Friday Poem: The Crow

Perfect timing for the beginning of March is today’s poem - another evocative piece by the Northamptonshire so-called Peasant Poet, John Clare. I am particularly fond of crows, especially the clever family that inhabit our garden and entertain us with their antics.

Sonnet: The Crow

By John Clare

How peaceable it seems for lonely men

To see a crow fly in the thin blue sky

Over the woods and fields, o’er level fen.

It speaks of villages, or cottages nigh

Behind the neighbouring woods - when March winds high

Tear off the branches of the huge old oak.

I love to see these chimney-sweeps sail by

And hear them o’er the gnarled forest croak,

Then sosh* askew from the hid woodman’s stroke

That in the woods their daily labours ply.

I love the sooty crow, nor would provoke

Its March day exercise of croaking joy;

I love to see it sailing to and fro

While fields, and woods and waters spread below.

*sosh - dip in flight; to plunge suddenly