Summer Moods
By JOHN CLARE
I love at eventide to walk alone
Down narrow lanes o’erhung with dewy thorn;
Where, from the long grass, underneath the snail,
Jet-black creeps out and lifts his timid horn.
I love to muse upon the meadows mown,
Where withering hay perfumes the sultry air;
Where bees go searching with a weary drone
In vain for flowers that bloomed but newly there.
Within the juicy corn the hidden quail
Calls “wet my foot” and slips away, half-born;
The fairylike, seldom-seen land rail replies
“Craik, craik,” like distant voices underground,—
Glad to meet evening’s soft and dewy veil,
And watch the fading daylight wrap the ground.
