COUNTRY LETTER (JOHN CLARE)

Dear brother robin this comes from us all
With our kind love and could Gip write and all
Though but a dog he'd have his love to spare
For still he knows and by your corner chair
The moment he comes in he lyes him down
and seems to fancy you are in the town.
This leaves us well in health thank God for that
For old acquaintance Sue has kept your hat
Which mother brushes ere she lays it bye
and every sunday goes upstairs to cry
Jane still is yours till you come back agen
and neer so much as dances with the men
and ned the woodman every week comes in
and asks about you kindly as our kin
and he with this and goody Thompson sends
Remembrances with those of all our friends
Father with us sends love untill he hears
and mother she has nothing but her tears
Yet wishes you like us in health the same
and longs to see a letter with your name
So loving brother don't forget to write
Old Gip lies on the hearth stone every night
Mother can't bear to turn him out of doors
and never noises now of dirty floors
Father will laugh but lets her have her way
and Gip for kindness get a double pay
So Robin write and let us quickly see
You don't forget old friends no more than we
Nor let my mother have so much to blame
To go three journeys ere your letter came.


 

Oh! Sweet Nuthin' -- Velvet Underground (Live Link) (Encore Presentation!)


Cat Journeys 200 Miles To Get Home, Baffling Scientists (Link)


Eliot Hodgkin paintings:  Top – Three Apples; Bottom -- Leaves

TOUCH WOOD

How sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs,
Upon an ashen stoven pillowing me;

Faintly are heard the ploughmen at their ploughs,
But not an eye can find its way to see.

The sunbeams scarce molest me with a smile,
So thick the leafy armies gather round;

And where they do, the breeze blows cool the while,
Their leafy shadows dancing on the ground.

Full many a flower, too, wishing to be seen,
Perks up its head the hiding grass between.-

In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be;
Where all the noises, that on peace intrude,
Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee,
Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.



John Clare:  In Hilly-Wood
From The Village Minstrel, 1821



Note:  Waking early, in dark still, re-centering after last night's peculiarly rancorous presidential debate, I'm hoping for a peaceful Pennsylvania woodland day close to Paoli, home of wood master (sculpture; furniture; woodcuts) Wharton Esherick.  Touch wood always.