The bluebell

I pluck Summer blossoms

& think of rich bosoms
The bosoms Ive leaned on & worshipped & won
The rich valley lilies
The wood daffodillies
Have been found in our rambles when Summer begun

Where I plucked thee the bluebell
'Twas where the night dew fell
& rested till morn in the cups of the flowers
I shook the sweet posies
Bluebells & brere roses
As we sat in cool shade in Summers warm hours

Bedlam-cowslips & cuckoos
With freckd lip & hooked nose
Growing safe near the hazel of thicket & woods
& water blobs ladies smocks
Blooming where haycocks
May be found in the meadows low places & floods

& cowslips a fair band
For May ball or garland
That bloom in the meadows as seen by the eye
& pink ragged robin
Where the fish they are bobbing
Their heads above water to catch at the fly

Wild flowers & wild roses
'Tis love makes the posies
To paint Summer ballads of meadow & glen
Floods cant drown it nor turn it
Even flames cannot burn it
Let it bloom till we walk the green meadows again

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Black grows the southern sky

Black grows the southern sky betokening rain

& humming hive bees homeward hurry bye

They feel the change so let us shun the grain

& take the broad road while our feet are dry

Ay there some dropples moistened on my face

& pattered on my hat tis coming nigh

Let's look about & find a sheltering place

The little things around like you and I

Are hurrying through the grass to shun the shower

Here stoops an ash-tree hark the wind gets high

But never mind this ivy for an hour

Rain as it may will keep us dryly here

That little wren knows well his sheltering bower

Nor leaves his dry house though we come so near

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A dark extract from ‘Child Harold’

My life hath been one love—no blot it out

My life hath been one chain of contradictions


Madhouses Prisons wh---re shops—never doubt


But that my life hath had some strong convictions

That such was wrong—religion makes restrictions

I would have followed—but life turned a bubble


& clumb the jiant stile of maledictions


They took me from my wife & to save trouble


I wed again & made the error double


Yet abscence claims them both & keeps them too

& locks me in a shop in spite of law


Among a low lived set & dirty crew


Here let the Muse oblivions curtain draw


& let man think—for God hath often saw


Things here too dirty for the light of day


For in a madhouse there exists no law—


Now stagnant grows my too refined clay
I envy birds their wings to flue away

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Backed deceptions wrong

A ‘political’ poem I discovered in the Peterborough Archive a few years ago.  As far as I know entirely previously unknown, but WHAT a message, not only for his own time, but for our times too.   How familiar it is.

They give me eight pence by the day

& make it up at night

With six pence worth of parish pay

& can ye call it right

Im going to justice just to see

What she will have to say

& faith I doubt I shall not see

Yer honour there today

No friend I am a faithful mate

To justice but ye mean

What may be named a magistrate

& there Im never seen

Nay they have stopt me when Ive gone

To take that weight away

& backed deceptions wrong        
To take your gains away

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Woodlands gentle ride

Berrys freed from rhyme awhile 
Shines red on hedgrow twigs again 
One may a midday hour beguile 
To walk in shielding wood & plain 
To track some woodlands gentle ride 
Where hanging branches lend a screen 
Or banks slopd down on either side 
Were sheltering vallys creep between 
As down such hollows one proceeds 
We instant feel a warmer day 
While mong each bank tops rustling weeds 
Winds noise their unfelt rage away

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The old Kirk at Upton

[The Kirk at Upton]

Her voice shouted Roger like throwing a stone

So give up old Soldier & let her alone

Go away with ye Roger young Man do I see

If youre an old Soldier you may march on with me

I went with the maiden over heath & oer plain

& when Sunday was come too I saw her again

I saw her & courted the sun from the West

& left my last kiss on the mole of her breast

I kissed & were married & bedded & all

& the old Kirk at Upton the green wedding saw

For the grass it was green & our years was the same

& from morning to Evening none called us to blame

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Love is past

[Image:  Mary Joyce’s grave]

A shattering poem, written 7 years after Clare’s incarceration in Northampton.  His mind is ranging back to the death of his muse, Mary Joyce.

To come upon in line 9 the line “Lord how young bonny Mary burnt”, even if he is speaking of her blushes at their first meeting, is an astonishing shock for readers of Clare’s work.  Clare, possibly unconsciously, recording the manner of her death in the most shocking way imaginable.

Mary had, as Clare had been avoiding for so long, perished in the fire in the brew house next to her parent’s farm-house in Glinton on the 14th of July 1838.  Her grave in the churchyard of St. Benedict’s Church, Glinton was, and is, clear for all to see.

A Ballad

Love is past and all the rest
Thereto belonging fled away
The most esteemed and valued best
Are faded all and gone away

How beautiful was Marys dress
While dancing at the meadow ball

—'Tis twenty years or more at least
Since Mary seemed the first of all

Lord how young bonny Mary burnt
With blushes like the roses hue
My face like water thrown upon't
Turned white as lilies i' the dew

When grown a man I went to see
The school where Marys name was known
I looked to find it on a Tree
But found it on a low grave stone

Now is past—was this the now
In fine straw-hat and ribbons gay
I'd court her neath the white thorn bough
& tell her all I had to say

But all is gone—and now is past
& still my spirits chill alone
Loves name that perished in the blast
Grows mossy on a church-yard stone

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Three Springs

[Image:  Glinton Church and graveyard]

For some while Clare found the reports of Mary Joyce's hard to believe, but then in late 1841 he wrote this... 

