John Clare (1793-1864)
Autumn
1The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still,
2On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
3The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
4Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.
5The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
6The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
7The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
8And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.
9Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
10And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
11Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
12Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
Notes
1] This belongs to the group of poems written while Clare was confined in the Northampton County Asylum from 1842 until his death in 1864.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Frederick Martin, The Life of John Clare (London: Macmillan, 1865). PR 4453 C628 MICR mfc
First publication date:
1865
RPO poem editor: O. H. T. Rudzik
RP edition: 3RP 2.617.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/6
Rhyme: aabb
Other poems by John Clare
