Evening.

A poem by John Clare

What time the cricket unmolested sings,
And blundering beetles try their clumsy wings,
Leave me to meet the sweets of Even's hour
By hawthorn hedges when the May's in flower,
With light enough to guard my cautious tread,
As not to trample on the daisy's head,
Down beaten pathways of a wish'd extent,
Ev'n unimpeded by the bending bent
That, night and morning, bowing down with dew,
Sullies the brightness of the maiden's shoe.
There leave me musing 'neath the bow'ring ash,
Counting the knoll of bells, or spurting dash
Of muttering fountain-fall, with wild delight,
Till Even lose In the blank of Night.