Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

Author:Clare, John [Clare, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Poetry
Publisher: manybooks.net

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The tyrant, in his lawless power deterred,

Bows before death, tame as a broken sword.

One dyeth in his strength and, torn from ease,

Groans in death pangs like tempests in the trees.

Another from the bitterness of clay

Falls calm as storms drop on an autumn day,

With noiseless speed as swift as summer light

Death slays and keeps her weapons out of sight.

The tyrants that do act the God in clay

And for earth's glories throw the heavens away,

Whose breath in power did like to thunder sear,

When anger hurried on the heels of fear,

Whose rage planned hosts of murders at a breath--

Here in sound silence sheath their rage in death.

Their feet, that crushed down freedom to its grave

And felt the very earth they trod a slave,

How quiet here they lie in death's cold arms

Without the power to crush the feeble worms

Who spite of all the dreadful fears they made

Creep there to conquer and are not afraid.

Autumn

Syren of sullen moods and fading hues,

Yet haply not incapable of joy,

Sweet Autumn! I thee hail

With welcome all unfeigned;

And oft as morning from her lattice peeps

To beckon up the sun, I seek with thee

To drink the dewy breath

Of fields left fragrant then,

In solitudes, where no frequented paths

But what thy own foot makes betray thy home,

Stealing obtrusive there

To meditate thy end:

By overshadowed ponds, in woody nooks,

With ramping sallows lined, and crowding sedge,

Which woo the winds to play,

And with them dance for joy;

And meadow pools, torn wide by lawless floods,

Where water-lilies spread their oily leaves,

On which, as wont, the fly

Oft battens in the sun;

Where leans the mossy willow half way oer,

On which the shepherd crawls astride to throw

His angle, clear of weeds

That crowd the water's brim;

Or crispy hills, and hollows scant of sward,

Where step by step the patient lonely boy

Hath cut rude flights of stairs

To climb their steepy sides;

Then track along their feet, grown hoarse with noise,

The crawling brook, that ekes its weary speed,

And struggles through the weeds

With faint and sullen brawl.

These haunts I long have favoured, more as now

With thee thus wandering, moralizing on,

Stealing glad thoughts from grief,

And happy, though I sigh.

Sweet Vision, with the wild dishevelled hair,

And raiment shadowy of each wind's embrace,

Fain would I win thine harp

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

Oer 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 oer the narrow 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 oer the pleachy lands of mellow brown,

The mower's stubbling scythe clogs to his foot

The ever eking whisp,

With sharp and sudden jerk,

Till

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