To autumn Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness Close bossom friend of the maturing sun Conspiring with hime

how to load and bless With fruit vines round the thatch eaves run To bend with apples the mossd cottage trees And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core To swell the gourd an plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel to set budding more And still more later flowers for the bees Till they think warm days will never cease For summer over brimmed there clammy cells Who hath not seen the oft amid thy store Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor Thy hair soft lifted by the winnowing wind Or on a half reaped furrow sound asleep Drowsd by the fumes of poppies while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twind flowers And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook Or by cider press with patient look Thou watchest the last oozing hours by hours Where are the songs of spring aye where are they Think not of them thou hast thy music too While bared clouds bloom the soft dying day And toush the stubble plains with rosy hue Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows bourn aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies And full-grown lambs bleat from hilly bourn Hedge crickets sing and now with a treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden croft And gathering swallows twitter in the skies

First love john clare I neer was struck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower And stole my heart away complete My face turned pale as deadly pale My legs refused to walk away And when she looked what could I ail My life and all seems turned to clay An then my blood rushed to my face And took my sight away The trees and bushes round the place Seemed midnight at noonday I could not see a single thing Word from my hgeart did start They spoke as chords do from the string And blood burnt round my heart Are flowers the winters choice Is loves bed always snow She seems to hear my silent voice And loves appeal to know I never saw so sweet a face As that I stood before My heart has left it dwelling place And can come no more

My last duchess- Robert burns That my last duchess painted on the wall Looking as if she were alive I call That piece of wonder now fra pandolfs hands Worked busily a day and there she stands Willt please you sit and look at her I said Fra pandolfs desin by design for never read Strangers like you that pictured countance The depth of passion of that earnest glance But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you but I) And seemed as they would ask me durst How such a glance came there so not the first are you to turn and ask thus sir twas not her husbands presence only called that spot of joy into the duchesses cheek perhaps Fra pandolf chanced to say her mantle lips Over my ladys wrist too much or paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half flush that dies along her throat such stuff Was courtesy she thought and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy she had A heart how shall I say too soon made glad Too easily impressed she liked whateer She looked on and her looks went everywhere Sir twas all one my favour at her breast The dropping of daylight in the west The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke into the orchard for her the white mule She rode round the terrace all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech Or blush at least she thanked men good but thanked Somehow I know not how as if she ranked My gift of a thousuand yer old name With anybodys gift whod stoop to blame This sort of trifling even had you skill In speech-which I have not- to make your will Quite clear to such an one and say just this Or that in you disgust me here you miss Or there you exceed the mark and if she Herself be lessoned so nor plainily set Her wits to yours forsooth and made excuse

Een then would be some stooping and I choose never to stoop oh sir she smiled no doubt wheneer I passed her but who passed without much the same smile this grew I gave commands then all smiles stopped together there she stands as alive willt you please rise well meet the company below then i repeat the count your mastes known munifesence is ample warrant that no just pretence of mine for dowry will be disallowed though his fair daughters self as I vowed at starting is my object nay well go together down sir notice Neptune though taming a seahorse thought a rairity which claus innesbruck cast in bronze for me

To his coy mistress Had we but worl enough and time This coyness lady were no crime We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long loves day Thou by the Indian ganges side Shouldst rubies find I by tide O humber would complain I would Love you ten years before the flood And you please refuse Till the conversion of the jews My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes on thy forehead gaze Two hundred to adore each breast But thirty thousaund to the rest An age atleast to every part And the last age should show your heart For lady you deserve this state Nor would I love at lower rate But at my back I always hear Times wwinged chariot hurrying near And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity Thy beauty shall no more be found Nor thy marble vault shall sound My echoing song thn worms shall try That long preserved virginity And your quaint honour turn to dust And into ashes all my lust The graves a fine and private place But none I thinke do there embrace Now therefore while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires Now let us sport while we may And now like amorous birds of prey Rather at once our time devaour Than languish in his slow chapt power

Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life Thus though we cannot make our sun Stand still yet we will make him run

Shall I compare thee to a sommers day Thou art more tempert than the darling buds of mai Rough windes do shake the darling buds of mai And sommers lease hath all too short a date Sometimes too hot the eye of heavan shines And often is his complexion dimid And every faire from faire some time declines By chance or natures changing course untrimd But thy eternal sommer shall not fade Nor loose possession of that faire thou owst Nor shall death brag thou wandrst in his shade When in eternall lines to times thou growst So long as man can breath or eyes can see So long loves this and this gives life to thee

Ballad anon A faithless shepherd courted me He stole my liberty When my poor heart was strange to men He came and smiled and stole it then When my apron would hang low Me he sought through frost and snow When it puckered up with shame And I sought him he never came When summer brought no fears to fright He came to guard me every night When winter night did darkly prove None came to guard me or to love I wish I wish- but it in vain That I was a maid again A maid again I cannot be O when will green grass cover me I wish my babe neer been born Ive made its bed on a thorn I wish my sorrows all away My soul with god my body clay He promised me beds as fine as silk And sheets of love as whit as milk But he when won my heart astray Left me to want a bed of caly He kept his sheep on yonder hill His heart seemed soft but it was steel I ran with love and was undone O had I walked ere I did run He has two hearts and I have none Hell be rogue when I am gone To thee my baby unto thee as he has been too long to me

I weep the past, I dread the gloom Of sorrows in the time to come When thou without a friend shalt be Weeping on a strangers knee My heart would break but it is brass To see thee smile upon my face To see thee smile at words that be The messengers of grief to thee I wish ny child thoudst neer been born Ive thy pillow on a thorn I wish our sorrows both away Our soul with god our bodies clay

