 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
66
FRAGMENTS
Where go the swallow tribes? the pathless main
Ne'er chronicles their flight; we ask in vain.
Yet their light lives familiar, and the sun
Is by the call of loneliest nature won
To smile; and woods where man hath never been
Are clothed in joy and beautified in green;
Spots blooming on from time's unwitnessed springs
Are fanned by these aerial wanderers' wings.
Ne'er chronicles their flight; we ask in vain.
Yet their light lives familiar, and the sun
Is by the call of loneliest nature won
To smile; and woods where man hath never been
Are clothed in joy and beautified in green;
Spots blooming on from time's unwitnessed springs
Are fanned by these aerial wanderers' wings.
The daisy wan, the primrose pale,
Seem naught but white and yellow flowers
To every heedless passer-by,
When they attend the spring's young hours;
But they are loves and friends to me,
That tell me in each short sojourn
Of what they felt and I did feel
In springs that never will return.
Seem naught but white and yellow flowers
To every heedless passer-by,
When they attend the spring's young hours;
But they are loves and friends to me,
That tell me in each short sojourn
Of what they felt and I did feel
In springs that never will return.
Where'er the present leads us, there we spy
The past in mourning; how can memory die
Where every foot we set or look we give
Meets some crushed memory that hath ceased to live?
So busy hath death been in mortal strife,
Earth even fattens with the wrecks of life.
The past in mourning; how can memory die
Where every foot we set or look we give
Meets some crushed memory that hath ceased to live?
So busy hath death been in mortal strife,
Earth even fattens with the wrecks of life.
How many friends death steals, how many more
Doth time prove false that seemed so true before!
Where's those with yesterday so warm?—gone, gone
Like summer birds when winter cometh on.
Doth time prove false that seemed so true before!
Where's those with yesterday so warm?—gone, gone
Like summer birds when winter cometh on.
Gay nature's always laughing: folks may die—
She never goes in mourning where they lie,
And richest monuments that wonder reads
Like common ones soon overrun with weeds;
Nor should we look for troubles ere they rise:
The greatest griefs will often wipe their eyes,
The roughest days find out their journey's end,
And those most lonely find at last a friend.
She never goes in mourning where they lie,
And richest monuments that wonder reads
67
Nor should we look for troubles ere they rise:
The greatest griefs will often wipe their eyes,
The roughest days find out their journey's end,
And those most lonely find at last a friend.
Night lies as fast asleep as innocence,
While the moon journeys her unnoticed way.
While the moon journeys her unnoticed way.
Envy and hatred from the world's rude pack
Follow success in almost every track,
Like lurking winters that are sure to bring
Storms to discomfort the young green of spring,
Crispt brown and icicled o'er with frosty chill;
But spring gets green at last as poesy will.
Follow success in almost every track,
Like lurking winters that are sure to bring
Storms to discomfort the young green of spring,
Crispt brown and icicled o'er with frosty chill;
But spring gets green at last as poesy will.
How strange the wood appears in dark and white,
And every little twig is hung with snow;
The old oak tops, crampt, gnarled, and dark below,
Upon their upper sides are fringed in light.
And every little twig is hung with snow;
The old oak tops, crampt, gnarled, and dark below,
Upon their upper sides are fringed in light.
Happy as ballads of a brawling boy,
Who, when the wood gate bangs, we know 'tis joy
That shuts it, for when shut by pain
He shuts it without sound and creeps again.
Who, when the wood gate bangs, we know 'tis joy
That shuts it, for when shut by pain
He shuts it without sound and creeps again.
The sun seemed resting on the hill,
Before he took his final leave,
And through the leaves we saw him still
Shine dropping in the dews of eve.
Before he took his final leave,
And through the leaves we saw him still
Shine dropping in the dews of eve.
When Pilgrim with a heavy pack
Marched on for glory's town,
His burthen fell from off his back
And he received the crown;
But poets have a donkey's fame;
With little rest they tarry;
For the stronger they are made by fame
The heavier loads they carry.
Marched on for glory's town,
His burthen fell from off his back
And he received the crown;
But poets have a donkey's fame;
With little rest they tarry;
For the stronger they are made by fame
The heavier loads they carry.
| The Poems of John Clare | |