John Clare: The Midsummer Cushion :: :: University of Virginia Library

Some climb ambitions hill with many toils
& follow hope at length to hopless be
Some seek for quiet in contentions broils
& suffer shipwreck that go not to sea
Some seeming warned a new consciet betrays
To worship phantoms who reward in pain
Vain follys fancys running divers ways
Seeking for somthing which they neer attain

Where truth meets foes & honesty no friends
Where good intents are ever ill repaid
Where highest merit earneth worst amends
& closest friendships soonest are betrayed
Where bribes & lies to honours place aspires
The props wereby ambition stays its fall
If to shun aught of these thy heart desires
Shun vain ambitions & so shun them all

Pride thus aye seeketh & so findeth not
Wearing vain flatterys phrases all threadbare
While the poor shepherd swain in lowley cot
Finds without seeking & has joys to spare
The ploughman blythe that whistles toil away
& oer the russet land aye speeds his plough
On pleasures lap fares sumptious every day
With laughing Maud who milks the brinded cow

To seek where pleasaunce in her mirth carouses
As from ambition to flee far away
& join where buxsome health wild mirth espouses
& all rejoiceth at the holiday
To laugh with shepherd Ralph & milking Molly
Who on the haycocks fare so merrily
Who in gray russet taunt at melancholly
& always laughing find no room to sigh

Where trees & hedges & astonished bushes
Are filled with music as if music grew
From happy blackbirds & delighted thrushes
Who daub their nests & love in happy cue
Where little blackcaps in their early song
Do calm the march winds with their merry throats

& cuckoo singeth blythe ere it be long
A full toned anthem with two simple notes

There trim a little garden at ones leisure
To watch the flowers to bud & so to bloom
To reap from present labour added pleasure
& have an hour for talk when friends do come
Hoeing up weeds that bed & path deforms
& smoothing grassplots with a roll & scythe
While tiney Robin poppeth down for worms
Then strokes his little bill & singeth blythe

Spending an hour with quiet now & then
By flood washed river & sedge flounced pool
Musing like hermit from the haunts of men
Indulging idless like a child from school
To find on leaning tree an easy chair
Where one can sit & bid the minutes pass
& mark the dodging float sink speedy there
Then land the large bream bouncing on the grass

Or seek out spots where nature doth disport
In curious phantasy her whims to please
Where the minds eye may shape a princely court
Without its cares from intertwining trees
Or muse in grottos by rock hidden spring
Where fairey folk from summers noon retires
There feel the place a throne oneself a king
With nought to govern but ones own desires

Safe are such antidotes such means supply
For what decayed ambition aye endures
& hearts grown sick of show may meet therebye
Coy pleasures long pursued & speedy cures
Tis but vain fashions tinsel gauds to shun
& speed where health & happiness employs
The simple swain to labour in the sun
Tending his toils therebye to share his joys

So would I live like such so pass away
When winter comes like any other flye
Sinking to sleep forgetting it were day
In pleasant nook with natures kind to lye
Who for their monuments plant flowers not stones

Whose epitaphs the little birds doth sing
Whose graves are not dull heaps of charnel bones
But shrines where seasons memorys offerings bring