To Jenny Lind

I cannot touch the harp again,
And sing another idle lay,
To cool a maddening, burning brain,
And drive the midnight fiend away.
Music, own sister to the soul.
Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale;
And sweet her joys and sorrows roll
When sings the Swedish Nightingale.

* * * * *

I cannot touch the harp again;
No chords will vibrate on the string;
Like broken flowers upon the plain,
My heart e'en withers while I sing.
Aeolian harps have witching tones,
On morning or the evening gale;
No melody their music owns
As sings the Swedish nightingale.

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

Early Sorrows.

John Clare, Simple Poetry

Expression.

John Clare, Simple Poetry

Adieu!

John Clare, Simple Poetry

Autumn

John Clare, Simple Poetry

English

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On Hearing A Lady Play On The Musical Glasses.

Beyond expression, delicately fine,
Beneath her slender fingers swept the sound
Of 'witching tones, melodious, divine;
Soothing and soft upon the sense they wound,
Join'd with the syrens' music, as it were,
As her sweet voice came mingling on the ear.
Ah, who but knows what woman's voice can do!
To every soul such melody is dear;
Angelic harmony, and beauty too!
Our very hearts melt in the sounds we hear:
The breaks--the pauses--check our pulse's beats.
Enraptur'd memory still each air retains,--
And, as the mind the syren's songs repeats,
Creates sensations sweeter than her strains.

John Clare

The Nightingale

This is the month the nightingale, clod brown,
Is heard among the woodland shady boughs:
This is the time when in the vale, grass-grown,
The maiden hears at eve her lover's vows,
What time the blue mist round the patient cows
Dim rises from the grass and half conceals
Their dappled hides. I hear the nightingale,
That from the little blackthorn spinney steals
To the old hazel hedge that skirts the vale,
And still unseen sings sweet. The ploughman feels
The thrilling music as he goes along,
And imitates and listens; while the fields
Lose all their paths in dusk to lead him wrong,
Still sings the nightingale her soft melodious song.

John Clare

Song

I would not feign a single sigh
Nor weep a single tear for thee:
The soul within these orbs burns dry;
A desert spreads where love should be.
I would not be a worm to crawl
A writhing suppliant in thy way;
For love is life, is heaven, and all
The beams of an immortal day.

For sighs are idle things and vain,
And tears for idiots vainly fall.
I would not kiss thy face again
Nor round thy shining slippers crawl.
Love is the honey, not the bee,
Nor would I turn its sweets to gall
For all the beauty found in thee,
Thy lily neck, rose cheek, and all.

I would not feign a single tale
Thy kindness or thy love to seek;
Nor sigh for Jenny of the Vale,
Her ruby smile or rosy cheek.
I would not have a pain to own
For those dark curls an...

John Clare

Young Jenny

The cockchafer hums down the rut-rifted lane
Where the wild roses hang and the woodbines entwine,
And the shrill squeaking bat makes his circles again
Round the side of the tavern close by the sign.
The sun is gone down like a wearisome queen,
In curtains the richest that ever were seen.

The dew falls on flowers in a mist of small rain,
And, beating the hedges, low fly the barn owls;
The moon with her horns is just peeping again,
And deep in the forest the dog-badger howls;
In best bib and tucker then wanders my Jane
By the side of the woodbines which grow in the lane.

On a sweet eventide I walk by her side;
In green hoods the daisies have shut up their eyes.
Young Jenny is handsome without any pride;
Her eyes (O how bright!) have the hue of the skies.<...

John Clare

Song

One gloomy eve I roamed about
Neath Oxey's hazel bowers,
While timid hares were darting out,
To crop the dewy flowers;
And soothing was the scene to me,
Right pleased was my soul,
My breast was calm as summer's sea
When waves forget to roll.

But short was even's placid smile,
My startled soul to charm,
When Nelly lightly skipt the stile,
With milk-pail on her arm:
One careless look on me she flung,
As bright as parting day;
And like a hawk from covert sprung,
It pounced my peace away.

John Clare

To Jane

The lark's in the sky, love,
The flowers on the lea,
The whitethorn's in bloom, love,
To please thee and me;
'Neath its shade we can rest, love,
And sit on the hill,
And as last we met, love,
Enjoy the Spring still.

The Spring is for lovers,
The Spring is for joy:
O'er the moor, where the plovers
Whirr, startled, and cry,
We'll seek the white hawthorn, love,
And sit on the hill;
In the sweet sunny morn, love,
We'll be lovers still;

Where the partridge is craking
From morning to e'en,
In the wheat lands awaking,
The sprouts young and green,
Where the brook dribbles past, love,
Down the willowy glen,
And as we met last, love,
Be lovers again.

The lark's in the grass, love,
A-building her nest;
A...

John Clare