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John Clare - The Flitting
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I`ve left my own old home of homes,
  Green fields and every pleasant place;
The summer like a stranger comes,
  I pause and hardly know her face.
I miss the hazel`s happy green,
  The blue bell`s quiet hanging blooms,
Where envy`s sneer was never seen,
  Where staring malice never comes.

I miss the heath, its yellow furze,
  Molehills and rabbit tracks that lead
Through beesom, ling, and teazel burrs
  That spread a wilderness indeed;
The woodland oaks and all below
  That their white powdered branches shield,
The mossy paths: the very crow
  Croaks music in my native field.

I sit me in my corner chair
  That seems to feel itself from home,
And hear bird music here and there
  From hawthorn hedge and orchard come;
I hear, but all is strange and new:
  I sat on my old bench in June,
The sailing puddock`s shrill "peelew"
  On Royce Wood seemed a sweeter tune.

I walk adown the narrow lane,
  The nightingale is singing now,
But like to me she seems at loss
  For Royce Wood and its shielding bough.
I lean upon the window sill,
  The trees and summer happy seem;
Green, sunny green they shine, but still
  My heart goes far away to dream.

Of happiness, and thoughts arise
  With home-bred pictures many a one,
Green lanes that shut out burning skies
  And old crooked stiles to rest upon;
Above them hangs the maple tree,
  Below grass swells a velvet hill,
And little footpaths sweet to see
  Go seeking sweeter places still,

With bye and bye a brook to cross
  Oer which a little arch is thrown:
No brook is here, I feel the loss
  From home and friends and all alone.
--The stone pit with its shelvy sides
  Seemed hanging rocks in my esteem;
I miss the prospect far and wide
  From Langley Bush, and so I seem

Alone and in a stranger scene,
  Far, far from spots my heart esteems,
The closen with their ancient green,
  Heaths, woods, and pastures, sunny streams.
The hawthorns here were hung with may,
  But still they seem in deader green,
The sun een seems to lose its way
  Nor knows the quarter it is in.

I dwell in trifles like a child,
  I feel as ill becomes a man,
And still my thoughts like weedlings wild
  Grow up to blossom where they can.
They turn to places known so long
  I feel that joy was dwelling there,
So home-fed pleasure fills the song
  That has no present joys to hear.

I read in books for happiness,
  But books are like the sea to joy,
They change--as well give age the glass
  To hunt its visage when a boy.
For books they follow fashions new
  And throw all old esteems away,
In crowded streets flowers never grew,
  But many there hath died away.

Some sing the pomps of chivalry
  As legends of the ancient time,
Where gold and pearls and mystery
  Are shadows painted for sublime;
But passions of sublimity
  Belong to plain and simpler things,
And David underneath a tree
  Sought when a shepherd Salem`s springs,

Where moss did into cushions spring,
  Forming a seat of velvet hue,
A small unnoticed trifling thing
  To all but heaven`s hailing dew.
And David`s crown hath passed away,
  Yet poesy breathes his shepherd-skill,
His palace lost--and to this day
  The little moss is blossoming still.

Strange scenes mere shadows are to me,
  Vague impersonifying things;
I love with my old haunts to be
  By quiet woods and gravel springs,
Where little pebbles wear as smooth
  As hermits` beads by gentle floods,
Whose noises do my spirits soothe
  And warm them into singing moods.

Here every tree is strange to me,
  All foreign things where eer I go,
There`s none where boyhood made a swee
  Or clambered up to rob a crow.
No hollow tree or woodland bower
  Well known when joy was beating high,
Where beauty ran to shun a shower
  And love took pains to keep her dry,

And laid the sheaf upon the ground
  To keep her from the dripping grass,
And ran for stocks and set them round
  Till scarce a drop of rain could pass
Through; where the maidens they reclined
  And sung sweet ballads now forgot,
Which brought sweet memories to the mind,
  But here no memory knows them not.

There have I sat by many a tree
  And leaned oer many a rural stile,
And conned my thoughts as joys to me,
  Nought heeding who might frown or smile.
Twas nature`s beauty that inspired
  My heart with rapture not its own,
And she`s a fame that never tires;
  How could I feel myself alone?

No, pasture molehills used to lie
  And talk to me of sunny days,
And then the glad sheep resting bye
  All still in ruminating praise
Of summer and the pleasant place
  And every weed and blossom too
Was looking upward in my face
  With friendship`s welcome "how do ye do?"

All tenants of an ancient place
  And heirs of noble heritage,
Coeval they with Adam`s race
  And blest with more substantial age.
For when the world first saw the sun
  These little flowers beheld him too,
And when his love for earth begun
  They were the first his smiles to woo.

There little lambtoe bunches springs
  In red tinged and begolden dye
For ever, and like China kings
  They come but never seem to die.
There may-bloom with its little threads
  Still comes upon the thorny bowers
And neer forgets those prickly heads
  Like fairy pins amid the flowers.

And still they bloom as on the day
  They first crowned wilderness and rock,
When Abel haply wreathed with may
  The firstlings of his little flock,
And Eve might from the matted thorn
  To deck her lone and lovely brow
Reach that same rose that heedless scorn
  Misnames as the dog rosey now.

Give me no high-flown fangled things,
  No haughty pomp in marching chime,
Where muses play on golden strings
  And splendour passes for sublime,
Where cities stretch as far as fame
  And fancy`s straining eye can go,
And piled until the sky for shame
  Is stooping far away below.

I love the verse that mild and bland
  Breathes of green fields and open sky,
I love the muse that in her hand
  Bears flowers of native poesy;
Who walks nor skips the pasture brook
  In scorn, but by the drinking horse
Leans oer its little brig to look
    How far the sallows lean across,

And feels a rapture in her breast
  Upon their root-fringed grains to mark
A hermit morehen`s sedgy nest
  Just like a naiad`s summer bark.
She counts the eggs she cannot reach
  Admires the spot and loves it well,
And yearns, so nature`s lessons teach,
  Amid such neighbourhoods to dwell.

I love the muse who sits her down
  Upon the molehill`s little lap,
Who feels no fear to stain her gown
  And pauses by the hedgerow gap;
Not with that affectation, praise
  Of song, to sing and never see
A field flower grown in all her days
  Or een a forest`s aged tree.

Een here my simple feelings nurse
  A love for every simple weed,
And een this little shepherd`s purse
  Grieves me to cut it up; indeed
I feel at times a love and joy
  For every weed and every thing,
A feeling kindred from a boy,
  A feeling brought with every Spring.

And why? this shepherd`s purse that grows
  In this strange spot, in days gone bye
Grew in the little garden rows
  Of my old home now left; and I
Feel what I never felt before,
  This weed an ancient neighbour here,
And though I own the spot no more
  Its every trifle makes it dear.

The ivy at the parlour end,
  The woodbine at the garden gate,
Are all and each affection`s friend
  That render parting desolate.
But times will change and friends must part
  And nature still can make amends;
Their memory lingers round the heart
  Like life whose essence is its friends.

Time looks on pomp with vengeful mood
  Or killing apathy`s disdain;
So where old marble cities stood
  Poor persecuted weeds remain.
She feels a love for little things
  That very few can feel beside,
And still the grass eternal springs
  Where castles stood and grandeur died.
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