The Poet in Love

Book Two of our Handmade, limited edition trilogy.

Come to my bosom my only thought pleasure

Prove that thou lovst to give pleasure to me

Come to my bosom my lone valud treasure
As all that can please me is resting wi thee

Come to my bosom that waits thy complying
Like the parchd earth in the summer the rain
Love in thy absence droops languid & dying
& only revives when it meets thee again

When I think on thee life half its load looses
When I enjoy what thy presence can bring
Sorrow half charmd into sorrow reposes
& pain melts wi kindness to lay by his sting

Come then to me wi thy fondness revealed
Softly to mine let thy blushing cheek bend
One wish Ill breathe wi my lips to thine sealed
Our trance may in heaven awake at its end

The very real story of Clare's meeting and courtship of Patty Turner, then her subsequent pregnancy and their marriage in 1820.

A review from Ronald Blythe:
"I read, and re-read 'The Poet in Love'... it is a delight; beautifully presented and even revolutionary in its demand that we should look at Clare 'passionately and practically'. You have re-instated Patty... and you have dethroned Mary Joyce. The book makes us look at Clare in a fresh way, and this is no easy matter considering the stream of Clare criticism. Anne Lee's illustrations are fascinating - a kind of poetry in themselves."

"So beautiful, such treasures for my John Clare bookcase. They should lie on a table where everyone can see them, pick them up and delight in them. The end-papers themselves are a treat... they really are very beautiful." (Of The Poet in Love & The Lovers Meeting)

And from Eric Robinson's Afterword to 'The Poet in Love': 

"No one can read this book without learning much of Clare's courtship of Patty during these formative years. It is a very strange story, but it reveals much of the essential character of a poet who had at last been recognised as a very great writer. Roger Rowe and Anne Lee have made an important contribution to Clare studies. And I am pleased to know that more is yet to come from their joint efforts."

Each book is signed and numbered and is available direct from me.  Simply email arborfield@gmail.com or message me via the John Clare Poet facebook page, and I will get back to you.

Each book measures 11" x 8"

"The Poet in Love" is £25 (Post free)

From 'The Old Shepherd'

The green where I tended my sheep when a boy
Has yielded its pride to the plough

& the shades where my infancy revelled in joy
The axe has left desolate now

Yet a bush lingers still that invites me to stop
What heart can such whimsies withstand
Where Susan once saw a birds nest in its top
& I reached her the eggs with my hand

& so long since the day I remember it well
It has stretched to a sizable tree
& the birds yearly come in its branches to dwell
As far from a jiant as me

On a favourite spot by the side of a brook
When Susan was just in her prime
A ripe bunch of nutts from her apron she took
& planted them close by my side

It has grown up with years & on many a bough
Groweth nutts like its parent agen
Where shepherds no doubt have oft sought them ere now
To please other susans since then

(MP III 444)

The Gothic John Clare

Gothic literature is often described with words such as "wonder" and "terror.” These senses, to which must be added the suspension of disbelief, are important to Gothic writing of all kinds, perhaps saving when it is parodied.

Notwithstanding the occasional melodrama, gothic writing is typically played straight, in a very serious manner. All that is required is that the imagination of the reader is willing to accept the idea that there might be something "beyond that which is immediately in front of us."

The Gothic often uses scenery of decay, death, and morbidity to achieve its effects . Nearly two centuries after Clare penned most of  these poems they maintain a dark and mysterious appeal.

 Soft as creeping feet can fall

 Still the damp green stained wall

 As the startled ghost flits bye

 Mocking murmurs faintly sigh

 Minding our intruding fear

 Such visits are unwelcome here

 Seemly then each hollow urn

 Gentle steps our steps return

 Ere so soft & ere so still

 Check our breath or how we will

 Listning spirits still reply

 Step for step & sigh for sigh

 Murmuring oer ones wearied woe

 Life as once was theirs to know

(Solitude, lines 281-294)

Epistle 1st from Richard

Here is one of Clare's love poems where Richard is writing to Kate - Clare appended to one of the manuscripts, "Richard a Country Clown and Kitty the Milkmaid".  Half a dozen years later Clare was composing the Hubbergubbel letters in much the same way.  As Professor Robinson wrote in his Introduction to Clare's aborted novel Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby, "It is high time that we learn to understand why Clare determined to ignore much that editors had forced upon him - and laugh with him."

