by
Poet's Day

The Wild Flowers Come Again

The Wild Flowers Come Again
by
Poet's Day

This week’s choice is by John Clare and it is “I love to see the summer beaming forth” which I have chosen for fairly obvious reasons.

I love to see the wild flowers come again
And mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lilies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood

John Clare (1793—1864)

Poem 396. I love to see the summer beaming forth

I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north.
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lilies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes.
I like the willow leaning half way o’er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore.
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play.

This sonnet is John Clare’s celebration of summer and he conjures up the images of the season very ably.

He evokes sunny days in the first line: “I love to see the summer beaming forth”—we get a real sense of warmth and brightness from the single word “beaming” which is strengthened in the second line by the image of “white wool sack clouds”—the fluffy clouds we tend to see on a summer’s day driven northwards by a warm southerly wind.

We see the colourful wild flowers at their finest and the marsh marigolds (mare blobs) gilding the borders of the stream while water lilies float atop the rushing waters. The reeds shiver and whisper like trees caught in a gale and the moor hens with their characteristic swimming motion forsake their concealment to return to their nests.

We can see the willow weeping over the lake shore, shading its border with its branches and we can scent the hay and see the beetles, flies and other insects flying through the long grasses of the meadow and alighting on the water’s surface.

I like the poem because it is such a riotous description of the sights, sounds and scents of summer.

There are not many renditions of the poem online but Tim Harvey’s performance on YouTube is pretty good.