I am starting to create a second volume, after ‘Hidden Treasures’, of Clare obscurities and fragments, no idea as yet what the title might be (I’m open to suggestions). There are many such ‘fragments’ in the archives, some just a line or two, but many complete poems/prose too. Here is just one of them.
As stubborn as the oak
As stubborn as the oak that cannot bend
He seeks no master & he has no friend
& round the ground & bawling often goes
& makes a merry feast of roasted sloes
Bawling together all the live long day
A loud & drawling song had all [astray]
& all is joyous music save that noise
That comes in summered oaths from garden boys
Who run & shout yet cannot drive away
The restless sheep from trespass in the hay
Nor make the crops the shallow fold again
So there the stubborn trespassers remain
Altho the water is so shallow
That larger pebbles even lye
Half out of water & their surface dry
Pet MS A61 p54
Two complete verses and a few odd lines, yet this has been ignored as a ‘fragment’. I think it’s rather beautiful.
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