Selected Poems of John Clare
Volume 1
Volume 1
Winter Fields
O for a pleasant book to cheat the sway
Of winter -- where rich mirth with hearty laugh
Listens and rubs his legs on corner seat
Foe fields are mire and sludge -- and badly off
Are those who on their pudgy paths delay
There striding shepherd seeking driest way
Fearing nights wetshod feet and hacking cough
That keeps him waken till the peep of day
Goes shouldering onward and with ready hook
Progs oft to ford the sloughs that nearly meet
Across the lands -- croodling and thin to view
His loath dog follows -- stops and quakes and looks
For better roads -- till whistled to pursue
Then on with frequent jump he hirkles through
O for a pleasant book to cheat the sway
Of winter -- where rich mirth with hearty laugh
Listens and rubs his legs on corner seat
Foe fields are mire and sludge -- and badly off
Are those who on their pudgy paths delay
There striding shepherd seeking driest way
Fearing nights wetshod feet and hacking cough
That keeps him waken till the peep of day
Goes shouldering onward and with ready hook
Progs oft to ford the sloughs that nearly meet
Across the lands -- croodling and thin to view
His loath dog follows -- stops and quakes and looks
For better roads -- till whistled to pursue
Then on with frequent jump he hirkles through
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
