April

Image: 'The Shepherd's Calendar ~ April’ by Carry Akroyd

The infant april joins the spring
And views its watery skye
As youngling linnet trys its wing
And fears at first to flye
With timid step she ventures on
And hardly dares to smile
The blossoms open one by one
And sunny hours beguile
But finer days approacheth yet
With scenes more sweet to charm
And suns arive that rise and set
Bright strangers to a storm
And as the birds with louder song
Each mornings glory cheers
With bolder step she speeds along
And looses all her fears
In wanton gambols like a child
She tends her early toils
And seeks the buds along the wild
That blossom while she smiles
And laughing on with nought to chide
She races with the hours
Or sports by natures lovley side
And fills her lap with flowers

(lines 1-24)

Spring (two versions)

SPRING (a)
Welcome gentle breathing Spring
Now the birds are heard to sing
And the budding tree is seen
Putting forth her tender green
O delightful season hail
May my footsteps never fail
When time permits to visit thee
And view thy new born scenery

SPRING (b)
Welcome gentle breathing spring
Now the birds begin to sing
Now the Swelling shade is seen
Putting forth its tender green
While the Suns extended way
Sweetly shows the lengthend day
O delightful Season hail
May my footsteps never fail
When I've time to trample where
All thy beauties reappear

Child Harold (again)

The Paigles Bloom In Shower's In Grassy Close
How Sweet To Be Among Their Blossoms Led
& Hear Sweet Nature To Herself Discourse
While Pale The Moon Is Bering Over Head
& Hear The Grazeing Cattle Softly Tread
Cropping The Hedgerows Newly Leafing Thorn
Sounds Soft As Visions Murmured Oer In Bed
At Dusky Eve Or Sober Silent Morn
For Such Delights Twere Happy Man Was Born

(Lines 966-974)

Ballad

I have been researching poems for the Festival in July, and have rediscovered this lovely song, part of the long series of 1841 Clare entitled "Child Harold". It dates from early in that year as the scholars tell us that at that time Clare was capitalising every word in his manuscript(s), no-one knows why. It's only title is 'Ballad'... my current favourite.

The Blackbird Has Built In The Pasture Agen
& The Thorn Oer The Pond Shows A Delicate Green
Where I Strolled With Patty Adown In The Glen
& Spent Summer Evenings & Sundays Unseen

How Sweet The Hill Brow
& The Low Of The Cow
& The Sunshine That Gilded The Bushes So Green

When Evening Brought Dews Natures Thirst To Allay
& Clouds Seemed To Nestle Round Hamlets & Farms
While In The Green Bushes We Spent The Sweet Day
& Patty, Sweet Patty, Was Still In My Arms

The Love Bloom That Redded Upon Her Sweet Lips
The Love Light That Glistened Within Her Sweet Eye
The Singing Bees There That The Wild Honey Sips
From Wild Blossoms Seemed Not So Happy As I

How Sweet Her Smile Seemed
While The Summer Sun Gleamed
& The Laugh Of The Spring Shadowed Joys From On High

While The Birds Sung About Us & Cattle Grazed Round
& Beauty Was Blooming On Hamlets & Farms
How Sweet Steamed The Inscence Of Dew From The Ground
While Patty Sweet Patty Sat Locked In My Arms

(lines 1108-1129 : Child Harold)

A Hunt for Dobin or the Force of Love

(lines 222-235)

The old deep pond where the coy morehen lyes
Where on whose side the turfy hillocks rise
Where the broad flag and fuzy bulrush grows
Curving adown to the least wind that blows
And where surrounding bushes form a shade
As wild as ever was by nature made
The oaken folliage shaken by the wind
The dark green ivy round their trunks entwind
With all the mingling many shaded greens
That decorate the woodlands mixing scenes
These are the haunts & these the scenes so wild
Which are so dear to Natures every child
To sport in wildness nature dearly loves
And all her Children of her taste approves

I love the little pond...

