LOVE OF NATURE
By
John Clare
&/\&/\&
I love thee, nature, with a boundless love,
The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods;
The winds breathe happiness wher'er I rove,
There's life's own music in the swelling floods.
My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
The snow-capt mountain, and the rolling sea;
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens? There lives happiness for me.
Death breaths its pleasures when it speaks of him;
My pulse beats calmer while his lightnings play.
My eye, with earth's delusion waxing dim,
Clear with the brightness of eternal day.
The elements crash round me: it is he !
Calmly I hear his voice and never start.
From Eve's posterity I stand quite free,
Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart.
Love is not here. Hope is, and at his voice ---
The rolling thunder and the roaring sea ---
My pulses leap, and with the hills rejoice;
Then strife and turmoil are at end for me,
No matter where life's ocean leads me on;
For nature is my mother, and I rest,
When tempests trouble and the sun is gone,
Like to a weary child upon her breast.
&/\&/\&
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