Selected Poems of John Clare
Volume 1
Volume 1
Sabbath Bells
Ive often on a sabbath day
Where pastoral quiet dwells
Lay down among the new mown hay
To listen distant bells
That beautifully flung the sound
Upon the quiet wind
While beans in blossom breathed around
A fragrance oer the mind
A fragrance and a joy beside
That never wears away
The very air seems deified
Upon a sabbath day
So beautiful the flitting wrack
Slow passing from the eye
Earths music seemed to call them back
Calm settled in the sky
And i have listened till I felt
A feeling not in words
A love that rudest moods would melt
When those sweet sounds was heard
A melancholy joy at rest
A pleasurable pain
A love a rapture of the breast
That nothing will explain
A dream of beauty that displays
Imaginary joys
That all the world in all its ways
Finds not to realize
All idly stretched upon the hay
The wind-flirt fanning bye
How soft how sweetly swept away
The music of the sky
The ear it lost and caught the sound
Swelled beautifully on
A fitful melody around
Of sweetness heard and gone
I felt such thoughts I yearned to sing
The humming airs delight
That seemed to move the swallows wing
Into a wilder flight
The butterfly in wings of brown
Would find me where I lay
Fluttering and bobbing up and down
And settling on the hay
The waving blossoms seemed to throw
Their fragrance to the sound
While up and down and loud and low
The bells were ringing round
Ive often on a sabbath day
Where pastoral quiet dwells
Lay down among the new mown hay
To listen distant bells
That beautifully flung the sound
Upon the quiet wind
While beans in blossom breathed around
A fragrance oer the mind
A fragrance and a joy beside
That never wears away
The very air seems deified
Upon a sabbath day
So beautiful the flitting wrack
Slow passing from the eye
Earths music seemed to call them back
Calm settled in the sky
And i have listened till I felt
A feeling not in words
A love that rudest moods would melt
When those sweet sounds was heard
A melancholy joy at rest
A pleasurable pain
A love a rapture of the breast
That nothing will explain
A dream of beauty that displays
Imaginary joys
That all the world in all its ways
Finds not to realize
All idly stretched upon the hay
The wind-flirt fanning bye
How soft how sweetly swept away
The music of the sky
The ear it lost and caught the sound
Swelled beautifully on
A fitful melody around
Of sweetness heard and gone
I felt such thoughts I yearned to sing
The humming airs delight
That seemed to move the swallows wing
Into a wilder flight
The butterfly in wings of brown
Would find me where I lay
Fluttering and bobbing up and down
And settling on the hay
The waving blossoms seemed to throw
Their fragrance to the sound
While up and down and loud and low
The bells were ringing round
Poems
chosen by David Barnes from
Oxford World Classics: John Clare Major Works, and recorded for LibriVox.org
Oxford World Classics: John Clare Major Works, and recorded for LibriVox.org