Dear kate 

            Since I no longer can 

Go on in such a mopeing plan 


I send these lines with ham & hum 


To let the[e] ‘no’ I mean to cum' 


Sum' time or uther you to see 


W'en things ar' fitting to agree 


For ever since you jog'd from here 


The day to me do's seem a year 


I can't endur't so 'tis no use 


I love you wel' without excuse 


Therefore as now I plainly show't 


I only wish for you to 'now't 


& w'en the let'er you do get 


Let it suffice you how I fret 


For e'rey night I gang to bed 


Nou'ht but kit runs in my he'd 


The boys they all keep clit'er clat'er 


Wondering w'at can be the mat'er 


W'y I look dul'.—& w'ats befel' 


They on'y wish I wou'd but tel' 


But I'm determind not to do't 


They'l' on'y call me foolish fo' 't 


Yet not as I shou'd car' for that 


'T'wou'd on'y then be tit for tat 


But if I bro'ght thy name I 'no' 


Up 'mong such chaps as Jim & Jo 


 (Tho Jim if he 'ad on'y sense) 


 (To tel' mi'te be of conseq'ence) 


For he can reed an' never spel' 


 (An' 'rite a let'er mons'orous wel') 


Was thou to hear't as likly mi''te 


'Twou'd presen'ly to'n luv' to spite 


An' wou'd so much a terify'd thee 


As you ne'er after cou'd abide me 


This is the reeson kit (don't dou't it) 


That I ne'er tel' the boys about it 


For I'll sweet kit the thing is tru' 


Do ony thing to pleasur' you 


& w'ot you do'n't like sh'u'd be 


Shal' be the last thing dun by me 


For ere I 'rit this scrauling let'er 


 (I wish I cou'd ha' 'rit a bet'er) 


Fe'ering sum peeping chaps mi''te 'no' 


I 'new not 'ardly w'ere to go 


Yet anx''us stil' to send you one 


I at last contriv'd an' pitch'd upon 


Our bushy clos' agen the link 


'Twas ther' I went wi' pen an' ink 


The ink I stole from Jimys box 


For that he 'ardly ever lo'ks 


 (& if I'm 'ang'd for doing so 


It wil' be you that caus'd the wo') 


The paper at the shop I got 


& lu'ky pitch'd upon this spot 


Wher' skilarks wis'l'd oer my head 


& morning shun so bri''te an' red 


The du on e'rey bush did hing 


An' bods of al' so'tes did so sing 


That cou'd I sing like farmer's Jo' 


 (For shep'ads all can sing you 'no') 


I'd surely sung this very morn 


An' made a song in bushy laun 


But thats all now't I can'ot sing 


Nor 'bout this lawn nor 'bout the spring 


En'uf for me cans't thou but read 


This baddy stuf quite bad indeed 


An' w'at made worser on't you see 


Was writing on't upon my 'nee 


But w'y su'h 'pologin odrotit 


The stufs for you an' we'n you've got it 


Excuse the whol' an' never wonder 


That 'tis in all a worthles' blunder 


But kitty think nor think in vain 


My daily toyls my ni'tely pa'ne 


O if thy ''art can tender be 


'Twil' never fa'le to pity me 


I must konclude ther'fore ad''u 


My ''art an' so'le's for' ever tru' 


EP I 64

Superstitious Dream (excerpt)

Strange, as I read this - I am currently assembling Chapbook No.9 'The Gothic John Clare" - I feel Clare speaking of the disastrous Climate Change policy of most of the world's governments - a wringing of hands and not much else.  Already we are seeing the results of many decades of idle chatter and no coherent change to protect the environment.  Clare of course wrote this long poem about 'judgement' but perhaps that is not far from what awaits our childrens childrens children?

