 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
319
WINTER FIELDS
Oh, for a pleasant book to cheat the swayOf winter—where rich mirth with hearty laugh
Listens and rubs his legs on corner seat;
For fields are mire and sludge—and badly off
Are those who on their pudgy paths delay;
There striding shepherd, seeking driest way,
Fearing night's wetshod feet and hacking cough
That keeps him waken till the peep of day,
Goes shouldering onward and with ready hook
Progs oft to ford the sloughs that nearly meet
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His loath dog follows—stops and quakes and looks
For better roads, till whistled to pursue;
Then on with frequent jump he hurkles through.
| The Poems of John Clare | |