This sweet vision

No fence of ownership crept in between 

To hide the prospect from the gazing eye
Its only bondage was the circling sky
A mighty flat undwarfed by bush & tree
Spread its faint shadow of immensity
& lost itself which seemed to eke its bounds
In the blue mist the orizons edge surrounds
Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours
Free as spring clouds & wild as forest flowers
Is faded all—a hope that blossomed free
& hath been once as it no more shall be
Enclosure came & trampled on the grave

Of labours rights & left the poor a slave

Photo from my friend #AdyKerry

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Happiest happiness

Unequal'd raptures happiest happiness

For sure no raptures can compare with thee
Now lovley Anna in her sunday dress
In softest pressure sits upon my knee.—
For O to see the snowey bosom heave
& feel those robes to me so softley cleave
Robes which half show what modesty consceals
While round her slender wa[i]ste I fling my arms
& while her eye whats wanting yet reveals
To me apears such (more than heavenly) charms
That might I wish—& could I be so blest
To have it granted—O I'd wish to be
For ever of this matchles maid posses'd
To bear her weight through all Eternity

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From Clare’s unfinished novel

The black thorn was in its blossom & the soldiers were reminded of their early days      & one of them said    in such a spot as this comrade I tended sheep & have been delighted at seeing the black thorn in blossom as the earnest of may day a coming      when we should play at crookhorn & duck under-water & pelt over the garland -- & I little thought then of where I should ramble & what I should see --      these days Richard are all over & our happiness is gone after them for some other boys to pick up & loose agen as we did -- 

& so they wandered along shortning the way by little remembrances of former days that the scene around them brought up in their minds -- untill the sun went to bed as red as a drunken man dropping as if in the midst of the waste that surrounded them      & they were astonished in the seeming boundless stretch of the common which like an ocean of waste seemed to have no shore of termination to human existance & no harbours of comfortable cottages -- for they had not only been out of the sight of smoaking chimneys for hours but had even lost all sight of human existance in the shape of foot paths or waggon tracks –

From Clare's 'The Two Soldiers' an episode in his aborted novel from the 1820s, now published with Clare’s title “The Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby" (Arbour Editions, 2017).

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A sheltering place

Black grows the southern sky betokening rain
& humming hive-bees homeward hurry bye
They feel the change so let us shun the grain
& take the broad road while our feet are dry
Ay there some dropples moistened on my face
& pattered on my hat--tis coming nigh
Lets look about & find a sheltering place
The little things around like you & I

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Sweet warbling

Thrice Welcome to thy song sweet warbling thrush
May you be happy as you still have been
The present sunshine warms your covert bush
The future clouds you know not what they mean
Vain foolish thought & why should ye be sad
Why be like me with ills to come oprest
To pass the present bliss that may be had
& wait on sorrow as a welcome guest
No sing thou on & let me sorrow still
I cant be happy be it as it will
In vain the sun gleams thro the prison grate
To cheer the felon thats condemnd to dye
His soul in anguish mourns impending fate
Such pains are his & such a one am I

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Rides litherly

Lapt up in sacks to shun the rain & wind
& shoes thick clouted with the sticking soil
& sidelings on his horse the careless hind
Rides litherly & singIng to his toil
The boy rides foremost where the sack is gone
& holds [it] with his hands to keep it on
Then splashing down the road in journey slow
Through mire & sludge with cracking whips they go
He lays his jacket with his lunchen bye
& drinks from horses footings when adry
They pass the maiden singing at her cow
& start the lark that roosted by the plough
That sings above them all the live long day
& on they drive & hollow care away

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The orchis tribes

Haunting thy mossy steeps to botanize

& hunt the orchis tribes where natures skill

Doth like my thoughts run into phantasies

Spider & bee all mimicking at will

Displaying powers that fool the proudly wise

Showing the wonders of great natures plan

In trifles insignificant & small

Puzzling the power of that great trifle man

Who finds no reason to be proud at all

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from ‘Solitude’

   

    O how sweet I cannot tell
    With thee at that hour to dwell
    Stretchd the mossy bank beside
    Lye to view the random tide
    Where no clowns has chopt from thence
    Bush nor stake to mend his fence

    Cornerd stones & pebbles round
    Breaking dasht wi mellow sound
    Wether this or that to see
    I am blest if Im wi thee
    & full dear has been the hour
    Spent wi in thy noon day bower
    Prest wi thee thy mossy seat
    O its unexpressive sweet

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I remember it well

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

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Of dandelions

Tis May & yet the March flower Dandelion 

Is still in bloom among the Emerald grass 

Shining like guineas with the suns warm eye on 

We almost think they are gold as we pass 

Or fallen stars on a green sea of grass 

The[y] shine in fields on waste grounds near the town 

They closed like painters brush when even was 

At length they turn to nothing else but down 

While the rude winds blow of[f] each shadowy crown

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Three ‘fragments’

Three of the many Clare ‘fragments’ – poems with very few lines or those started and forgotten. 

Sweeter than roses was the face
Sweeter than roses was the face
For whom I pluckd the flower
Sweeter than heaven was the place
In that delightful hour

Beautiful woman visions dwell
Beautiful woman visions dwell
Of heavens joy about thee
& every step I take is hell
That walks thro' life without thee

Loves memories haunt my footsteps still
Loves memories haunt my footsteps still
Like ceaseless flowings of the river
Its mystic depths say what can fill
Sad disappointment waits for ever

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Clare the Naturalist

May 25 1825
I watched a bluecap or blue titmouse feeding her young, whose nest was in a wall close to an orchard. She got caterpillars out of the blossoms of the apple trees and leaves of the plum. She fetched 120 caterpillars in half an hour. Now suppose she only feeds them four times a day, a quarter of an hour each time, she fetched no less than 480 caterpillars.

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Weedlings wild

The hawthorns here were hung with may
But still they seem in deader green
The sun e'en seems to lose its way
Nor knows the quarter it is in
I dwell on trifles like a child
I feel as ill becomes a man
& still my thoughts like weedlings wild
Grow up to blossom where they can

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