Fierce ragd destruction sweeping oer the land

& the last counted moment seemd at hand

As scales near equal hang the earnest eyes

In doubtful balance which shall fall or rise

So in the moment of that crashing blast

Eyes hearts & hopes pausd trembling for the last

& sudden thunder claps with yawning rents

Gashd the frail garments of the elements

& bursting wirlwinds wingd in purple flame

& lightnings flash in stronger terrors came

Burning all life & nature were they fell

& leaving earth as desolate as hell

The pleasant hues of woods & fields was past

& natures beautys had enjoyd their last

The colord flower the green of field & tree

What they had been forever ceasd to be

Grass shriveld brown in miserable hues

& showers of fire dryd up the hissing dews

Leaves crumbld ashes in the airs hot breath

& all awaited universal death

The sleeping birds scard from their mossy nest

Beat through the evil air in vain for rest

& many a bird the withering shades among

Wakend to perish oer its brooded young

& nightingale that waken with the moon

Dyd in the midst of its unfinishd tune

The cattle startld with the sudden fright

Sickend from food & maddend into flight

& steed and beast in plunging speed pursued

The desperate struggle of the multitude

The faithful dog yet knew its masters face

& cringing followd with a fearful pace

& joind the piteous yell with panting breath

While blasing lightnings followd fast with death

& as destruction stopt the vain retreat

They dropt & dying lickd their owners feet

MP I 327
(lines 49-84)

SONG

1. 

   The wing of the blackbird is the hue of her hair
   The hue of the rose is the face of my fair
   & yet she's a romekin slomekin thing
   & as wild as a filly let loose in the spring
   Shell jump oer the anthills as quick as a bee
   & shout to the birds on their nests in the tree
   Shes a good-for-nothing romikin slomekin thing
   Yet as sweet as a queen by the side of a King
   
   
   Shes healthy & wealthy & wild as a bird
   & startles with fear if a bramble be stirred
   When far from her home she will run like the roe
   & thinks rudeness watching where eer she may go
   But she has good excuses for being so wild
   Shes a woman in size while shes only a child
   She pictures in fancy what innocence means
   & sports like a baby not yet in her teens
   
   
   O girlhood has joys what her mother would fain
   Recall to herself if they would come back again
   & so would we all but ones youth is the time
   For health love & innocence justs in their prime
   A child so loves nature she does not mean sin
   Only see what a rolicking humour shes in
   Shes a young sweet & good-for-naught rolicking thing
   Yet as fair as a queen by the side of a King
   
   
   LP I 365

I am

'I am' was a Knight transcript (KT) from the Northampton Asylum, therefore no original manuscript remains. However, whilst the KT is quite clear - the reading is 

'Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes' 

The poem was published in a whole list of periodicals from when it was written, likely in 1846. In these periodicals changes were often made at the whim of the editor(s), so several 'versions' come down to us.  There are a number of mis-readings of Clare’s original text too (remember it has not survived) that scholars have suggested, nearly all due to Clare’s handwriting.  So this is our best ‘educated guess’:

I am—yet what I am, none cares or knows; 


My friends forsake me like a memory lost:—


I am the self-consumer of my woes;— 


They rise and vanish in oblivion's host, 


Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes:— 


And yet I am, and live—like vapours tost 


Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,— 


Into the living sea of waking dreams, 


Where there is neither sense of life or joys, 


But the vast shipwreck of my lifes esteems; 


Even the dearest, that I love the best 


Are strange—nay, rather stranger than the rest. 


I long for scenes, where man hath never trod 


A place where woman never smiled or wept 


There to abide with my Creator, God; 


And sleep as I in childhood, sweetly slept, 


Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie, 


The grass below—above the vaulted sky. 


The punctuation would be Knight’s, as Clare rarely punctuated his work.  Even this text is open to debate, for instance Knight’s ‘n’ is very much like his ‘u’, so ‘oblivions’s host’ might well be ‘oblivious host’ (5).  Knight has ‘lost’ for ‘tost’ (6), but this is a understandable misreading of Clare who hardly ever crossed his ‘t’…. and so on, and on, and on ………

Cloud Shapes

Researching a future Chapbook, this one entitled 'Clouds'.  I am surprise just how much material there is from which to choose.  Here is just one of the strong candidates:

Clouds rack & drive before the wind 


In shapes & forms of every kind 


Like waves that rise without the roar 


& rocks that guard an untrodden shore 


Now castles pass majestic by 


& ships in peaceful havens lie 


These gone ten thousand shapes ensue 


For ever beautiful and new 


The scattered clouds lie calm and still 


& day throws gold on every hill 


Their thousand heads in glory run 


As each were worlds and owned a sun 


The rime it clings to everything 


It beards the early buds of spring 


The mossy pales, the orchard spray 


Are feathered with its silver-grey

MP V 198

From an Old Book of Fables

A shattering poem from my "Accursed Wealth" chapbook.  Obviously unpublished in his day, and too honest for most in our own time too.

