John Clare's poems

The weary woodman rocking home beneath

His tightly banded faggot wonders oft

While crossing over the furze-crowded heath

To hear the fern owl's cry that whews aloft

In circling whirls and often by his head

Wizzes as quick as thought and ill and rest

As through the rustling ling with heavy tread

He goes nor heeds he tramples near its nest

That underneath the furze or squatting thorn

Lies hidden on the ground and teasing round

That lonely spot she wakes her jarring noise

To the unheeding waste till mottled morn

Fills the red East with daylight's coming sounds

And the heath's echoes mocks the herding boys