 

O Mary dear, three Springs have been

Three Summers too have blossomed here

Three blasting Winters crept between

Though absence is the most severe

Another Summer blooms in green

But Mary never once was seen

I've sought her in the fields & flowers

I've sought her in the forest groves

In avenues & shaded bowers

& every scene that Mary loves

E'en round her home I seek her here

But Mary’s absent every-where

‘Tis autumn & the rustling corn

Goes loaded on the creaking wain

I seek her in the early morn

But cannot meet her face again

Sweet Mary she is absent still

& much I fear she ever will

She died three years before, the day after Clare's birthday.

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Spring flowers

Bowing adorers of the gale
Ye cowslips delicately pale
Upraise your loaded stems
Unfold your cups in splendour speak
Who decked you with that ruddy streak
& gilt your golden gems

Violets sweet tenants of the shade
In purples richest pride arrayed
Your errand here fulfil
Go bid the artists simple stain
Your lustre imitate--in vain--
& match your Makers skill

Daisies ye flowers of lowly birth
Embroiderers of the carpet earth
That stud the velvet sod
Open to Springs refreshing air
In sweetest smiling bloom declare
Your Maker & your God.

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Sauntering

While sauntering noiseless oer the leafy ground
The air we breathe seems void of every trace
Of earth & all its trouble & the mind
Yearns for a dwelling in so sweet a place
From troubles noise such stillness seemeth by

Yet still the little path winds on & on
Down hedgerow sides & many a pastoral charm
We soon forget the charm of poesy gone
In the still woodland with its silent balm

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The young horse

The gladdend swine bolt from the sty

& round the yard in freedom run

Or stretching in their slumbers lie

Beside the cottage in the sun

The young horse whinnies to his mate

& sickening from the threshers door

Rubs at the straw-yards banded gate

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Love from her cow

Again ye return my delights of the morning 
& clean up the roads to tempt doll to her cow 
Thrice welcome ye flowers I rejoice in your blooming 
Ye cowslaps dew shaken by night roving cow 
& eglantine brambles of sweetest perfuming 
Ill rub off your prickles a wreath for her brow 
& welcome ye awthorns your green leaves delight me 
Oer arching the brook wi your thick screening bough 
In your secret shelter shall kisses invite me 
To bear home the load of my love from her cow

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Blue-bells adorning

On a bonny April morning

By the grey & green wood side
Where the blue-bells were adorning
There a pretty girl I spied
Her hair was brown & curling
Her eyes were bright & blue
Where the mossy brook was purling
O I loved the maiden true

I loved her fond & tender
Aye tenderly & true
So heavens love defend her
A rose half blown i' dew
A blue-bell in the white thorn green
A violet in the shade
The sweetest flower Id ever seen
Was that all beauteous maid

Her face was young & pretty
& sweetly she could sing
& her bright eye drop't pity
At every cruel thing
The place was full of blue bells
Where that pretty girl I spied
A heaven in the green dells
Hid in this world so wide

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Sings to nature

That blackbirds music from the hazel bower

Turns into golden drops this summer shower

To think the rain that wets his sutty wing

Should wake the gushes of his soul to sing

Hark at the melody how rich & loud

Like daylight breaking through the morning cloud

How luscious through that sea of green it floats

Knowest thou of music breathed from sweeter notes

Than that wild minstrel of the summer shower

Breathes at this moment from that hazel bower

To me the anthem of a thousand tongues

Were poor & idle to the simple songs

To that high toned & edifying bird

That sings to nature by itself unheard

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from ‘Solitude’

 Clare’s wonderful description of Peterborough Cathedral, from the second half of ‘Solitude’.

     Dizzy nauntling high & proud
    Top stone loosing in a cloud
    Where the cross to time resignd
    Creaking harshly in the wind
    Crowning high the rifted dome
    Points the pilgrims wisht for home
    While the look fear turns away
    Shuddering at its dread decay
    Then let me my peace pursue
    Neath the shades of gloomy yew
    Dolfull hung wi mourning green
    Suiting well the solemn scene
    There as I may learn to scan
    Mites illustrious called man

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From Clare’s Novel…

“The black thorn was in its blossom & the soldiers were reminded of their early days      & one of them said    in such a spot as this comrade I tended sheep & have been delighted at seeing the black thorn in blossom as the earnest of may day a coming      when we should play at crookhorn & duck under-water & pelt over the garland -- & I little thought then of where I should ramble & what I should see --      these days Richard are all over & our happiness is gone after them for some other boys to pick up & loose agen as we did -- 

& so they wandered along shortning the way by little remembrances of former days that the scene around them brought up in their minds -- untill the sun went to bed as red as a drunken man dropping as if in the midst of the waste that surrounded them      & they were astonished in the seeming boundless stretch of the common which like an ocean of waste seemed to have no shore of termination to human existance & no harbours of comfortable cottages -- for they had not only been out of the sight of smoaking chimneys for hours but had even lost all sight of human existance in the shape of foot paths or waggon tracks”

From Clare's 'The Two Soldiers' an episode in his aborted novel from the 1820s, now published as "The Memiors of Uncle Barnaby" (Arbour Editions, 2017)  The public launch of which took place at on 12th April, 2017 at the John Clare Theatre, Peterborough.