I love the little pond to mark at spring
When frogs & toads are croaking round its brink
When blackbirds yellow bills gin first to sing
& green woodpecker rotten trees to clink
I love to see the cattle muse & drink
& water crinkle to the rude march wind
While two ash dotterels flourish on its brink
Bearing key bunches children run to find
& water buttercups they're forced to leave behind

Somthing New

How varying is the taste of man
Still eager to pursue
That ever pleasing novelty
In meeting somthing new

In infancy the rage begins
(So tempting is the view)
Babes throw aside their once lov'd things
To sigh for somthing new

The hoop to day which boys are seen
So eager to pursue
To morrow lies a toy despis'd
Exchang'd for somthing new

Young miss's (if not catch'd in time)
—Be lovers ere so true
Grow fickle tires & turns 'em off
To seek for somthing new

Old maids whom every hope forsakes
The self same end pursue
& put their wrinkl'd mouths in form
To look for somthing new

E'en wives—but hasty muse for bear
(Tho wives shou'd have their due)
Will often harbour evil thoughts
& wish for somthing new

Lawers & doctors each in turn
One common aim pursue
When one good job is finish'd they
Look out for somthing new


Poor victim poets vainly priz'd
By the diserning few
Still ryhme in hopes o' better days
& dwell on somthing new

—Ah shatter'd coat & wanted groat
When wil't be mine to view?
Thee thrown aside? & pockets lin'd
With hopefull somthing new

—Booksellers often miss the chance
Their customers pursue
When throwing usless books about
They search for somthing new

Tho fashions change with every day
Their votaries will pursue
Come as they will or fast or slow
They cry is ‘somthing new’

So Gentlemen & ladies here
(In hopes to meet his due)
A humble clown exerts his skill
To offer somthing new

He wishes every taste to please
& hopes to find it true
So good or bad or what they will
This “Trifle’s” somthing new

When I met wi her...

When I met wi her I coud wish for my own
As fair & as blushing as blossoms full blown
Ah me I did heave a sigh
When she first met my eye
Poverty frownd she shoud not be my own

Life had a cloud that was sore to be nigh
Were hot love wi want woud get colded & dye
When I my love did meet
& saw her face so sweet
Poverty frownd wi many a sigh

Ah how I wishd the sweet maid for my own
Ah how I sighd upon troubles long known
But her sweet simple smile
Poverty did beguile
& hazard at last took the maid for my own

The Shepherd's Calendar - March

[Image: 'March' by Carry Akroyd]

March month of ‘many weathers’ wildly comes
In hail and snow and rain and threatning hums
And floods: while often at his cottage door
The shepherd stands to hear the distant roar
Loosd from the rushing mills and river locks
Wi thundering sound and over powering shocks
And headlong hurry thro the meadow brigs
Brushing the leaning willows fingering twigs
In feathery foam and eddy hurryng chase
Rolling a storm oertaken travellers pace
From bank to bank along the meadow leas
Spreading and shining like to little seas
While in the pale sunlight a watery brood
Of swopping white birds flock about the flood

(lines 1-14)

Billings Sorrows...

... in being Sober for want of money to get Drunk
[To the Tune “Doleful Dumps”]

Here like Johnny Horner
Confined in my corner
Half famished o’er terrible tea
I sit like an Owl
While the Cats Mew & yowl
A tale of my troubles to me

The taxes distress me
& parish rates dress me
Out of all my good money & calling
So here I sit growling
& Whooping and howling
Far away from the beer house a bawling

I’m as lean as a match
Nor a chance can I catch
Both money & credit is gone
I would pawn my coat
But its not worth a groat
Tho’ the best that I have when it’s on

So here I remain
For to mourn & complain
Keeping up a most damnable cry
Good people I pray
Do but heed what I say
Save a tester to drink when your dry.

Song "Sweet love I see the gales of Spring"

Sweet love I see the gales of Spring
Are wanton, wooing with thy hair
The missle thrush begins to sing
The sloe tree shews its blossoms fair

The white thorn bush is shewing leaf
The path is printed down the lane
The grass is green the shower brief
Come love now let us meet again

O let us meet and walk and love
And through the fir dale coppice stray
And view the scaley cones above
Droop brown as dropping all the way

The moss that warms the primrose roots
The buds their brimstone flowers contain
Where all unchecked the wood rose shoots
Sweet love do let us meet again

In hat of straw and russet gown
And shawl across thy shoulders thrown
We'll stroll the coppice up and down
Enjoying raptures all our own

The scolding calls of noisy jay
Shall please our ears and not in vain
We'll through the briery coppice stray
Sweet love do let us meet again

The Sharp Wind Shivers (part)

The sharp wind shivers in the warm gorse blossoms
And trembles in the dead grass o'er the heath
The silver rain pearls in the wild flowers bosoms
And moistens minute flowers of moss beneath
There i' the morning dew I early ramble
What time beneath the fern the weary moth
Hides from the sun in dew drops hangs the bramble
As down the rabbit track I venture forth

Bridge Casterton

[The Gwash at Great Casterton]

.

