O cruel war

An excerpt from a very early poem, no doubt written in the aftermath of the various Napoleonic battles.   The young John Clare, as always, pulls no punches in his condemnation of those he calls "the rich & great".

O cruel War when will thy horrors cease

And all thy slaughtering of poor men give oer

O sheath O sheath thy bloody blade in peace

Nor stain thy hand with human blood no more

See at yon door were round the children swarm

The piteous object of thy rage appears

Thou'st left him nothing but a single arm

Both legs are gone & he is old in years

O shatter'd man did ever eyes behold

A more distressing form of misery

(...)

O what I owe the tender feeling poor

Since I've been brought to this sad state you see 


Ne'er have I left their lowly welcome Door 


Without some token of their Charity

But O in vain (it grieves me to relate) 


These wooden stumps & this poor armless side 


Attracts the pity of the rich & great 


They deem my sorrows far beneath their pride

Yon house that shows its owners wealth & power 


Lur'd me to ask relief but ask'd in vain 


A scornful proudling drove me from the door 


To crave a morsel from the needy swain


But ah ye Rich as rich as you may be 


You—tho You fancy you can't want no more 


May by misfortune be reduc'd like me 

And glad to beg a crust from door to 

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Sophia

On the 24th July 1830 Sophia was born to Patty and John - the family then consisted then of 6 children, Anna (10), Eliza (8 ), Freddy (6) John (4), William (2), and baby Sophia. Grandfather Parker (70) and Ann (66) made up the crowded household of 10 all living in the tenement in Woodgate (a quarter of what is now called ‘Clare Cottage’). What a struggle it must have been, seeking to support such a family.

When with our little ones we spent

Each Sunday after tea,

& up the woods dark side we went

Or pastures rushy lea

To look among the woodland boughs

To find the birds retreat

Or crop the cowslip for the cows

Then sat to rest the little feet

In many a pleasant place

& see the lambs who tried to bleat

Come first in every race

Then laughd the childrens joys to view

Who ran across the lea

At birds that from the rushes flew

& many a wandering bee

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Whistle like the birds

Ive  often tried when tending sheep & cow
With bits of grass & peels of oaten straw
To whistle like the birds the thrush would start
To hear her song & pause & fly away
The blackbird never cared but sang again
The nightingales fine song I could not try
& when the thrush would mock her song she paused
& sang another song no bird could do
She sang when all were done & beat them all
Ive often sat & mocked them half the day
Behind the hedge-row thorn or bullace tree
I thought how nobly I could act in crowds
The woods & fields were all the books I knew
& every leisure thought was Love & Fame

 

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A lonely sailor-boy

A maid of early morning twirled her mop upon the moor
I wished her my farewell before she closed the door
My friends I left behind me for other places new
Crows & pigeons all were strangers as oer my head they flew

Trees & bushes were all strangers the hedges & the lanes
The steeples & the houses & broad untrodden plains
I passed the pretty milkmaid with her red & rosy face
I knew not where I met her I was strange to the place.

At last I saw the ocean a pleasing sight to me
I stood upon the shore of a mighty glorious sea
The waves in easy motion went rolling on their way
English colours were a-flying where the British squadron lay

I left my honest parents the church clock & the village
I left the lads & lasses the labour & the tillage
To plough the briny ocean which soon became my joy
I sat & sang among the shrouds a lonely sailor-boy

 

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Desolate the Wood

I hate to see mans strength employd 

To desolate the wood
To see a favourite tree destroyd 
That has for ages stood
To see the stript oak stretchd its length
A mournful thought the scene attends
Those seem thats left still green in strength
To mourn their fallen friends

 

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One delicious green

Here is Carry's painting that illustrates the following lines. Incidentally, postcards of it (and a number of other paintings) are available from Carry by post. Try www.carryakroyd.co.uk

