The Poetry Corner

Joys Of Youth.

By John Clare

How pleasing simplest recollections seem! Now summer comes, it warms me to look back On the sweet happiness of youth's wild track, Varied and fleeting as a summer dream: Here have I paus'd upon the sweeping rack That specks like wool-flocks through the purple sky; Here have I careless stooped down to catch The meadow flower that entertain'd my eye; And as the butterfly went whirring by, How anxious for its settling did I watch; And oft long purples on the water's brink Have tempted me to wade, in spite of fate, To pluck the flowers. -Oh, to look back and think, What pleasing pains such simple joys create!