John Clare's poems

Old stone pits with veined ivy overhung

Wild crooked brooks o'er which was rudely flung

A rail and plank that bends beneath the tread

Old narrow lanes where trees meet overhead

Path stiles on which a steeple we espy

Peeping and stretching in the distant sky

And heaths o'erspread with furze blooms' sunny shine

Where wonder pauses to exclaim 'divine'

Old ponds dim-shadowed with a broken tree -

These are the picturesque of taste to me

While paintings winds to make compleat the scene

In rich confusion mingles every green

Waving the sketching pencil in their hands

Shading the living scenes to fairey lands