The one delicious green that now pervades
The woods and fields in endless lights and shades
And that deep softness of delicious hues
That overhead blends-softens-and subdues
The eye to extacy and fills the mind
With views and visions of enchanting kind
While on the velvet down beneath the swail
I sit on mossy stulp and broken rail
Or lean oer crippled gate by hugh old tree
Broken by boys disporting there at swee
While sunshine spread from an exaustless sky
Gives all things extacy as well as I
And all wood-swaily places even they
Are joys own tennants keeping holiday

 

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Image by my friend Carry Akroyd

Waking fond desire

And o'er the meadows gleams that slender spire
Reminding me of one & waking fond desire
I love thee nature in my inmost heart
Go where I will thy truth seems from above
Go where I will thy landscape forms a part
Of heaven e'en these fens where wood nor grove
Are seen their very nakedness I love
For one dwells nigh that secret hopes prefer
Above the race of women like the dove
I mourn her absence fate that would deter
My hate for all things strengthens love for her

 

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The wind & trees

I love the song of tree & wind 
How beautiful they sing 
The licken on the beach tree rind 
Een beats the flowers of spring 

From the southwest sugh sugh it comes 
Then whizes round in pleasant hums 
It sings the spirit of the storm 
The trees with dancing waxes warm 

They dance and bow & dance again 
The very trunks each branch & grain 
Shake & dance & wave & bow 
In every form no matter how 

In every storm they dance on high 
The semblance of a stormy sky 
Then sob & roar & bend & swee 
The semblance of a stormy sea 

I love the song of wood & wind 
The sobs before its roar behind 
I love the stir of flood & tree 
Tis all of natures melody 

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Posies at even

T’was down in the cow pasture just at the gloaming
I met a young woman sweet tempered & mild,
I said “Pretty maiden say where are you roving?”
“I'm walking at even,” she answered & smiled
“Here my sweetheart & I gathered posies at even
Its eight years ago since they sent him to sea.
Wild flowers hung with dew are like angels from heaven
They look up in my face and keep whispering to me.”

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Summer Amusements

I love to hide me on a spot that lies 
In solitudes where footsteps find no track 
To make intrusions there to sympathize 
With nature often gazing on the rack 
That veils the blueness of the summer skies 
In rich varieties or o'er the grass 
Behold the spangled crowds of butterflies 
Flutter from flower to flower & things that pass 
In urgent travel by my still retreat
The bustling beetle tribes & up the stem 
Of bents see lady-cows with nimble feet 
Climb tall church-steeple heights or more to them
Till at its quaking top they take their seat
Which bows & off they fly fresh happiness to meet

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The insect world

The insect world amid the suns & dew 
Awake & hum their tiny songs anew
& climb the totter grass & blossoms stem 
As huge in size as mighty oaks to them
& rushy burnets on the pasture rise 
As tall as castles to their little eyes
Each leafs a town & the smooth meadow grass 
A mighty world whose bounds they never pass

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Image ‘Meadowsweet and Great Burnet’

by my friend John Abbott

The ramping kecks

Where beesom weed that high wind leaves 
Blossoms & blooms above the eaves 
The old cow-crib is mossed & green 
As if it just had painted been 
The ramping kecks in orchard gaps 
Shake like green neighbours in white caps 
On which the snail will climb & dwell 
For three weeks in its painted shell 
There the white nosed clock a clay
Red and black spot[t]ed sits all day

keck=cow parsley

Clock a clay=ladybird

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Scorching Ray

The garish Summer comes with many tribes

Of gay and gaudy flowers in bright array
But the hot sun the cloudy morning bribes
& dries all moisture with his scorching ray
Corn-poppies oft a scarlet host display
The oak woods green like rocky masses hing 
On wooded hills the willows waving grey
Hang mournful in the stream birds cease to sing
The sweetest poesy of the year is Spring!

