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Summer by John Clare

Analysis

"Summer" is a poem written by John Clare. In it, the author speaks of how summer will come soon and how he wishes to spend his time with his love, lying upon her breast. He states how he can't sleep without his love and how much she means to him and how much he desires her.

"Summer" is written as two stanzas with eight lines each for a total of seventeen lines. It contains the rhyme scheme AABBCCDD in each stanza. Each line contains a varying length of syllables. However, even though it doesn't stay true to triambic meter through the entire writing, it's close enough to maintain a strong rhythm presence for the reader. It helps control the reader's emotion.

Poem

Summer
By 

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover's breast;
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover's breast;
I'll lean upon her breast and I'll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o'sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.

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