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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117958" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Mole-Catcher</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">When melted snow leaves bare the black-green rings,<br> And grass begins in freshening hues to shoot,<br>When thawing dirt to shoes of ploughmen clings,<br> And silk-haired moles get liberty to root,<br>An ancient man goes plodding round the fields<br> Which solitude seems claiming as her own,<br>Wrapt in greatcoat that from a tempest shields,<br> Patched thick with every colour but its own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With spuds and traps and horsehair string supplied,<br> He potters out to seek each fresh-made hill;<br>Pricking the greensward where they love to hide,<br> He sets his treacherous snares, resolved to kill;<br>And on the willow sticks bent to the grass,<br> That such as touched jerk up in bouncing springs,<br>Soon the little hermit tries to pass,<br> His carcass on the gibbet hings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And as a triumph to his matchless skill,<br> On some grey willow where a road runs by,<br>That passers may behold his power to kill,<br> On the bough's twigs he'll many a felon tie;<br>On every common dozens may be met,<br> Dangling on bent twigs bleaching to the sun,<br>Whose melancholy faces meet no regret,<br> Though dreamless of the snare they could not shun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On moors and commons and the pasture green,<br> He leaves them undisturbed to root and run,<br>Enlarging hills that have for ages been<br> Basking in mossy swellings to the sun;<br>The pismires too their tip-tops yearly climb<br> To lay their eggs and hunt the shepherd's crumbs,<br>Never disturbed save when for summer thyme<br> The trampling sheep upon their dwelling comes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He leans on nature's offerings for supply,<br>Like a sick child upon a mother's breast;<br>He feebly watches her unheeding eye,<br>And takes her givings with no vain request<br>To urge them better; he with aught is blest;<br>For the to-morrow he ne'er feels a fear,<br>His hopes upon to-day have all their rest;<br>When labour fails, the workhouse fare is near;<br>And thus on misery's edge he potters round the year.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Spring yearly meets him with his shouldered rake<br>To drag the crowding cresses from the brook,<br>And soon as May's first mornings are awake,<br>He threads the pasture, pewit's eggs to look;<br>And when these fail, the moor-pond's flaggy nook<br>Is beat for leeches; then the mushrooms start<br>In black-green fairy ring; thus nature's book<br>Is turned till he earth's lesson knows by heart,<br>In life's rude patchwork play to act the allotted part.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And in the meadows when the grass is mown,<br>He haunts the holes torn up by many a flood,<br>With swordy flag and reed and rush o'ergrown,<br>Progging the bladed greave about the mud,<br>Scaring full oft the moor-hen's summer brood,<br>Trying to catch the slipping eels in vain;<br>While, watching by the hedge's crowding wood<br>Of reeds, starts up the solitary crane,<br>Like hermit pilgrim on some lonely plain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And while his snuff-box offers its supply,<br>Complaint can never o'er his heart prevail;<br>Pulled out and pinched by every passer-by,<br>It always doth his weary walks regale,<br>And adds a tiresome length to every tale;<br>But in its need he mopes o'er field and town,<br>His strength sinks in him and his spirits fail;<br>In silent pace he potters up and down,<br>And scarcely says good-morn to passing maid or clown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Want often makes him on the folded land<br>Stoop down a turnip from the sheep to steal,<br>Borrowing the shepherd's knife with palsied hand<br>To clean and peel it for a morning meal.<br>Pride's unconcern that hath no heart to feel<br>Full often in his pottering pace appears,<br>From whom his turnip-thefts he will conceal,<br>Who as a tyrant wakes his humble fears,<br>Whose proud and threatening taunts will fill his eyes with tears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For ever in his creeping path appears<br>A waffling cur, in colour sandy grey,<br>With curling tail and sharp fox-pointed ears,<br>Who shows his teeth and threatens sore dismay;<br>But if a stranger sets his rage at bay,<br>Or stoops adown a threatening stone to throw,<br>Will drop his tail and whine and sneak away,<br>And linger for a while in motions slow<br>Behind the old man's heels till past the dreaded foe.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then quickly he resumes his cheering pace,<br>And 'gins in jealous threats his ears to prick,<br>And barks and looks his master in the face,<br>Who in his leisure learns him many a trick,<br>To carry in his mouth his walking-stick,<br>Or watch and run to fetch a pelted stone,<br>Or from the pond whatever's thrown to pick,<br>And on his legs to rear himself alone<br>To beg at dinner hour for proffered crust and bone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Clare">John Clare</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117958" data-title="The Mole-Catcher de John Clare" data-description="When melted snow leaves bare the black-green rings,/ And grass begins in freshening hues to shoot,/When thawing dirt to shoes of ploughmen clings,/ And silk-haired moles get liberty to root,/An ancient man goes plodding round the fields/ Which sol..."></div>
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