*The Stranger *Song's Eternity *The Old Cottagers *Young Lambs *Early Nightingale *Winter Walk *The Soldier *Ploughman Singing *Spring's Messengers *Letter in Verse *Snow Storm *Firwood *Grasshoppers *Field Path *Country Letter From "January" November *The Fens *Spear Thistle *Idle Fame *Approaching Night *Song Farewell and Defiance to Love To John Milton The Vanities of Life Death *The Fallen Elm *Sport in the Meadows *Death Autumn Summer Images A World for Love Love Nature's Hymn to the Deity Decay *The Cellar Door The Flitting Remembrances The Cottager Insects Sudden Shower Evening Primrose The Shepherd's Tree Wild Bees The Firetail's Nest The Fear of Flowers Summer Evening Emmonsail's Heath in Winter Pleasures of Fancy To Napoleon The Skylark The Flood The Thrush's Nest November Earth's Eternity *Autumn *Signs of Winter *Nightwind *Birds in Alarm *Dyke Side *Badger *The Fox *The Vixen *Turkeys *The Poet's Death The Beautiful Stranger *The Tramp *Farmer's Boy *Braggart *Sunday Dip *Merry Maid *Scandal *Quail's Nest *Market Day *Stonepit *"The Lass with the Delicate Air" *The Lout *Hodge *Farm Breakfast *Love and Solitude ASYLUM POEMS-- *Gipsies *The Frightened Ploughman *Farewell The Old Year *The Yellowhammer *Autumn *Song *The Winter's Come *Summer Winds Bonnie Lassie O! *Meet Me in the Green Glen *Love Cannot Die *Peggy *The Crow Sat on the Willow *Now is Past *Song *First Love *Mary Bayfield *The Maid of Jerusalem *Song *Thou Flower of Summer *The Swallow *The Sailor-Boy The Sleep of Spring Mary Bateman Bonny Mary O! Where She Told Her Love Autumn *Invitation to Eternity *The Maple Tree *House or Window Flies *Dewdrops *Fragment *From "A Rhapsody" *Secret Love *Bantry Bay *Peggy's the Lady of the Hall *I Dreamt of Robin *The Peasant Poet *To John Clare *Early Spring Clock-a-Clay Little Trotty Wagtail Graves of Infants The Dying Child Love Lives Beyond the Tomb I AM APPENDICES-- *Fragment: A Specimen of Clare's rough drafts A Bibliographical Outline Poems with asterisks are now first printed, or in one or two cases now first collected. EARLY POEMS _Ballad_ A faithless shepherd courted me, He stole away 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 nights did darkly prove, None came to guard me or to love. I wish, I wish, but all in vain, I wish I was a maid again. A maid again I cannot be, O when will green grass cover me? _Song_ Mary, leave thy lowly cot When thy thickest jobs are done; When thy friends will miss thee not, Mary, to the pastures run. Where we met the other night Neath the bush upon the plain, Be it dark or be it light, Ye may guess we'll meet again.