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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Image by my friend #RachelBurch

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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Image by my friend #CarryAkroyd

The walk

The faint sun tipt the rising Ground 
No Blustry wind—the air was still 
The Blue mist thinly scatterd round 
Vergd along the distant hill 
Delightful morn—from labour free 
I jocund met the southwest gale 
While here & there a busy bee 
Humd sweetly oer the flowery vale 

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The nightingale

This is the month the nightingale clod brown
Is heard among the woodland shady boughs
This is the time when in the vale grass-grown
The maiden hears at eve her lovers vows
What time the blue mist round the patient cows
Dim rises from the grass & half conceals
Their dappled hides I hear the nightingale
That from the little blackthorn spinney steals
To the old hazel hedge that skirts the vale
& still unseen sings sweet the ploughman feels
The thrilling music as he goes along
& imitates &  listens while the fields
Lose all their paths in dusk to lead him wrong
Still sings the nightingale her soft melodious song

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Bluebells

Bluebells how beautifull & bright they look 
Bowed oer green moss & pearled in morning dew 
Shedding a shower of pearls as soon as shook 
In every wood hedgegap theyre shineing through 
Smelling of spring & beautifully blue 
—Childhood & Spring how beautifully dwells 
Their memories in the woods we now walk through 
O balmy days of spring in white thorn dells 
How beautifull are woods & their bluebells

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Little trotty wagtail

Little trotty wagtail he went in the rain,
And twittering, tottering sideways he ne'er got straight again.
He stooped to get a worm, and looked up to get a fly,
And then he flew away ere his feathers they were dry.

Little trotty wagtail he waddled in the mud,
And left his little footmarks, trample where he would.
He waddled in the water-pudge, and waggle went his tail,
And chirrupt up his wings to dry upon the garden rail.

Little trotty wagtail, you nimble all about,
And in the dimpling water-pudge you waddle in and out;
Your home is nigh at hand, and in the warm pig-stye,
So, little Master Wagtail, I'll bid you a good bye.

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Woodlands

A fragment

& then he roams the woodlands 
As happy as a moth on summers nights 
Now pausing thro the brambles prickly twine 
Where midnight lingers in the leafy mine 
& now thro smooth barked hazels mellow green 
That leave a pleasant open spot between 
Thro flowers & grass & many crippled brake 
Then garden clumps as nature wills to make 
Where oft he stands & pauses & admires 
& feels that happiness that never tires 
Now marking little tiny creeping things 
Creep on the leaves & then the coloured wings 
Of startled moth & eager butter flye 
That puzzled in the leaves & by & bye 
Mounts in the oaks & then the open sky

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Singing at the plough

Here morning in the ploughmans songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky
& twilight in the east a doubt as yet
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye
Woke early I arose & thought that first
In winter time of all the world was I
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst
But joy just then was up & whistled bye
A merry tune which I had known full long
But could not to my memory wake it back
Until the ploughman changed it to the song
O happiness how simple is thy track
Tinged like the willow shoots the easts young brow
Glows red & finds thee singing at the plough

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A footpath winding

Ive oft been glad at heart to see 
A footpath winding through the grass 
Oer narrow stiles neath spreading tree 
Not wide enough for two to pass 
But now no ownership I fear 
Nor path to keep nor stile to climb 
I feel myself a monarch here 
My very fancies grow sublime

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Thy spirit visits

An incomplete rhyming scheme perhaps, but what fun!

Personally I think Clare’s pencil simply ran away with him, 

and sometimes he never went back to ‘correct’.

Thy spirit visits me like dew 
That glistens on the flowers 
Falling in the morning blue 
     & in the evening hours 

The wild flowers have a feeling 
Oer my calm senses stealing 

& loves soft dreams revealing 
     Seem wispering from the bowers

The foxgloves freckled bells 
That blossom by the wood 
& in the forrest dells 
     In the midst of solitude 

There I hear my lover call 
Where the whitethorn forms a wall 
& the foxglove blossoms tall 
     In the tears of eve bedewed 

Spirit thou of every place 
Where loves memories are left 
Places green as years of grace 
     Where hope lives of love bereft 

My love lives in these green places 
Where woodbine the white thorn embraces 
Far from the crowd of worldly faces 
     Here loves spirit still is left

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