‘Gold is a general purchaser – buys all

‘From the high alter pallace bench & Hall

‘Down to the humble cottage hut or stall

‘Buys smiles or tears melts eyes or drys em – gold

‘Like Esops satire buys[1]breath hot and cold

‘Makes out all wants & all defects supplies

‘Een the old wrinkled hag young courtier buys

‘Can buy an ass a penegaric – build

‘A dog a monument[2]– vice with virtue gild

‘Nay buys a coward laurels -- & what not

‘Thus the proud Gaul[3]the stile of a great has got

‘That neer faced foe in reach of cannon shot

‘Buys knaves an office traitors power & trust

‘High & low fliers bought with shining dust

‘Buys villany a mask hypocrisy paint

‘Buys inside devil the out side face o’ saint

‘Buys tyrants champions – cut throats caps & knees

‘Buys lies & oaths buys souls & consiences

‘Buys prayers & curses buys both earth & hell

‘Nay buys heaven too at least if Rome can sell

‘What is it which that tempting ore cant buy

‘Buys everything but truth & honesty

MP II 192

---

[1] Aesop has ‘blows’

[2] "Epitaph to a Dog" is a poem by Lord Byron.  It was written in 1808 in honour of his Newfoundland dog, Boatswain, who had just died of rabies.  The poem is inscribed on Boatswain's tomb, which is larger than Byron's, at Newstead Abbey, Byron's estate.

[3] Napoleon Bonaparte

To a cowslip early

1. 
   
   
   Cowslip bud so early peeping
2. Warmd by aprils hazard hours
3. Oer thy head tho sunshines creeping
4. Hind it threatnd temp[e]sts lower
5. Trembling blossom let me bear thee
6. To a better safer home
7. Tho a fairer blossom wear thee
8. Near a tempest there shall come
   
   
9. Marys bonny breasts to charm thee
10. Bosom soft as down can be
11. Eyes like any suns to warm thee
12. & scores of sweets unknown to me
13. Ah for joys thoult there be meeting
14. In a station so divine
15. I'd 'most wish thats vain repeating
16. Cowslip bud thy life were mine
    
    
    EP II 51/2
    Village Minstrel I 82 (1821)
    In the Shadows (2014)

Early Spring

Winter is past—the little bee resumes

Her share of sun & shade & oer the lea
Hums its first hymnings to the flowers perfumes
& wakes a sense of gratfulness in me
The little daisey keeps its wonted pace
Ere march by april gets disarmd of snow
A look of joy opes on its smiling face
Turnd to that power that suffers it to blow
Ah pleasant time as pleasing as ye be
One still more pleasing, hope reserves for me
Where suns unsetting one long summer shine
Flowers endless bloom where winter neer destroys
O may the good mans righteous end be mine
As I may witness these unfading joys

The Village Minstrel

Volume II, page 172

The Crow (Sonnet)

How peaceable it seems for lonely men
To see a crow fly in the thin blue sky
Over the woods and fealds, o'er level fen
It speaks of villages, or cottage nigh
Behind the neighbouring woods -- when March winds high
Tear off the branches of the huge old oak
I love to see these chimney sweeps sail by
And hear them o'er gnarled forest croak
Then sosh askew from the hid woodman's stroke
That in the woods their daily labours ply
I love the sooty crow nor would provoke
Its march day exercises of croaking joy
I love to see it sailing to and fro
While feelds, and woods, and waters spread below

LP I 498

Did John Clare and Eliza Emmerson have an 'affair' ?

