 | John Clare: The Midsummer Cushion |  |
THE BREATH OF MORNING
How beautiful & fresh the pastoral smellOf tedded hay breaths in this early morn
Health in these meadows must in summer dwell
& take her walks among these fields of corn
I cannot see her—yet her voice is born
On every breeze that fans my hair about
& though the sun is scarcely out of bed
Leaning on ground like half awakened sleep
The boy hath left his mossy thatched shed
& bawling lustily to cows & sheep
& taken at the woodbines overhead
Climbs up to pluck them from the thorny bower
Half drowned by dropples pattering on his head
From leaves bemoistened by nights secret shower
| John Clare: The Midsummer Cushion | |