 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
HIGH SUMMER
The ground is hard, and o'er the fallows nowThe boys are forced to lean upon the plough;
The ground is full of cracks and gapes for wet,
And cobwebs hang on all the bushes met.
The snakes lie beaking where the waters play
And make the maiden almost faint away.
The idle boy sits on the brigs at play
And keeps a bough to knock the flies away;
And ever followed by a lazy dog,
He wades the flaggy dyke and pelts the frog
And gets the great brier balls and likes them well
And crops the coddled apples for the smell
And fills his hands among the poppied corn
With pleasant weeds that scent the gales of morn.
| The Poems of John Clare | |