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Of rich… and poor

Actually published in a Stamford newspaper in July 1821, but it could have been written this morning judging by the state of our world and 'governments’.

The rich mans sins are under

The rose of wealth & station
     & escape the sight
     Of the children of light
Who are wise in their generation

But the poor mans sins are glaring
In the face of all ghostly warning
     He is caught in the fact
     Of an overt act
Buying greens on a sunday morning

The rich man has a kitchen

Wherein to cook his dinner
     But the poor who would roast
     To the bakers must post
& thus he becomes a sinner

The rich man has a cellar
& a ready butler by him
     The poor man must steer
     For his pint of beer
Where the saint is sure to spy him

The rich man's open windows
Hide the concerts of the quality:
     The poor can but share
     A crack'd fiddle in the air,
Which offends all sound morality.

The rich man is invisible
In the crowd of his gay society
     But the poor mans delight
     Is a sore in the sight
& a stench in the nose of piety

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The king fisher

Look theres two splendid feathered things
Sits on that grey & stretching bough
That from the leaning willow hingsf
-- Half oer the gulling flood below
Like foreign birds their feathers shine
In splendours rich & varied hue
The peacocks tail is scarce as fine
--Rich shaded orange green & blue
No finer birds are known to flye
Then these gay dressed king fishers are
Who live on fish & watch the fry
Of Minnows nimbly passing there
& there theyll sit whole hours away
In that same lone & watching spot
& when they dart to seize their prey
Drop down as sudden as a shot

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Ignorance & wealth

Ye meadow blooms ye pasture flowers farwell

Ye banishd trees ye make me deeply sigh

Inclosure came & all your glories fell

Een the old oak that crownd yon rifld dell

Whose age had made it sacred to the view

Not long was left his childerns fate to tell

Where ignorance & wealth their course pursue

Each tree must tumble down—old ‘lea close oak’ adieu

Lubin beheld it all & deeply paind

Along the railed road woud muse & sigh

The only path that freedoms rights maintaind

The naked scenes drew pity from his eye

Tears dropt to mem'ry of delights gone bye

The haunts of freedom cowherds wattld bower

& shepherds huts & trees that tow[e]red high

& spreading thorns that turnd a summer shower

All captives lost & past to sad oppresions power

The 'legal robbery' of the enclosures forceably reminded Clare of what has become known in English history as the Norman Yoke.  So here is a piece he wrote under that title to further explain his views of what he was witnessing in his own time.  It might well seem rather familiar to 2025 eyes.

The Norman Yoke

"Men make a boast of pedigree     as well might the descendants of Richard Turpin boast of theirs     for both honours spring from robbery & spoilation – what was William the Conqueror but a robber by wholesale & what were his followers but high way men     by his authority receiving tithes by their expertness at plunder    for which Turpin (a more noble plunderer if absence from fear or dareing achievements make one) received a halter* because he dared to rob & could show only his courage for the liscence"

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Even love

In the meadows silk grasses we see the black snail

Creeping out at the close of the eve sipping dew
While evens one star glitters over the vale
Like a lamp hung outside of that temple of blue
I walk with my true love adown the green vale
The light feathered grasses keep tapping her shoe
In the whitethorn the nightingale sings her sweet tale
& the blades of the grasses are sprinkled with dew

If she stumbles I catch her and cling to her neck
As the meadow-sweet kisses the blush of the rose
Her whisper none hears & the kisses I take
The mild voice of even will never disclose
Her hair hung in ringlets adown her sweet cheek
That blushed like the rose in the hedge hung with dew
Her whisper was fragrance her face was so meek
The dove was the type on't that from the bush flew

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Eden

I sat beside the pasture stream
When Beautys self was sitting by
The fields did more than Eden seem
Nor could I tell the reason why
I often drank when not adry
To pledge her health in draughts divine
Smiles made it nectar from the sky
Love turned een water into wine
O Poesy is on the wane
I cannot find her face again

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April

The infant april joins the spring
And views its watery skye
As youngling linnet trys its wing
And fears at first to flye
With timid step she ventures on
And hardly dares to smile
The blossoms open one by one
And sunny hours beguile
But finer days approacheth yet
With scenes more sweet to charm
And suns arive that rise and set
Bright strangers to a storm
And as the birds with louder song
Each mornings glory cheers
With bolder step she speeds along
And looses all her fears
In wanton gambols like a child
She tends her early toils
And seeks the buds along the wild
That blossom while she smiles
And laughing on with nought to chide
She races with the hours
Or sports by natures lovley side
And fills her lap with flowers

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