After a February fill-dyke of too much rain, we turn the page in John Clare’s Shepherd’s Calendar only to find that March wildly comes with its many weathers, bringing with it a cautious Spring.

March month of ‘many weathers’ wildly comes…

…Yet winter seems half weary of its toil
And round the ploughman on the elting soil
Will thread a minutes sunshine wild and warm
Thro the raggd places of the swimming storm.

The Shepherds Calendar – March. John Clare

March’s Cautious Spring

Spring is precocious yet so vulnerable. An early song thrush has been singing hopefully for a mate yet unsuccessfully. The Crocus tomasinianus (above) have been giving us their usual purple carpet, but rain can flatten the whole show. The early frogspawn in the pond has arrived but it also looks so vulnerable. No wonder Spring’s approach is so cautious.

John Clare’s Shepherd’s Calendar.

Life was hard for the true countrymen of John Clare’s day. Shepherd, ploughman, hedger, ditcher and woodsman were out in all weathers. But being closer to nature than others, theirs was the joy of seeing the little signs and sounds of spring to cheer their working days.

And where the stunt bank fronts the southern sky
By lanes or brooks where sunbeams love to lye
A cowslip peep will open faintly coy
Soon seen and gatherd by a wandering boy.

Where woodman that in wild seclusion dwells
Wi chopping toil the coming spring decieves
Of many dancing shadows flowers and leaves
And in his pathway down the mossy wood
Crushes wi hasty feet full many a bud
Of early primrose yet if timely spied
Shelterd some old half rotten stump beside
The sight will cheer his solitery hour
And urge his feet to stride and save the flower.

And bees peep out on slabs before the hive
Stroaking their little legs across their wings
venturing short flight where the snow drop hings
Its silver bell-and winter aconite
Wi buttercup like flowers that shut at night
And green leaf frilling round their cups of gold
Like tender maiden muffld from the cold
They sip and find their honey dreams are vain
And feebly hasten to their hives again.

March bids farewell wi garlands in her hair
Of hazzel tassles woodbines hairy sprout
And sloe and wild plumb blossoms peeping out
In thickset knotts of flowers preparing gay
For aprils reign a mockery of may.

Beauty in Small Things

John Clare sees beauty in little things. A broken gate, a feather on the path, a rabbit hole in the hedge. He makes you want to put on a coat and walk in the countryside with him, to feel the wind on your face and the squelch of mud underfoot. To notice all those little wayside plants and rustles in the hedge as we walk past. To chat with those field workers and feel their relief, after a day out in the March cold, of returning at dusk to the warmth of a simple cottage meal, and a well-earned sleep for weary limbs. Bringing back memories of the simple joy of seeing a clump of primroses or the elation of discovering a nest of thrush eggs in the hedge. To hear the first chiff chaff – the sound of spring.

It’s John Clare who points out all these things to us.