When I was in London the first time   Lord Radstock introduced me to Mrs Emmerson     she has been known as a very pretty woman & [it] is not a miss still     & a woman's pretty face is often very dangerous to her common sense   for the notion she has received in her young days throws affectation about her feelings   which she has not got shot of yet   for she fancys that her friends are admirers of her person as a matter of course & act accordingly     which happens in the eyes of a stranger as delicious enough   but the grotesque wears off on becoming acquainted with better qualities   & better qualities she certainly has to counter ballance them    

          She at once woud [be] the best friend I found    & my expectations are looking no further then correspondence with me early in my public life   & grew pretty thick as it went on     I fancyd it a pretty [thing] to correspond with a lady   & by degrees I grew up into an admirer   sometimes foolishly when I could not account for what I did   & I then after requested her portrait     & then I reccollect ridiculously enough   alluding to Lord Nelsons Lady Hamilton     she sent it & flattered my vanity in return     It was beautifully drawn by Behnes the sculptor     But bye & bye my knowledge of the world weakened my romantic feelings     I gave up in friendship & lost in flattery

          afterwards she took to patronizing one of Colridges   who had written a visionary ode on Beauty in Knights Quarterly Magazine in whom she discovered much genius     she called him   On that strike   one of the first Lyne poets in England --

          she soon wisht for her picture agen & I readily agreed to part with it   for the artificial flower of folly had run to seed

Pet MS B3 p82

Riches, Poverty and Slavery

Clare writing nearly 200 hundred years ago of what we observe all around us:

"Slavery originates with the luxury of tyranny & forced to submit to the crueltys [only] of oppression until the effeminancy of its oppressions grow into dotage     it then rises & regains its liberty like as the lion in his strength overawes the lesser beasts into unjust subjugation     but in the season of age when he looses his teeth [& needs] friends     they oppress him in turn [with injustice] & regain their former freedom     thus Tyrany generally gets paid with its own coin

Tyrants hate liberty the more bitterly because they themselves can enjoy every thing but liberty         they persecute their slaves into obedience but never consciliate them into friends     there for fear makes them the slave of slav[es]   for as they are dreaded by others      yet it is only as one tyrant to many of the oppressed so they more bitterly feel the dreaded vengance of the many enemys which their crueltys have made   recoiling upon themselves"

Pet MS A49 p1

"What a time we live in -- one class have been compaining & from complaints I fear have been encouraging the lower orders to break away from their own intention     this class complain of poverty but show no appearance of it   while the other is so destitute that one almost wonders they should have been silent so long"

Pet MS B5 p5

'Helpstone' from 'Accursed Wealth'

Helpstone (excerpt)

Thy pleasing spots to which fond memory clings 


Sweet cooling shades & soft refreshing springs 


& tho fates pleas'd to lay their beauties bye 


In a dark corner of obscurity 


As fair & sweet they blo[o]m'd thy plains among 


As blooms those Edens by the poets sung 


Now all laid waste by desolations hand 


Whose cursed weapons levels half the land 


Oh who could see my dear green willows fall 


What feeling heart but dropt a tear for all 


      Accursed wealth oer bounding human laws 


      Of every evil thou remains the cause 


      Victims of want those wretches such as me 


      Too truly lay their wretchedness to thee 


      Thou art the bar that keeps from being fed 


      & thine our loss of labour & of bread 


      Thou art the cause that levels every tree 


      & woods bow down to clear a way for thee 


I have indented the verses that Clare’s rich friends in London, as well as his publisher John Taylor wanted removed from the 2^nd and subsequent editions of  ‘Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery’ (Jan 1820).  They got their way, much to Clare’s annoyance:

“Being very much botherd latley I must trouble you to leave out the 8 lines in ‘helpstone’ beginning ‘Accursed wealth’ …”

(Letter from JC to Taylor dated 16^th May 1820)

'Accursed Wealth' - Arbour Editions (2017) page 1

£4 including P&P - leave me an MSS.

