Poems

Poems List

Explore poems from our collection

John Clare
John Clare

To Anna Three Years Old

To Anna Three Years Old

My Anna, summer laughs in mirth,
And we will of the party be,
And leave the crickets in the hearth
For green fiel…

367
John Clare
John Clare

To John Milton

To John Milton

_'From his honoured friend, William Davenant'_

Poet of mighty power, I fain
Would court the muse that honoured thee,

354
John Clare
John Clare

The Wood-Cutter's Night Song

The Wood-Cutter's Night Song

Welcome, red and roundy sun,
Dropping lowly in the west;
Now my hard day's work is done,
I'm as happy as the…

887
John Clare
John Clare

Thou Flower Of Summer

Thou Flower Of Summer

When in summer thou walkest
In the meads by the river,
And to thyself talkest,
Dost thou think of one ever--

346
John Clare
John Clare

The Winter's Come

The Winter's Come

Sweet chestnuts brown like soling leather turn;
The larch trees, like the colour of the Sun;
That paled sky in the Autumn seeme…

367
John Clare
John Clare

The Vanities Of Life

The Vanities Of Life

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.--_Solomon_

What are life's joys and gains?
What pleasures crowd its ways,

425
John Clare
John Clare

The Stranger

The Stranger

When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more …

447
John Clare
John Clare

The Thrush's Nest

The Thrush's Nest

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush <…

481
John Clare
John Clare

The Sleep Of Spring

The Sleep Of Spring

O for that sweet, untroubled rest
That poets oft have sung!--
The babe upon its mother's breast,
The bird upon its you…

395
John Clare
John Clare

The Shepherd's Tree

The Shepherd's Tree

Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred,
Like to a warrior's destiny! I love
To stretch me often on thy shadowed …

373
John Clare
John Clare

The Shepherds Calendar - May

The Shepherds Calendar - May

Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering s…

364
John Clare
John Clare

The Shepherd's Calendar - October

The Shepherd's Calendar - October

Nature now spreads around in dreary hue
A pall to cover all that summer knew
Yet in the poets solitary way

338
John Clare
John Clare

The Shepherds Calendar - July

The Shepherds Calendar - July

Daughter of pastoral smells and sights
And sultry days and dewy nights
July resumes her yearly place
Wi her…

371
John Clare
John Clare

The Shepherd's Calendar - June

The Shepherd's Calendar - June

Now summer is in flower and natures hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never …

405
John Clare
John Clare

The Shepherds Calendar - February - A Thaw

The Shepherds Calendar - February - A Thaw

The snow is gone from cottage tops
The thatch moss glows in brighter green
And eves in quick successio…

331
John Clare
John Clare

The Shepherds Calendar - April

The Shepherds Calendar - April

The infant april joins the spring
And views its watery skye
As youngling linnet trys its wing
And fears at…

418
John Clare
John Clare

The Peasant Poet

The Peasant Poet

He loved the brook's soft sound,
The swallow swimming by.
He loved the daisy-covered ground,
The cloud-bedappled sky.

448
John Clare
John Clare

The Sailor-Boy

The Sailor-Boy

Tis three years and a quarter since I left my own fireside
To go aboard a ship through love, and plough the ocean wide.
I crossed …

451
John Clare
John Clare

The Old Cottagers

The Old Cottagers

The little cottage stood alone, the pride
Of solitude surrounded every side.
Bean fields in blossom almost reached the wall;

368
John Clare
John Clare

The Mores

The Mores

Far spread the moorey ground a level scene
Bespread with rush and one eternal green
That never felt the rage of blundering plough

445
John Clare
John Clare

The Maid Of Ocram, Or, Lord Gregory

The Maid Of Ocram, Or, Lord Gregory

Gay was the Maid of Ocram
As lady eer might be
Ere she did venture past a maid
To love Lord Gregory. …

419
John Clare
John Clare

The Lout

The Lout

For Sunday's play he never makes excuse,
But plays at taw, and buys his Spanish juice.
Hard as his toil, and ever slow to speak,

407
John Clare
John Clare

The Gipsy's Camp

The Gipsy's Camp

How oft on Sundays, when I'd time to tramp,
My rambles led me to a gipsy's camp,
Where the real effigy of midnight hags,

467
John Clare
John Clare

The Landrail

The Landrail

How sweet and pleasant grows the way
Through summer time again
While Landrails call from day to day
Amid the grass and grain…

451