July: The Shepherd's Calendar by John Clare.

This lovely poem needs to be read in full, really, but it's more than four pages and there's not space here.

It describes a July day on the edge of the English Fens. It begins with the joyous busyness of the people setting out to get in the harvest, which is echoed by the insects at their feet. 

Then the poem sweeps away to the dreaming shepherd, sitting in the cool, or searching through the ruins of some ancient site for:

Some little thing of other days
Saved from the wreck of time - as beads
Or broken pots among the weeds
Of curious shapes - & many a stone
Of roman pavements thickly sown

And even here the tiny creatures of the earth:

Like visitors to a country fair
Some climbing up the rushes stem
A steeples height or more to them
With speed that sees no fear to drop
Till perched upon its spiry top
Where they awhile the view survey
Then prune their wings and fly away

The cattle are standing in the cool stream. The very breeze seems to be singing until:

Till noon burns with its blistering breath
Around & day dyes still as death...
The cricket on the banks is dumb
The very flies forget to hum

But then the sun begins to sink and the place stirs to a more languid activity. The milkmaid sings her ballads and the mower returns home to sit and watch his children play:

& all with quiet joys receive
The welcom of a summers eve

The strangest thing is that we all, all of us, live in a place quite as rich and lovely and full of marvels.

It's just that the rest of us just don't notice.


photo by Toby Hudson

Word To Use Today: steeple. The Old English form of this word was stēpel. It's basically the same word as steep.