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Weeds obscure

The finest flower beneath the sky

& like to thee lives many a swain

With Genius blest—but like to thee

So humble lowly mean & plain

No one will notice them nor me

So like to thee they live unknown

Wild weeds obscure—& like to thee

Their sweets are sweet to them alone

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Cobwebs glitter

Up to the very clouds again 
That sprinkle scuds of coming rain
That fly & drizzle all the day 
Till dripping grass is turned to grey
The various clouds [now] move or lie 
Like mighty travellers in the sky
All mountainous & ridged and curled
That may have travelled round the world. 
When the rain at midday stops
Spangles glitter in the drops
& as each thread a sunbeam was
Cobwebs glitter in the grass

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Thy enchanted spire

Glinton thy taper spire predominates
over the landscape and the mind
musing the pleasing picture contemplates
like elegance of beauty much refined
by taste that almost defies and elevates
once admiration making common things
around it glow with beauty not their own
Thus all around the earth superior things
those struggling trees though lonely seem not lone
but in thy presence wear superior power
and e’en each mossed and melancholy stone
gleaning cold memories round oblivions bower
seems types of fair eternity & hire
a lease from fame by thy enchanting spire

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The path brushes nigh

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

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Artless vanity

Wereover many a stile neeth willows grey

The winding footpath leaves the public way

Free from the dusty din & ceasless chime

Of bustling waggons in the summer time

Crossing a brook—were braving storms in vain

Two willows fell & still for brigs remain

Corn field & clover closes leading down

In peacful windings to the neighbouring town

Were on bridge wall or rail or trees smooth bark

The passing eye is often stopt to mark

The artless vanity of village swains

Who spend a leisure hour with patient pains

& put to sculptors purposes the knife

To spin a cobweb for an after life

Nicking the letters of their little names

In rudest forms that untaught science frames

Pleasd with the feeblest shadow of renown

That warms alike the noble and the clown

‘clown’ = agricultural labourer

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Full of mirth

Right happy bird so full of mirth 
Mounting & mounting still more high 
To meet morns sunshine in the sky 

Ere yet it smiles on earth 

How often I delight to stand 
Listening a minutes length away 
Where summer spreads her green array 
By wheat or barley land 

To see thee with a sudden start 
The green & placid herbage leave 
& in mid air a vision weave 
For joys delighted heart

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Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers go in many a thumming spring
& now to stalks of tasseled sow-grass cling
That shakes & swees awhile but still keeps straight
While arching oxeye doubles with his weight
Next on the cat-tail-grass with farther bound
He springs that bends until they touch the ground

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Image by my friend Carry Akroyd

My love she is a modest girl

Another amazing Clare poem from his Asylum years.  Again, not in any collection I can find.  Love the internal rhymes.

My love she wore a muslin cap & trim[m]ed wi' ribbons blue 
What time the trees were full o' sap & meadows cowslips new 
In meadows & on meadow banks in baulks & clover too 
The white horse daisys stand in ranks all silvered wi' the dew 

My love she wore a pleasant gown & owned a rosy face 
The prettiest girl o' half the town the finest i' the place 
Her waist was sweet & sweet her size fleshy & fair not tall

Bright as the milkmaids were her eyes her neck white as the wall 

A muslin cap my love had on & trimmed wi' ribbons blue 
When grass was green to look upon & steamed wi' morning dew 
Her face was like the cabbage rose her bosom lilly white 
Her lips are red her mild eye glows like evens dewy light 

My love she is a modest girl a pleasant gown she wears 
Her teeth are like two rows O' pearl & glossy brown her hair 
I feel transported by her smile & by her frown undone 
I'll meet her by the awthorn stile where both will seem as one

(line 8 ‘Milkmaids’ = ladysmock)

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Image by my friend Annie Lee

The rose

Why this deceptively simple poem has never figured in any collection is hard to understand.  Such beauty in 16 lines.  I could swim in it for hours.

The rose in full bearing there is no other blossom 
So sweet & so flushing as that bonny flower 
It shines the delight O the young maidens bosom 
Its ever the sweetest in summers warm hour 
The beautiful rose tree how sweet its leaves blushes 
With dew drops like silver pearls hung on its leaves 
The sun light O summer its bonny bloom flushes 
How sweet is its blossom on midsummer eaves 
Tis as sweet as the breath O the midsum[m]er morning 
Where bees oer the hay fiel[d]s are singing all day 
When dews like white diamonds its leaves are adorning 
How sweet is the full blowing rose on the spray 
The maiden she loves it the beautiful maiden 
That goes i' the meadows a milking the kye 
She sees the heath brere with its roses oer laden 
& puts a rose bud in her bosom for joy

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Image?  

