John Clare's poems

Fixed in a whitethorn bush, its summer guest,

So low e'en grass o'er topped its tallest twig,

A sedge bird built its little benty nest

Close by the meadow pool and wooden brig,

Where schoolboys every morn and eve did pass

In robbing birds and cunning deeply skilled,

Searching each bush and taller clump of grass,

Where'er was likelihood of bird to build;

Yet did she hide her habitation long

And keep her little brood from danger's eye,

Hidden as secret as a cricket's song,

Till they well-fledged o'er widest pools could fly,

Proving that providence is often by,

To guard the simplest of her charge from wrong.