"TREES - In a Strange Stillness"

[Image : Shelly Rolinson]

From Clare's 'Autobiography'

On Sundays I usd to feel a pleasure to hide in the woods instead of going to church     to nestle among the leaves & lye upon a mossy bank were the fir likefern its under forest keeps

‘In a strange stillness’

watching for hours the little insects climb up & down the tall stems of the woodgrass & broad leaves

‘Oer the smooth plantain leaf a spacious plain’

or reading the often thumbd books which I possesd till fancy ‘made them living things’ I lovd the lonely nooks in the fields & woods & many favourite spots had lasting places in my Memory

‘the boughs that when a school boy screend my head’

before inclosure destroyd them

---oOo---

 Those who had the privilege of attending the Society Festival last July will have encountered, either on my bookstall, in the Clare Cottage or in the Bluebell, one or other of my Arbour Editions Chapbooks.  Clare knew Chapbooks well, and it is in his honour I resurrected the form for my 32-page books.

 Historically a Chapbook is normally octavo in size (A5) and is a book or made up of one or more full sheets of paper on which 16 pages of text were printed, which were then folded three times to produce eight leaves. Each leaf of an octavo book thus represents one eighth the size of the original sheet.  These eight leaves are also known as ‘signatures’.  So my Chapbooks being 32 pages in length are two signatures long, or 16 octavo (A5) sheets.

Chapbooks first came about in 16th century England with popular fairy tales like "Jack and Giant Killer" which Clare mentions of course:

To John Clare

 Well honest John how fare you now at home 


 The spring is come & birds are building nests 


 The old cock robin to the stye is come 


 With olive feathers & its ruddy breast 


 & the old cock with wattles & red comb 


 Struts with the hens & seems to like some best 


 Then crows & looks about for little crumbs 


 Swept out bye little folks an hour ago 


 The pigs sleep in the sty the bookman comes 


 The little boys lets home close nesting go 


 & pockets tops & tawes where daiseys bloom 


 To look at the new number just laid down 


 With lots of pictures & good stories too 


 & Jack the jiant killers high renown 


  (written in around 1861)

 Chapbooks were cheaply constructed and often roughly printed, but during the 17^th Century and later they were purchased by people who otherwise weren't able to afford books.  Very few survive as they were often thrown out after reading, or often (it is said) used as toilet paper!

The number of chapbooks printed in England is mind boggling.  During the 1660s, as many as 400,000 almanacs were printed every year, enough to distribute to one of every three households in the country.

 I've been planning such for several years, to introduce the general reader to a wider range of 'Clare-related' subjects, each book concentrating on just one topic.  In keeping with their history my Arbour Editions Chapbooks are very inexpensive, but in a break with tradition the books are high quality productions with gloss covers.  

I have around a dozen titles planned, and have to date published five, all at £3.50:

1.             'Drinking with John Clare'

2.             'Helpston's Fountains'

3.             'With the Gypsies'

4.             ‘Playing Games with John Clare’

5.             “Accursed Wealth”

  

The sixth, ‘Trees – In a Strange Stillness’ is of double length (64 pages) and the first Chapbook in full colour - 17 colour photographs illustrating Clare’s text – priced at £6.50 including post and & packing.  The idea for this book came from an essay written by Professor Eric Robinson in 1989 which has not been widely read, so with his permission ‘Trees’ was created with the ‘Introduction’ by Professor Eric and myself.  Here is a extract:

“Clare’s map of boyhood was full of trees, from the elm trees that rocked over his cottage to the hollow oaks and old willows in which he hid from pelting rain and prying eyes.  They were his cradle, his robbers’ cave, his pulpit, his study and his refuge.  They were his friends and he knew them as individuals whose passing he mourned as he mourned the loss of his first love, Mary Joyce.  There seems little doubt that he felt for them the same constriction of the heart and the bottomless stomach that the rest of us experience from human loss.  

Trees were the signposts of his daily rambles, the monuments of his tradition, the guardians of  his dead and the symbols of changing time.  Twice at least in his Journal Clare comments on stories about the rapid growth of trees in the Helpston neighbourhood and in terms that demonstrate the particularlity of his tree-observations.

Clare was concerned about maintaining the tree population of his environment, and in a sense the history of Helpston and of our poet, is that partly told in trees.  Then came enclosure when, for the trees, a wholesale devastation took place.”

So there we have it, inexpensive, paperback sized, quality productions... the ideal gift for the lover of Clare.  Or perhaps that friend who just might love Clare if only they had opportunity to read the great man’s work.

The book will be published on Friday, 19th January, priced at £6.50 (including P&P)
Just email me at arborfield@gmail.com