Night.

Night spreads upon the plain her ebon pall,
Day seems unable to wash out the stain;
A pausing truce kind nature gives to all,
And fairy nations now have leave to reign:
So may conjecturing Fancy think, and feign.
Doubtless in tiny legions, now unseen,
They venture from their dwellings once again:
From keck-stalk cavity, or hollow bean,
Or perfum'd bosom of pea-flower between,
They to the dark green rings now haste, to meet,
To dance, or pay some homage to their queen;
Or journey on, some pilgrim-friend to greet.
With rushy switch they urge some beetle's flight,
And ride to revel, ere 'tis morning-light.

John Clare

John Clare was an English poet known for his celebrations of the English countryside and lamentation of its disruption. Born in Helpston, Northamptonshire, Clare was initially a farm laborer. His poetry is characterized by its natural imagery and rustic language. Despite periods of fame during his period, Clare spent the later part of his life in an asylum due to mental health issues. His works gained greater recognition posthumously. Clare's major poem collections include "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery" and "The Shepherd's Calendar."

John Clare

The Beanfield

John Clare, Simple Poetry

Poverty.

John Clare, Simple Poetry

To Health.

John Clare, Simple Poetry

To Isabel

John Clare, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Evening.

What time the cricket unmolested sings,
And blundering beetles try their clumsy wings,
Leave me to meet the sweets of Even's hour
By hawthorn hedges when the May's in flower,
With light enough to guard my cautious tread,
As not to trample on the daisy's head,
Down beaten pathways of a wish'd extent,
Ev'n unimpeded by the bending bent
That, night and morning, bowing down with dew,
Sullies the brightness of the maiden's shoe.
There leave me musing 'neath the bow'ring ash,
Counting the knoll of bells, or spurting dash
Of muttering fountain-fall, with wild delight,
Till Even lose In the blank of Night.

John Clare

The Evening Hours.

The sultry day it wears away,
And o'er the distant leas
The mist again, in purple stain,
Falls moist on flower and trees:
His home to find, the weary hind
Glad leaves his carts and ploughs;
While maidens fair, with bosoms bare,
Go coolly to their cows.

The red round sun his work has done,
And dropp'd into his bed;
And sweetly shin'd the oaks behind
His curtains fringed with red:
And step by step the night has crept,
And day, as loth, retires;
But clouds, more dark, night's entrance mark.
Till day's last spark expires.

Pride of the vales, the nightingales
Now charm the oaken grove;
And loud and long, with amorous tongue,
They try to please their love:
And where the rose reviving blows
Upon the swelter'd bower,
I'll take...

John Clare

Twilight.

The setting Sun withdraws his yellow light,
A gloomy staining shadows over all,
While the brown beetle, trumpeter of Night,
Proclaims his entrance with a droning call.
How pleasant now, where slanting hazels fall
Thick, o'er the woodland stile, to muse and lean;
To pluck a woodbine from the shade withal,
And take short snatches o'er the moisten'd scene;
While deep and deeper shadows intervene,
And leave fond Fancy moulding to her will
The cots, and groves, and trees so dimly seen,
That die away more undiscerned still;
Bringing a sooty curtain o'er the sight,
And calmness in the bosom still as night.

John Clare

From "January"

Supper removed, the mother sits,
And tells her tales by starts and fits.
Not willing to lose time or toil,
She knits or sews, and talks the while
Something, that may be warnings found
To the young listeners gaping round--
Of boys who in her early day
Strolled to the meadow-lake to play,
Where willows, oer the bank inclined
Sheltered the water from the wind,
And left it scarcely crizzled oer--
When one sank in, to rise no more!
And how, upon a market-night,
When not a star bestowed its light,
A farmer's shepherd, oer his glass,
Forgot that he had woods to pass:
And having sold his master's sheep,
Was overta'en by darkness deep.
How, coming with his startled horse,
To where two roads a hollow cross;
Where, lone guide when a stranger strays,

John Clare

Nightfall

I


Eve goes slowly
Dancing lightly
Clad with shadow up the hills;
Birds their singing
Cease at last, and silence
Falling like fine rain the valley fills.

Not a bat's cry
Stirs the stillness
Perfect as broad water sleeping,
Not a moth's wings
Flit in the gathering darkness,
Not a mouselike moonray ev'n comes creeping.

Then a light shines
From the casement,
Wreathed with jasmine boughs and stars,
Palely golden
As the late eve's primrose,
Glimmers through green leafy prison bars.



II


Only joy now
Come in silence,
Come before your look's forgot;
Come and hearken
While the lonely shadow
Broadens on the hill and then is not.

Now the hour is,
Here the plac...

John Frederick Freeman

Evening

Tis evening; the black snail has got on his track,
And gone to its nest is the wren,
And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back,
Clings to the bowed bents like a wen.

The shepherd has made a rude mark with his foot
Where his shadow reached when he first came,
And it just touched the tree where his secret love cut
Two letters that stand for loves name.

The evening comes in with the wishes of love,
And the shepherd he looks on the flowers,
And thinks who would praise the soft song of the dove,
And meet joy in these dew-falling hours.

For Nature is love, and finds haunts for true love,
Where nothing can hear or intrude;
It hides from the eagle and joins with the dove,
In beautiful green solitude.

John Clare