John Clare's poems

Field thoughts to me are happiness and joy

When I can lie upon the pleasant grass

Or track some little path and so employ

My mind in trifles, pausing as I pass

The little wild-flower clumps by nothing nursed

But dews and sunshine and impartial rain

And welcomely to quench my summer thirst

I bend me by the flaggy dyke to gain

Dewberries so delicious to the taste;

And then I wind the flag-fringed meadow lake

And mark the pike plunge with unusual haste

Through water weeds and many a circle make,

While bursts of happiness from heaven fall;

There all have hopes; here fields are free for all.