 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
262
BOYHOOD PLEASURES
Oh, could I feel my spirits beat
As once they did when life, a boy,
Went everywhere with dancing feet,
Met everything with joy;
Got nuts before the shells were brown,
Shells, pith and all to eat,
And dragged the crab-tree bushes down,
And thought the bitter sweet;
Ah, could I feel as I did then
And so be glorious once agen!
As once they did when life, a boy,
Went everywhere with dancing feet,
Met everything with joy;
Got nuts before the shells were brown,
Shells, pith and all to eat,
And dragged the crab-tree bushes down,
And thought the bitter sweet;
Ah, could I feel as I did then
And so be glorious once agen!
To think it fame to clamber up
The highest tree to rob the crow,
To think it worth the while to stoop
For every weed that used to grow,
To take home pockets-full of shells,
Hurded as manhood hurds his wealth,
To steal in where the cowslip dwells
And crop quick handfuls up by stealth,
Lest they who owned the close should come
And threaten whips and drive us home.
The highest tree to rob the crow,
To think it worth the while to stoop
For every weed that used to grow,
To take home pockets-full of shells,
Hurded as manhood hurds his wealth,
To steal in where the cowslip dwells
And crop quick handfuls up by stealth,
Lest they who owned the close should come
And threaten whips and drive us home.
The hurry and the look behind,
The valued prize of yellow flowers,
The panting haste a tree to find
When overtook by sudden showers;
And then in spite of all the rain,
When all the hedges hung with drops,
We scrambled up the bush to gain
A pink's nest almost at the top,
Till shook boughs soaked us to the skin,
And then the trouble we were in!
The valued prize of yellow flowers,
The panting haste a tree to find
When overtook by sudden showers;
And then in spite of all the rain,
When all the hedges hung with drops,
We scrambled up the bush to gain
A pink's nest almost at the top,
Till shook boughs soaked us to the skin,
And then the trouble we were in!
Our cowslips soon were thrown away,
And if the rain kept in the sky
We in some hovel sneaked to play
Until our jackets seemed as dry.
How glad those days! look back agen,
Man's spirits can't imagine how;
For sorrows which we reckoned then
Grow sweeter than our pleasures now;
Time writes them with a golden pen
But never lives them back agen.
And if the rain kept in the sky
We in some hovel sneaked to play
Until our jackets seemed as dry.
263
Man's spirits can't imagine how;
For sorrows which we reckoned then
Grow sweeter than our pleasures now;
Time writes them with a golden pen
But never lives them back agen.
| The Poems of John Clare | |