Thinking about the 2010 festival and the coach trip to Great Casterton, here is Clare sitting under the bridge by the river Gwash observing what there is around him... (just an excerpt)

While swift the mail coach rattles up the hill
Nearly unseen beneath a cloud of dust
& the poor beggar pined & weary still
Drops on the bank to rest or eat his crust
Upon thy winding side wild Gwash I lie
Viewing with curious eye the silver bream
Taking vaunting springs to trap the thoughtless flye
That heedless dances on thy gentle stream

The black snail wakens from the swoons of day
& from the boughs that nestle by thy side
The light wing'd moths steal out again to play
Crossing with hasty wing thy rippling tide
How sweet the blackbird chaunts her evening song
While the shrill larks in twittering chorus join
& O sad deed while boys thy shades among
With hardnd hearts her unfledg'd young purloin

Song: "There's a little odd house..."

There’s a little odd house by the side of the Lane
Where the daisy smiles sweet in the spring
Where the morning sun glitters like gold on the pane
& the hedge Sparrow trembles his wing
Where chaffinch green linnet & Sparrows have tones
That make the green Lane & the cottage their own
The sparrows they chirp & make nests i' the eaves
The chaffinch sings ‘pink’ in the hedge o' white thorn
That fences the garden & there the bird weaves
A nest of grey lichen soon as light i' the morn
& there bonny Susan will sit at the door
& see the green linnet at work at its nest
Where the robin flyes in for a crumb on the floor
& seems as if longing to sit on her breast

February

Image: 'The Shepherd's Calendar ~ February' by Carry Akroyd

The mavis thrush wi wild delight
Upon the orchards dripping tree
Mutters to see the day so bright
Spring scraps of young hopes poesy
And oft dame stops her burring wheel
To hear the robins note once more
That tutles while he pecks his meal
From sweet-briar hips beside the door
The hedghog from its hollow root
Sees the wood moss clear of snow
And hunts each hedge for fallen fruit
Crab hip and winter bitten sloe
And oft when checkd by sudden fears
As shepherd dog his haunt espies
He rolls up in a ball of spears
And all his barking rage defies
Thus nature of the spring will dream
While south winds thaw but soon again
Frost breaths upon the stiffening stream
And numbs it into ice—the plain
Soon wears its merry garb of white
And icicles that fret at noon
Will eke their icy tails at night
Beneath the chilly stars and moon

The Awthorn

I love the awthorn well
The first green thing
In woods & hedges—black thorn dell
Dashed with its green first spring
When sallows shine in golden sheen
These white thorn places in the black how green
How beautifully green
Though March has but begun
To tend primroses planted in the sun
The roots thats further in
Are not begun to bud or may be just begun
I love the white thorn bough
Hung over the mole hill
Where the spring feeding cow
Rubs off the dew drop chill
When on the cowslip pips & glossy thorn
The dews hang shining pearls at early morn

Emmonsail's Heath in Winter

I love to see the old heath's withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling,
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow and flaps his melancholy wing,
And oddling crow in idle motions swing
On the half rotten ashtree's topmost twig,
Beside whose trunk the gipsy makes his bed.
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread,
The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn
And for the awe round fields and closen rove,
And coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
And hang on little twigs and start again.

Firwood

The fir trees taper into twigs and wear
The rich blue green of summer all the year,
Softening the roughest tempest almost calm
And offering shelter ever still and warm
To the small path that towels underneath,
Where loudest winds - almost as summer's breath -
Scarce fan the weed that lingers green below
When others out of doors are lost in frost and snow.
And sweet the music trembles on the ear
As the wind suthers through each tiny spear,
Makeshifts for leaves; and yet, so rich they show,
Winter is almost summer where they grow.

Ploughman Singing

Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,
And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye.
Woke early, I arose and thought that first
In winter time of all the world was I.
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst,
But joy just then was up and whistled bye
A merry tune which I had known full long,
But could not to my memory wake it back,
Until the ploughman changed it to the song.
O happiness, how simple is thy track.
Tinged like the willow shoots, the east's young brow
Glows red and finds thee singing at the plough.

