With the first primroses showing their faces across the garden,
and signs of spring everywhere, one of Clare's little gems:
When once the sun sinks in the west,
And dew-drops pearl the evening's breast;
Almost as pale as moonbeams are,
Or its companionable star,
The evening primrose opes anew
Its delicate blossoms to the dew;
And, shunning-hermit of the light,
Wastes its fair bloom upon the night;
Who, blindfold to its fond caresses,
Knows not the beauty he possesses.
Thus it blooms on till night is bye
And day looks out with open eye,
Abashed at the gaze it cannot shun,
It faints and withers, and is done.
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From Helpston in rural Northamptonshire, John Clare was born in 1793. He is now regarded as the most important poet of the natural world from Britain. He wrote many poems, prose and letters about love, sex, corruption and politics, environmental and social change, poverty and folk life. Even in his 'madness', his talents were not diminished. Ronald Blythe, past President of the Clare Society, saw Clare as "... England's most articulate village voice". Clare died, aged 71, in 1864.
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3 comments:
Lovely poem, but surely evening primrose is a late summer flower, not to be confused withe the familiar Spring primrose.
Yes, i agree, the evening primrose is in bloom from june to september, and i think the fact that the flower is one of late summer gives the poem an entirely different meaning.
Can anyone confirm the authenticity of the 7th line of this poem? Almost all other sources have:
And, hermit-like, shunning the light
which is what Benjamin Britten sets in his 'Five Flower Songs' of which this is the 4th.
It seems that the shunning-hermit version is much more consistent with the rhythm of the rest, and indeed it has exactly the same syllabic count and rhythm as the crucial final line. The hermit-like version requires an unprecedented stoppage halfway along the line. Britten's setting is at pains to reflect the irregularity of the rhythm with cross-rhythms of a delicate nature, so it would be strange to think that he changed the original line!
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