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

There is a thicket of familiar face
A little thicket green on summers morn
Soon as the largest—tis a quiet place
Thick set with foulroyce privet & blackthorn
So thickly set that birdboys cannot trace
Its mysterys or climb its little trees
Unless they creep upon their hands & knees
As I have crept full many hours away
To hunt for nests & wood flowers—for in these
My boyish heart was living—woods & vales
Made up my being—all the live long May
When leisure left me did I list the tales
Of shepherds & go nesting far away
& in this little spot the nightingales
Did sing so many all the night & day
I thought that all did to this thicket come
& on through mossy roots so eager on
I crept—the fox rushed up & left his lair
The first time danger seemed so near his home
But as for nightingales there seemed not one
All stopt their song as if no bird was there
& when I left my teazing search as vain
They teazed me with their singing all again
& for the sake of feelings witnessed then
I often in the summer morning fare
To see that little “bushy close” agen
& walk its little riding full of sloughs
& elting footmarks of the pastoral cows
Who through the hedges broken gaps intrude
& in the woodlands browze in happy mood
Seeming as they themselves loved melody
& the sweet woodland shadows well as me
So in these spots that memory makes divine
I dream of happiness & call it mine