Song: I love the bonny lassie (excerpt)

Her gowns the yellow broom
& her face the blushing brere
Her cheeks have got the bloom
& she's handsome every where
& I'm welcome in her room
Where she sets the cushioned chair
What a winter fire she'll make
When I tarry as her guest
Wi' my arms about her neck
Then I kiss her into rest
Gin the hens are gone to bed
Gin the staple holds the pin
Gin the sparrows seek the shed
She will up & let me in
When I kiss & nothings sed
Rosey cheeks & lily skin

Nobody cometh to Woo

On Martinmas eve the dogs did bark,
And I opened the window to see,
When every maiden went by with her spark
But ne’er a one came to me.
And O dear what will become of me?
And O dear what shall I do,
When nobody whispers to marry me—
Nobody cometh to woo?

None's born for such troubles as I be:
If the sun wakens first in the morn
"Lazy hussy" my parents both call me,
And I must abide by their scorn,
For nobody cometh to marry me,
Nobody cometh to woo,
So here in distress must I tarry me—
What can a poor maiden do?

If I sigh through the window when Jerry
The ploughman goes by, I grow bold;
And if I'm disposed to be merry,
My parents do nothing but scold;
And Jerry the clown, and no other,
E’er cometh to marry or woo;
They think me the moral of mother
And judge me a terrible shrew.

For mother she hateth all fellows,
And spinning's my father's desire,
While the old cat growls bass with the bellows
If e’er I hitch up to the fire.
I make the whole house out of humour,
I wish nothing else but to please,
Would fortune but bring a new comer
To marry, and make me at ease!

When I've nothing my leisure to hinder
I scarce get as far as the eaves;
Her head's instant out of the window
Calling out like a press after thieves.
The young men all fall to remarking,
And laugh till they're weary to see't,
While the dogs at the noise begin barking,
And I slink in with shame from the street.

My mother's aye jealous of loving,
My father's aye jealous of play,
So what with them both there's no moving,
I'm in durance for life and a day.
O who shall I get for to marry me?
Who will have pity to woo?
Tis death any longer to tarry me,
And what shall a poor maiden do?

(from 'Address to a lark singing in winter')

Aye — little Larkie what’s the reason
Singing thus in winter season
Nothing surely can be pleasing
To make thee sing

For I see nought but cold and freezing
And feel it sting

Perhaps (all done wi' silent mourning)
Thou thinks that summer is returning
And this the last cold frosty morning
To chill thy breast

If so I pity thy discerning
And so I've guessed

(for a cold lady…)

Song (from Child Harold)

Say What Is Love—To Live In Vain
To Live & Die & Live Again
Say What Is Love—Is It To Be
In Prison Still & Still Be Free
Or Seem As Free—Alone & Prove
The Hopeless Hopes of Real Love
Does Real Love On Earth Exist
Tis Like A Sun beam On The Mist
That Fades & No Where Will Remain
& Nowhere Is Oertook Again
Say What Is Love—A Blooming Name
A Rose Leaf On The Page Of Fame
That Blooms Then Fades—To Cheat No More
& Is What Nothing Was Before
Say What Is Love—What E'er It be
It Centre's Mary Still With Thee

The Green Wood Side

I wandered down a green wood side
On Sunday noon in spring
Where little birds their dwellings hide
And Thrushes sweetly sing
The moss so green round Hazel roots
The Primrose by its side
That in its brimstone livery shoots
In bunches far and wide

Oh there I met a pretty maid
The fairest of her kind
She stood beneath the Hazels shade
Where lightly blew the wind
I gave her cheek a hearty smack
As leaning on her neck
Her soft hair trailed adown her back
Without a mark or Speck

Within the dyke the bullrush grew
Although the place was dry
And Thrushes nest wi’ Eggs o' blue
Did on the hedge ribs lye
The Woodbines in green leaves look'd wan
The Blue bell stooped i' pride
And there I claspt my bonny Ann
Along the greenwood side

Oh bonny Ann Oh bonny Ann
What makes you look so fair
Is it the love for some fond man
Or is't for none you care
My love to thee my bonny Ann
Where primrose blooms wi’ pride
I’ll talk and please thee all I can
Down by the greenwood side

(for a lady...)

A Christmas Treat

[Image: from the Shepherds Calendar ~ Carry Akroyd]

An excerpt from Ronnie Blythe's Word from Wormingford, published weekly in the Church Times...

"I HAD hardly turned my back on the late afternoon when the vast, bleached Advent moon swung up in the north-east. It whitened the puddles and lit the wet fields. The paths are darkened with sodden leaves, and rainwater dribbles from a blocked gutter.

Carry Akroyd arrives from far Northamptonshire, and we splash off to Lavenham for Sunday lunch. My boyhood lanes twist and turn through a scrubbed universe. The pub restaurants boom in and out of season.

