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

Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods
Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain
Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods
To spread & foam & deluge all the plain
The cotter listens at his door again
Half doubting wether it be floods or wind
& through the thickening darkness looks affraid
Thinking of roads that travel has to find
Through nights black depths in dangers garb arrayed
& the loud glabber round the flaze soon stops
When hushed to silence by the lifted hand
Of fearing dame who hears the noise in dread
& thinks a deluge comes to drown the land
Nor dares she go to bed untill the tempest drops