poem

The Maple Tree, Oct 14, 2026

John Clare

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The maple with its tassel flowers of green,
That turns to red a staghorn-shaped seed,
Just spreading out its scolloped leaves is seen,
Of yellowish hue, yet beautifully green;
Bark ribbed like corderoy in seamy screed,
That farther up the stem is smoother seen,
Where the white hemlock with white umbel flowers
Up each spread stoven to the branches towers;
And moss around the stoven spreads, dark green,
And blotched leaved orchis, and the blue bell flowers;
Thickly they grow and neath the leaves are seen;
I love to see them gemmed with morning hours,
I love the lone green places where they be,
And the sweet clothing of the maple tree.

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📖 About this poem

John Clare was a close looker, and this little sonnet proves it. He doesn't just say "maple tree" — he walks you right up to it, noting how the flowers turn to seed, how the bark is ribbed like corduroy lower down but smooths out higher up the trunk. It's less a poem about a tree than a poem about really seeing one, the way you might if you'd spent your whole life in the same patch of countryside and loved it too much to be vague about it.

The music is quietly insistent, built on repeated end-sounds that circle back like a mind returning to something it can't stop admiring. The best image might be the moss "around the stoven," dark green, with bluebells pushing up beneath the leaves — a whole small world under one tree.

It lands today because that kind of patient attention still feels rare, and restful.