Ive sung farewell...

[Image : Anne Lee]

No idea of the context?  A young friend's death possibly? From a mid-1820s manuscript.  I must admit I immediately thought of Clare's return to Northborough in 1841, it being three years after Mary Joyce had died in 1838.  But the poem is much too early, and the 'scarce lived out fifteen' line rendered meaningless.

Ive sung farewell in many a rhyme

to pleasures that are fled

& I have thought me many a time

oer [my loved ones] cold & dead

but little thought when thus I sung

[and wandered neath the moon]

to one so fair so loved & young

could find a grave so soon.

The daisy now three years hath grown

above thy bed so green

and hadst thou been as living yet

& thou a flower the fairest known
scarce lived out fifteen

John Clare, Poems of the Middle Period

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and P.M.S. Dawson

Volumes I-II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); Volumes III-IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)

'Come maiden dear maiden...' (excerpt)

[Image: Anne Lee]

Come maiden dear maiden a beautiful troop

Of images now the young morning doth wear

The lark leaves her nest & the dew splashes up

As she flies through the clover & sings in the air

The bushes that rustle & catch at thy gown

The trees that thy pathway envelopes in leaves

The grass smooth as velvet runs green up and down

& from the young morning a rapture receives

& from the green hedge that the path brushes nigh

The flight of a bird shakes the rain in the place

& the blackbird frit off from her nest rushing bye
Shakes a shower on the path that will sprinkle thy face

John Clare, Poems of the Middle Period,

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and P.M.S. Dawson

The Lovers Meeting (excerpt)

 






   
  [Image : 'Shadows in a Winter Wood' by Nora S. Unwin]

When day declining usher'd to a Close
& evening silence bid the world repose
& deep'ning darkness hover'd oer the grove
Compell'd (not weary with the joys of love)
We fearless ventur'd from the blissfull seat
& blest the night that kept us still discreet
Unheeded home ward down the dusky plain
I led my charmer to her home again

& as weak troubles discompos'd her breast
I vow'd to love & kiss'd its fears to rest—
‘O do you love me? sighs the timerous maid
‘Will you still come?—I really am afraid
‘—O am I not Or am I to complain?—
‘When will you come?—O will you come again?

‘—Stay Strephon stay—I cannot let you go
‘Promise me truly—will to morrow do?’

Roger Rowe & Anne Lee

John Clare Cottage Press (2014)

(Handmade, numbered, limited edition copies still available from me at £30 inc. P&P - just leave a comment here, or send me a message on Facebook - 'Roger Arborfield')

Rural Morning (excerpt)

[Image: Clare Leighton]

Soon as the twilight through the distant mist 
In silver hemmings skirts the purple east, 
Ere yet the sun unveils his smiles to view 
And dries the morning's chilly robes of dew, 
Young Hodge the horse-boy, with a soodly gait, 
Slow climbs the stile, or opes the creaky gate, 
With willow switch and halter by his side 
Prepared for Dobbin, whom he means to ride; 
The only tune he knows still whistling oer, 
And humming scraps his father sung before, 
As "Wantley Dragon," and the "Magic Rose," 
The whole of music that his village knows, 
Which wild remembrance, in each little town, 
From mouth to mouth through ages handles down. 
Onward he jolls, nor can the minstrel-throngs 
Entice him once to listen to their songs; 
Nor marks he once a blossom on his way; 
A senseless lump of animated clay— 

In hobbling speed he roams the pasture round,
Till hunted Dobbin and the rest are found;
Where some, from frequent meddlings of his whip,
Well know their foe, and often try to slip;
While Dobbin, tamed by age and labour, stands
To meet all trouble from his brutish hands,
And patient goes to gate or knowly brake,
The teasing burden of his foe to take;
Who, soon as mounted, with his switching weals,
Puts Dob's best swiftness in his heavy heels,
The toltering bustle of a blundering trot
Which whips and cudgels neer increased a jot,
Though better speed was urged by the clown--
And thus he snorts and jostles to the town.

The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems (2 volumes, 1821)