ON SEEING A LOST GREYHOUND IN WINTER LYING UPON THE SNOW IN THE FIELDS

Ah thou poor neglected hound
Now thourt done wi catching hares
Thou mayst lye upon the ground
Lost for what thy master cares

To see thee lye it makes me sigh
A proud hard hearted man
But men we know like dogs may go
When theyve done all they can

& thus from witnesing thy fate
Thoughtfull reflection wakes
Tho thourt a dog (with grief I sayt)
Poor men thy fare partakes
Like thee lost whelp the poor mans help
Ere while so much desird
Now harvests got is wanted not
Or little is requird

So now the over plus will be
As useles negros all
Turnd in the bitter blast like thee
Meer cumber grounds to fall
But this reward for toil so hard
Is sure to meet return
From him whose ear is always near
When the oppressed mourn

For dogs as men are equally
A link in natures chain
Formd by the hand that formed me
Which formeth naught in vain
All life contains as't were by chains
From him still perfect are
Nor does he think the meanest link
Unworthy of his Care

So let us both on him relye
& he'll for us provide
Find us a shelter warm and drye
With every thing beside
& while fools void of sense deride
My tenderness to thee
Ill take thee home from whence Ive come
So rise and gang wi me

Poor patient thing he seems to hear
& know what I have said
He wags his tale and ventures near
& bows his mournful head
Thourt welcome—come and tho thourt dumb
Thy silence tells thy pains
So wi me start to share a part
While I have aught remains

EP I 202

Ronnie Blythe on the Festival

With the John Clare Society Festival now only just over a week away, you might like to read Ronnie's 'report' of a previous Festival and be persuaded to attend?!

"Back once more from the John Clare Festival at Helpston. Our Society has outgrown the school named after him, and has to fill a marquee. Rows and rows of familiar faces. The village has wide Enclosure roads and handsome Barnack-stone houses, toppling hollyhocks, and bird-filled skies. As always, I see the poet running over the fields to Glinton, to be taught to read and write for a penny a week, and to do his arithmetic in the dust of the threshing barn, and to lie hidden with a book in a deserted quarry.

What a good education he got, one that was perfect for our greatest rural voice. Clare, too, had a violin. The gypsies showed him how to play it. We had lunch in the Blue Bell, where he would be found with his beer and his finds — wild flowers. They would straggle from his velvet pockets. Have you read John Clare? If not, do so at once. His life was bitter-sweet with a vengeance. Poor Clare. Great Clare."

Hail, humble Helpstone ! where thy vallies spread,
And thy mean village lifts its lowly head ;
Unknown to grandeur, and unknown to fame;
No minstrel boasting to advance thy name :

Unletter'd spot! unheard in poets' song;
Where bustling labour drives the hours along ;
Where dawning genius never met the day;
Where useless ignorance slumbers life away.