The Beanfield

manuscript version:

A Bean field full in blossom smells as sweet
As Araby or Groves of orange flowers
Black eyed and white and feathered to ones feet
How sweet they smell in the mornings dewy hours
When seething night is left upon the flowers
And when morns bright sun shines oer the field
The pea bloom glitters in the gems o' showers
And sweet the fragrance which the union yields
To battered footpaths crossing o'er the fields.

or standardized:

A bean field full in blossom smells as sweet
As Araby, or groves of orange flowers;
Black-eyed and white, and feathered to one's feet,
How sweet they smell in the morning's dewy hours!
When seething night is left upon the flowers,
And when morn's bright sun shines o'er the field,
The bean-bloom glitters in the gems o' showers,
And sweet the fragrance which the union yields
To battered footpaths crossing o'er the fields.

Text sources: (1)Text source: The Later Poems of John Clare, ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. (2)The Poems of John Clare's Madness, ed Geoffrey Grigson, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1949