When we walked here long ago, Lavenham was still asleep after all the toil of the Middle Ages, when the looms clattered in every cottage, the sheep were Abrahamic, and wool was gold. We visit Carry’s exhibition in the wildlife gallery, where her hares and foxes slink across canvas and paper. She is mistress of the fenland nocturn and of the geometry of sluices and cuts, of measureless skies, and this end-of-the-year moon. Our mutual passion is John Clare.

For everything I felt a love,
The weeds below, the birds above.

She can actually paint that amazing second when a thousand starlings turn left, turn right, all at once. Their only human equivalent is a thousand North Korean soldiers on parade, a breathtaking drill not without its absurdity.

Carry gone, I take part in the Advent carol service at Little Horkesley. Packed church and much expectancy. The stunning Advent antiphons, the gloriously scary Advent hymns. The first andsecond coming, the one precipit­ating the other... "

A very Happy and Blessed Christmas to all followers of this weblog... it's a labour of love for me.

The Stranger

His presence was a peace to all,
He bade the sorrowful rejoice.
Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
Health lived and issued from his voice.
He healed the sick and sent abroad
The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.

The blind met daylight in his eye,
The joys of everlasting day;
The sick found health in his reply;
The cripple threw his crutch away.
Yet he with troubles did remain
And suffered poverty and pain.

Yet none could say of wrong he did,
And scorn was ever standing bye;
Accusers by their conscience chid,
When proof was sought, made no reply.
Yet without sin he suffered more
Than ever sinners did before.

Song

I would not feign a single sigh
Nor weep a single tear for thee:
The soul within these orbs burns dry;
A desert spreads where love should be.
I would not be a worm to crawl
A writhing suppliant in thy way;
For love is life, is heaven, and all
The beams of an immortal day.

For sighs are idle things and vain,
And tears for idiots vainly fall.
I would not kiss thy face again
Nor round thy shining slippers crawl.
Love is the honey, not the bee,
Nor would I turn its sweets to gall
For all the beauty found in thee,
Thy lily neck, rose cheek, and all.

I would not feign a single tale
Thy kindness or thy love to seek;
Nor sigh for Jenny of the Vale,
Her ruby smile or rosy cheek.
I would not have a pain to own
For those dark curls and those bright eyes
A frowning lip, a heart of stone,
False love and folly I despise.

From: Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

Walks in the Woods (excerpt)

Oh, I do love to force a way
Through woods where lone the woodman goes,
Through all the matted shades to stray,
The brambles tearing at my clothes;
And it may tear; I love the noise
And hug the solitary joys.

The woodman, he from top to toe
In leathern doublet brushes on;
He cares not where his rambles go,
Thorns, briers, he beats them every one;
Their utmost spite his armour foils;
Unhurt, he dares his daily toils.

Knee-deep in fern he daily stoops
And loud his bill or hatchet chops,
As snug he trims the faggot up
Or gaps in mossy hedges stops;
While echo chops as he hath done
As if she counted every one.

You promised me, a year ago

COLIN
You promised me, a year ago,
When autumn bleach'd the mistletoe,
That you and I should be as one;
But now another autumn's gone—
Its solemn knell is in the blast,
And love's bright sun is overcast;
Yet flowers will bloom and birds will sing,
And e'en the winter claim the spring.

LUCY
The hedges will be green again,
And flowers will come on hill and plain;
And though we meet a rainy day,
The hawthorn will be white with May.
If love and nature still agree,
Green leaves will clothe the trysting-tree;
And when these pleasing days you view,
Think Lucy's heart yet be true.

After a fine winter's day

The sun lookd out the dreary scene to bless
Old winters grinning horrors forcful smild
His flinty bosom thawd wi tenderness
So fiercfull savages have melted mild
Neath the sweet looks of womans lovliness
So poesy thy witcheries so wild
Doth warm the chilly heart of wants distress
& forcful give a joy to natures child
Spite of his anguish—ah he coud express
Full many a pleasure & full many a pain
Mingling like gaul & honey sun & rain
A fine decembers day thou art to me
Tho winter still beneath thy rays remain
Her grinning frowns are melted soft by thee

from 'November'

The cleanly maiden thro the village streets
In pattens clicks down causways never drye
While eaves above head drops—where oft she meets
The school boy leering on wi mischiefs eye
Trying to splash her as he hurrys bye
While swains afield returning to their ploughs
Their passing aid wi gentle speech apply
And much loves rapture thrills when she allows
Their help wi offerd hand to lead her oer the sloughs
The hedger soakd wi the dull weather chops
On at his toils which scarcly keeps him warm
And every stroke he takes large swarms of drops
Patter about him like an april storm

