 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
THE MEADOW LAKE
I've often gazed with pleasure by the edgeOf the old meadow lake, floodwashed and crook'd,
The water-rat slow rustling in the sedge,
The fish-ring wavering in the clear; I've looked
In rapture on the mellow summer shine
Of the still water gleaming in the sun,
Just wrinkled by the plash of quiet kine
Who knee-deep in the flags would drink—and done,
Back to their feed on the shorn sward again;
The flags, the bulrush, and the barbèd leaf
Of water-weed, bethread with lighter vein,
And water-lily giving flies relief,
Who float half drowsy to its sheltering bay—
These lie close on the water and still dry:
If dropples plash upon them from the spring
Of playful fish, they scarce a moment lie
But roll like water from the moor-hen's wing,
Its oily green still sunny as before.
Thus musing on the brink, a startled fright
Comes with a sudden plunge from t'other side,
And flags and rush in quick disorder start
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Whose dog ran forward with a gladsome heart
To hunt the water-rat and scared moor-hen
Who dives and flounders and then dives agen;
Till weary quite, once more he seeks the side,
And shakes the water from his dripping hide,
And rolls upon the grass and dances round
The shepherd as he soodles round the ground.
| The Poems of John Clare | |