Saturday Rave: April from the Shepherd's Calendar by John Clare.

 The Word Den has noted before the many cuts the editor of The Shepherd's Calendar, John Taylor, made to John Clare's original text.

Here's the last published verse of April. This verse wasn't cut, it was inserted: and whoever wrote it, it wasn't John Clare:

Though at her birth the northern gale

Come with its withering sigh;

And hopeful blossoms, turning pale,

Upon her bosom die;

Ere April seeks another place,

And ends her reign in this,

She leaves us with as fair a face

As e're gave birth to bliss!

Competent, isn't it? Sums up the whole month in a nice obvious way.

Meanwhile, here's a (cut) verse from earlier in the poem by John Clare himself:

Young things of tender life again

Enjoys thy sunny hours

& gosslings waddle o'er the plain

As yellow as its flowers

Or swim the pond in wild delight

To catch the water flye

W[h]ere hissing geese in ceaseless spite

Make children scamper bye.

photo (of a Canada Goose gosling, which John Clare is unlikely to have seen on his village pond) by Mike's Birds

I mean, aren't hopeful blossoms just so much more poetic than goslings, for heaven's sake?

Well?

Word To Use Today: gosling. Goose - geese - gosling. Oh, how I do love the English language! The word gosling comes from the Old Norse gæslingr, and both words are of course related to the word goose, a word which goes all the way back to the Sanskrit hainsas.