 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
225
THE BLACKCAP
The blackcap is a singing bird,
A nightingale in melody;
Last March in Open Wood I heard
One sing that quite astonished me;
I took it for the nightingale—
It jug-jugged just the same as he—
So creeping through the mossy rail
I in the thicket got to see:
A nightingale in melody;
Last March in Open Wood I heard
One sing that quite astonished me;
I took it for the nightingale—
It jug-jugged just the same as he—
So creeping through the mossy rail
I in the thicket got to see:
When one small bird of saddened green,
Black head, and breast of ashy grey,
In ivied oak tree scarcely seen,
Stopt all at once and flew away;
And since, in hedgerow's dotterel trees,
I've oft this tiny minstrel met,
Where ivy flapping to the breeze
Bear ring-marked berries black as jet;
But whether they find food in these
I've never seen or known as yet.
Black head, and breast of ashy grey,
In ivied oak tree scarcely seen,
Stopt all at once and flew away;
And since, in hedgerow's dotterel trees,
I've oft this tiny minstrel met,
Where ivy flapping to the breeze
Bear ring-marked berries black as jet;
But whether they find food in these
I've never seen or known as yet.
| The Poems of John Clare | |