My ‘ballerina’ rambling rose growing up one of our apple trees

Glides the stream

Where winding gash wirls round its wildest scene 
On this romantic bend I sit me down 
On that side view the meads their smoothing green 
Edgd with the peeping hamlets checkering brown 
Here the steep hill as dripping headlong down 
While glides the stream a silver streak between 
As glides the shaded clouds along the sky 
Brightning & deepning loosing as theyre seen 
In light & shade so when old willows lean 
Thus their broad shadow runs the river bye 
With tree & bush repleat a wilderd scene 
& mossd & Ivyd sparkling on my eye 
O thus wild musing am I doubly blest 
My woes unheeding & my heart at rest

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Image by my friend John Abbott

Hay-making

Fair was the morn & Summer in its prime
For whats more lovlier than hay-making time
When sweet perfumes from every flower arise
& sweeter still from swaths that withering lyes
When work folks stript appear in every ground
&  thronging waggons ever rattling round
& Cows & Sheep as full as they can snive
In grounds made clear where shepherds all alive

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Gipsies

To me how wildly pleasing is that scene
Which does present in evenings dusky hour
A Group of Gipsies center'd on the green
In some warm nook where Boreas has no power
Where sudden starts the quivering blaze behind
Short shrubby bushes nibbl'd by the sheep
That alway on these shortsward pastures keep
Now lost now shines now bending with the wind
And now the swarthy Sybil kneels reclin'd
With proggling stick she still renews the blaze
Forcing bright sparks to twinkle from the flaze
When this I view the all attentive mind
Will oft exclaim (so strong the scene prevades)
‘Grant me this life, thou spirit of the shades!’

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A monarch here

Ive oft been glad at heart to see 
A footpath winding through the grass 
Oer narrow stiles neath spreading tree 
Not wide enough for two to pass 
But now no ownership I fear 
Nor path to keep nor stile to climb 
I feel myself a monarch here 
My very fancies grow sublime

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Image by my friend Jane Air

Throwing a stone

Here is final poem in Clare’s story of Roger’s romantic adventures.  In the end Roger meets a visiting Scot (a drover’s daughter?) and finds in her something he seemed not to be able to find in the local Northamptonshire lasses.  The Kirk at Upton, incidentally is very much worth a visit.  The church (photo above) is virtually unchanged from Clare’s time, and the little village a reminder of how much of the county used to be.

Coy Maidens o' Drysail bonny Girls o' Buckhiven
Young beauty's o' Largo bonny Lasses o' Leven
I loved them the gether I loved one alone
And the rest followed with her Else I'd made her my own

Nay stop there auld Sodger Yo're nae kin o' her kind
She belongs to young Rodger our Shepherd—sae mind
Her voice shouted Rodger like throwing a stone
Sae gae on oud Sodger and let her alane

The voice it gaed through me like throwing a stone
And sair did it rue me knocking at my breast bone
Gae awa' wi' yer Rodger young Man do I see
If you'r then auld Sodger you may march on wi' me

Sae I went with the Maiden over heath and o'er plain
And when Sunday was come too I saw her again
I saw her and courted the sun from the West
And left my last kiss on the mole of her breast

I kissed and were married and bedded and a'
And the auld Kirk at Upton the green Wedding saw
For the grass it was green and our years was the same
And frae morning to E'en Nane ca'd us to blame

“Her voice shouted Rodger like throwing a stone” – as I child my mother, often in the late afternoon, would call me in for tea.  I could have been anywhere as we lived in the country, so she shouted my name at the top of her voice – I have experience of what ‘the voice it gaed through me’ sounds like.  The volume, the inflection… even the memory makes shudder just a little!

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