A Poem From The Year

“Summer Moods” by John Clare (1793-1864):

I love at eventide to walk alone

Down narrow lanes o’erhung with dewy thorn

Where, from the long grass underneath, the snail

Jet black creeps out and sprouts his timid horn.

I love to muse o’er meadows newly mown

Where withering grass perfumes the sultry air,

Where bees search round with sad and weary drone

In vain for flowers that bloomed but newly there,

While in the juicy corn the hidden quail

Cries “wet my foot” and hid as thoughts unborn

The fairylike and seldom-seen landrail

Utters “craik craik” like voices underground,

Right glad to meet the evening’s dewy veil

And see the light fade into glooms around.

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(From “I Am”: The Selected Poetry of John Clare, edited by Jonathan Bate © 2003 by Jonathan Bate. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Photo by Tom Marsh)