Love of Nature

Listen to:

Love of Nature (1:38)

by John Clare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
  The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
  The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
  There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
  My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
  The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
  And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
  The heavens? There lives happiness for me!

  My pulse beats calmer while His lightnings play!
  My eye, with earth's delusions waxing dim,
  Clears 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.