Summer
Summer
Original Text
Frederick Martin, The Life of John Clare (London: Macmillan, 1865). PR 4453 C628 MICR mfc
2For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
3And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
4And love is burning diamonds in my true lover's breast;
5She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
6And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
7I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
8And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.
9The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
10The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
11And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
12In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover's breast;
13I'll lean upon her breast and I'll whisper in her ear
14That I cannot get a wink o'sleep for thinking of my dear;
15I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
16Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.
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. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1865
RPO poem Editors
O. H. T. Rudzik
RPO Edition
3RP 2.618.
Rhyme