To a mouse Wee sleekit cowrin timrous beastie O what a panics in thy breastie Thoud need na start awa sae hasty Wi bickering brattle I wad be laith to rin an chase thee Wi murdering prattle Im truly sorry mans dominion Has broken nature social union An justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me thy poor earth companion An fellow mortal I doubt na whyles but thou may thieve What then? Poor beastie thou maun live A daimen icker in a thrave S a sma request Ill get blessin wi the lave And never misst Thy wee bit housie too in ruin Its silly was teh wins are strewin An naething,now,to big a new ane O foggage green An bleak Decembers winds ensuin Baith snell keen Thou saw the fields laid bare an waste An weary winters coming fast An cosie here beneath the blast Thou thought to dwell Till crash the cruel coulter past Out thro thy cell That wee bit heap o leaves an stibble Has cost thee mony a weary nibble Now thoust turnd out for a thy nibble Now thous turnd out for a thy trouble But house or hald To thole the winters sleety dribble An cranreuch cauld

But mousie thou art no thy lane In proving foresight may be vain The best laid schemes o mice an men Gang aft agley An leae us nought but grief and pain For promisd joy Still thou art blest compard wi me The present only toucheth thee But och I backward cast my ee Oh prospects drear An forward tho I canna see I guess an fear

The flea Mark but thus flea and mark in this How little that which thou denyst me is It suckd me first, and now sucks thee And in this flea our two bloods mingled be Thou knowst that this cannot be said A sin nor shame nor loss of maiden head Yet this enjoys before it woo And pampers swells with one blood made of two And this alas is more than we would Oh stay three lives in one flea spare Where we almost yea more than married are This flea is you and I this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is Thous parents grudge and you were met And cloistered in these living walls of jet Though use make you apt to kill me Let not to that self murder added be And sacriledge three sins in killing three Cruel and sudden hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence Wherein could this flea guilty be Except in that drop which it suckd from thee Yet thou triumphst and sayst that thou Findst not thyself nor me the weaker now Tis true then learn how false fears be Just so much honour when thous yieldst me Will waste as this fleas death took life from thee

Let me not sonnent cxvi Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove O no it is an ever fixed marke That looks on tempest and is never shaken It is the star to every wandring barke Whose worths unknown although his highth be taken Lovs not time fool though rosie lips and cheek Within his bending sickles compasse come Love alters not with his breefe hours and weekes But beares it out even to the edge of doome If this be error and upon me proved I never writ no man ever loved

Amen Its over what is over Nay now much is over truly Harvest days we toiled to sow for Now thy sheaves are gathered newly Now the wheat is garnered duly It is finished what is finished Mush is finished known or unknown Lives are finished time dimished Was the fallow field left unsown Will these buds be always unblown It suffices what suffices All suffices reckoned rightly Spring shall bloom where now ice is Roses make the bramble slightly And the quickening sun shine brightly And the latter wind blown lightly And my garden teem with spices

Prophyrias lover The rain set in early to-night The sullen wind was soon awake It tore the elem tops down for spite And did its worst to vex the lake I listened with a heart fit to break When glided in prophyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up and all the cottage warm Which done she rpse and from her form Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl And laid her soiled gloves by untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall And last she sat by my side And called me when no voice replied She put my arm about her waist And made her smooth white shoulder bare And all her yellow hair displaced And stooping made my sheek lie there And spread oer all her yellow hair Murmuring how she loved me- she Too weak for all her hearts endeavour To set its struggling passion free From pride and vainer ties dissever And give herself to me forever But passion sometimes would prevail Nor could tonights gay feast restrain A sudden thought of one so pale For love of her and all in vain So, she was come through wind and rain Be sure I looked up at her eyes Happy and proud att last I knew Prophyria worshipped me surprise Made my heart swell and still it grew While I debated what to do That moment she was mine mine fair Perfectly pure and good A thing to do and all her hair In one yellow string I wound round Three times her little throat around And strangled her. No pain felt she I am quite sure she felt no pain As a shut bud holds a bee I warily oped her lids again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain And I untightened next the tress About her neck her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss I propped her head up as before Only this time my shoulders bore Her head which droops upon it still The smiling rosy little head So glad it has it utmost will Thats all its scorned at once is fled And I its love am gained instead Prophyrias love she guessed not how Her darling one wish would be heard And thus we sit together now And all night we have not stirred And yet god has not said a word

La belle dame sans merci O what can ail thee knight at arms Alone and palely loitering The sedge has witherd from the lake And no birds sing O what can ail thee knight at arms So haggard and woebegone The squirrels granary is full And the harvests done I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever dew And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful- a faerys child Her hair was long her foot was light And her eyes wild I made a garland for her head And braclets too and fragrant zone She lookd me as she did love And made sweet moan I set her on my pacing steed And nothing else saw all day long For sidelong would she bend and sing A faerys song She found me roots of relish sweey And honey wild and manna dew And sure in language strange she said I love thee true She took me to her elfin grot And there she wept and sighd full sore And then I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four And there she lulled me asleeo And there I dreamd ah woe betide

The latest dream I ever dreamd On the cold hills side I saw pale kings and princes too Pale warriors, death pale were they all They cried- la belle dame sans merci Hath thee in thrall I saw their starved kips in the gloam With horrid warning gaped wide And I awoke and found me here On the cold hills side And this is why I sijourn here Alone and palely loitering Though the sedge has withered from the lake And no birds sing