John Clare, that finest of celebrants of nature, hymns the personified season of Autumn. As always there is exquisite detail in his observation of man and landscape; and some archaic terms.
Verses from AUTUMN
Sweet vision, with the wild dishevelled hair,
And raiment shadowy of each wind’s embrace,
Fain would I win thine heart
To one accordant theme;
~
Now not inaptly craved, communing thus
Beneath the curdled arms of this stunt oak,
While pillowed on the grass,
We fondly ruminate
~
O’er the disordered scenes of woods and fields,
Ploughed lands, thin travelled with half-hungry sheep,
Pastures tracked deep with cows,
Where small birds seek for seed:
~
Marking the cow-boy that so merry trills
His frequent, unpremeditated song,
Wooing the winds to pause
Till echo brawls again;
~
As on with plashy step and clouted shoon
He roves, half indolent and self-employed,
To rob the little birds
Of hips and pendent haws,
~
And sloes, dim covered as with dewy veils,
And rambling bramble-berries, pulp and sweet,
Arching their prickly trails
Half o’er the country lane:
~
Noting the hedger front with stubborn face
The dank blea wind, that whistles thinly by
His leathern garb, thorn-proof,
And cheek red-hot with toil.
~
While o’er the pleachy lands of mellow brown,
The mower’s stubbling scythe clogs to his foot
The ever eking wisp,
With sharp and sudden jerk,
~
Till into formal rows the russet shocks
Crowd the blank field to thatch time-weathered barns
And hovels rude repair,
Stripped by disturbing winds.
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