Poems Author:John Clare Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WILLIAM AND ROBIN WILLIAM When I meet Peggy in my morning walk, She first salutes the morn, then stays to talk : The biggest secret she will not refuse, Bu... more »t freely tells me all the village-news ; And pleas'd am I, can I but haply force Some new-made tale to lengthen the discourse, For — O so pleasing is her company, That hours, like minutes, in her presence fly ! I'm happy then, nor can her absence e'er Raise in my heart the least distrust or fear. Robin When Mary meets me I find nought to say, She hangs her head, I turn another way; Sometimes (but never till the maid 's gone by) ' Good morning ! ' falters, weaken'd by a sigh ; Confounded I remain, but yet delight To look back on her till she's out of sight. Then, then 's the time that absence does torment : I jeer my weakness, painfully repent, To think how well I might have then confest That secret love which makes me so distrest : But, when the maiden's vanish'd for a while, Recruited hopes my future hours beguile : I fancy then another time I'll tell, Which, if not better, will be quite as well ; Thus days, and weeks, and months I've dallied o'er, And am no nearer than I was before. WILLIAM Such ways as these I ever strove to shun, Nor was I bashful when I first begun : Freely I offer'd posies to the maid, Which she as freely with her smiles repaid; Yet had I been, like you, afraid to own My love—her kindness had been still unknown. And, now the maiden's kindness to requite, I strive to please her morning, noon, and night: The garland and the wreath for her I bind, Compos'd of all the fairest I can find; For her I stop the straggler going astray, And watch her sheep when she's not in the way; I fetch them up at night, and shift th...« less