 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
359
THE STONE
The traveller journeying on the road aloneSees by the highway side an ancient stone
And finds it pleasant in the weary day
To sit him down and wear an hour away.
The strongest hand of mischief needed more,
And failed to move, or break, or turn it o'er.
The man of ninety knew it when a boy,
The only thing that nothing could destroy,
And just the same as then it now appears,
The fragment maybe of some hundred years.
Beside the stone the wild flower gathers high,
No grazing horse can bite or trample nigh,
And smaller birds contented and alone
Can sit and shelter by the ancient stone.
| The Poems of John Clare | |