John Clare's poems

I love to wander at my idle will

In summers luscious prime about the fields

And kneel when thirsty at the little rill

To sip the draught its pebbly bottom yields

And where the maple bush its foundation shields

To lie and rest a swaily hour away

And crop the swelling peascod from the land

Or mid the upland woodland walks to stray

Where oaks for aye oer their old shadows stand

Neath whose dark foliage with a welcome hand

I pluck the luscious strawberry ripe and red

As beautys lips - and in my fancys dreams

As mid the velvet moss I musing tread

Feel life as lovely as her picture seems