
And led her over field and farm,
And kissed her tender cheek so warm,
A rose in early morning.
The spiders' lacework shone like glass,
Tied up to flowers and cat-tail grass;
The dew-drops bounced before the lass,
Sprinkling the early morning.
Her dark curls fanned among the gales,
The skylark whistled o'er the vales,
I told her love's delightful tales
Among the dews of morning.
She crop't a flower, shook oft' the dew,
And on her breast the wild rose grew;
She blushed as fair, as lovely, too—
The living rose of morning.
TO MISS C…..
Thy glance is the brightest,
Thy voice is the sweetest,
Thy step is the lightest,
Thy shape the completest:
Thy waist I could span, dear,
Thy neck's like a swan's, dear,
And roses the sweetest
On thy cheeks do appear.
The music of Spring
Is the voice of my charmer.
When the nightingales sing
She's as sweet; who would harm her?
Where the snowdrop or lily lies
They show her face, but her eyes
Are the dark clouds, yet warmer,
From which the quick lightning flies
O'er the face of my charmer.
Her faith is the snowdrop,
So pure on its stem;
And love in her bosom
She wears as a gem;
She is young as Spring flowers,
And sweet as May showers,
Swelling the clover buds, and bending the stem,
She's the sweetest of blossoms, she love's favourite gem.
I PLUCK SUMMER BLOSSOMS
I pluck Summer blossoms,
And think of rich bosoms—
The bosoms I've leaned on, and worshipped, and won.
The rich valley lilies,
The wood daffodillies,
Have been found in our rambles when Summer begun.
Where I plucked thee the bluebell,
'T was where the night dew fell,
And rested till morn in the cups of the flowers;
I shook the sweet posies,
Bluebells and brere roses,
As we sat in cool shade in Summer's warm hours.
Bedlam-cowslips and cuckoos,
With freck'd lip and hooked nose,
Growing safe near the hazel of thicket and woods,
And water blobs, ladies' smocks,
Blooming where haycocks
May be found, in the meadows, low places, and floods.
And cowslips a fair band
For May ball or garland,
That bloom in the meadows as seen by the eye;
And pink ragged robin,
Where the fish they are bobbing
Their heads above water to catch at the fly.
Wild flowers and wild roses!
'T is love makes the posies
To paint Summer ballads of meadow and glen.
Floods can't drown it nor turn it,
Even flames cannot burn it;
Let it bloom till we walk the green meadows again.