Summer Moods

I love at eventide to walk alone

Down narrow lanes oerhung with dewy thorn

Where from the long grass underneath the snail

Jet black creeps out and sprouts his timid horn

I love to muse oer meadows newly mown

Where withering grass perfumes the sultry air

Where bees search round with sad and weary drone

In vain for flowers that bloomed but newly there

While in the juicey corn the hidden quail

Cries ‘wet my foot’ and hid as thoughts unborn

The fairy like and seldom-seen land rail

Utters ‘craik craik’ like voices underground

Right glad to meet the evenings dewy veil

And see the light fade into glooms around ~ John Clare