THE THRUSH'S NEST

John Clare 1793-1864

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush

That overhung a mole-hill large and round,

I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush 

Sing hymns to sunrise, while I drank the sound

With joy; and, often an intruding guest,

I watched her secret toils from day to day - 

How true she warped the moss to form a nest,

And modelled it from within with wood and clay;

And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,

There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,

Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue;

And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours,

A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly,

Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.

-o0o-

THE SOLITARY REAPER

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;—

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

-o0o-

THE LONG WHITE SEAM

Jean Ingelow 1820–97

As I came round the harbour buoy,

  The lights began to gleam,

No wave the land-lock’d water stirr’d,

  The crags were white as cream;

And I mark’d my love by candle-light         

  Sewing her long white seam.

    It ’s aye sewing ashore, my dear,

      Watch and steer at sea,

    It ’s reef and furl, and haul the line,

      Set sail and think of thee.         

I climb’d to reach her cottage door;

  O sweetly my love sings!

Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth,

  My soul to meet it springs

As the shining water leap’d of old,         

  When stirr’d by angel wings.

    Aye longing to list anew,

      Awake and in my dream,

    But never a song she sang like this,

      Sewing her long white seam.         

Fair fall the lights, the harbour lights,

  That brought me in to thee,

And peace drop down on that low roof

  For the sight that I did see,

And the voice, my dear, that rang so clear         

  All for the love of me.

    For O, for O, with brows bent low

      By the candle’s flickering gleam,

    Her wedding gown it was she wrought,

      Sewing the long white seam.

           -o0o-      

THE THOMAS HARDY POEM

She Charged Me

She charged me with having said this and that

To another woman long years before,

In the very parlour where we sat, -

Sat on a night when the endless pour

Of rain on the roof and the road below

Bent the spring of the spirit more and more . . .

- So charged she me; and the Cupid's bow

Of her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face,

And her white forefinger lifted slow.

Had she done it gently, or shown a trace

That not too curiously would she view

A folly passed ere her reign had place,

A kiss might have ended it. But I knew

From the fall of each word, and the pause between,

That the curtain would drop upon us two

Ere long, in our play of slave and queen.

-o=0=o-

A very big selection of Thomas Hardy poems can be found at
THOMAS HARDY
http://casterbridge.blogspot.com

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