The Shepherd’s Calendar

Left in the world alone

Left in the world alone
Where nothing seems my own
And everything is weariness to me

'Tis a life without an end
'Tis a world without a friend
And everything is sorrowful I see

There's the crow upon the stack
And other birds all black
While November's frowning wearily

And the black-clouds dropping rain
'Till the floods hide half the plain
And everything is weariness to me

The sun shines wan and pale
Chill blows the northern gale
And odd leaves shake and shiver on the tree

While I am left alone
Chilled as a mossy stone
And all the world is frowning over me

Song [Child Harold lines 840-863]

Clare in a bleak mood as the weather, although autumnal, seems to him hardly to mirror his realisation of his inner loss -- from Autumn 1841.

The floods come oer the meadow leas
The dykes are full & brimming
Field furrows reach the horses knees
Where wild ducks oft are swimming

The skyes are black the fields are bare
The trees their coats are loosing
The leaves are dancing in the air
The sun its warmth refusing

Brown are the flags & fadeing sedge
& tanned the meadow plains
Bright yellow is the osier hedge
Beside the brimming drains

The crows sit on the willow tree
The lake is full below
But still the dullest thing I see
Is self that wanders slow

The dullest scenes are not so dull
As thoughts I cannot tell
The brimming dykes are not so full
As my hearts silent swell

I leave my troubles to the winds
With none to share a part
The only joy my feeling finds
Hides in an aching heart

Written in November

Autumn I love thy latter end to view
In cold novembers day so bleak & bare
When like lifes dwindld thread worn nearly thro
Wi lingering pottering pace & head bleachd bare
Thou like an old man bids the world adieu
I love thee well & often when a child
Have roamd the bare brown heath a flower to find
& in the moss clad vale & wood bank wild
Have cropt the little bell flowers paley blue
That trembling peept the sheltering bush behind
When winnowing north winds cold & blealy blew
How have I joyd wi dithering hands to find
Each fading flower & still how sweet the blast
Woud bleak novembers hour Restore the joy thats past

Kitty's Song

If Kitty’s rosy presence now
Should chance to bless my sight
Again the oft repeated vow
She'd witness with delight
Again the church again the spire
Would prom’t her bosom with desire
But O sweet kitt spurn not delay
Time will bring the promis'd day.’

Thus sung the poor enamoured swain
As labouring along
Echo vibrating catch’d the strain
And brought him back the song
Again the rocks again the plains
In mellower sound repeat the strains
Till all in chorus roundelay
Join and sing the ‘promisd day.’

[The latest of Clare's songs that we have set to music]

The Secret

I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.

And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.

And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.

Song: I saw her in my Spring's young choice

I saw her in my Spring's young choice
Ere loves hopes looked upon the crowd
Ere loves first secrets found a voice
Or dared to speak the name aloud

I saw her in my boyish hours
A Girl as fair as heaven above
When all the world seemed strewn with flowers
& every pulse & look was love

I saw her when her heart was young
I saw her when my heart was true
When truth was all the themes I sung
& Love the only muse I knew

Ere infancy had left her brow
I seemed to love her from her birth
& thought her then as I do now
The dearest angel upon earth

[from Child Harold]

My Love's like a lily...

[Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925]

My love’s like a lily my loves like a rose
My love’s like a smile the spring morning’s disclose
And sweet as the rose on her cheek—her love glows
When sweetly she smileth on me
& as cold as the snow of the lily—my rose
Behaves to pretenders who ever they be
In vain higher stations their passions disclose
To win her affections from me

My love’s like the lily my love’s like the rose
My love’s like the smile the spring morning’s disclose
& fine as the lily & sweet as the rose
My loves beauty bloometh to me
& smiles of more pleasure my heart only knows
To think that pretenders who ever they be
But vainly their love & their passions disclose
My love remains constant to me

[One of Clare’s songs recent set to music and submitted for a possible forthcoming Clare CD project]

Earth's Eternity

Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay:
But hath it nothing of eternal kin?
No majesty that shall not pass away?
No soul of greatness springing up within?
Thought-marks without? hoar shadows of sublime?
Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win
Eternity, stand laughing at old Time
For ages, in the grand ancestral line
Of things eternal, mounting to divine?—
I read Magnificence where ages pay
Worship, like conquered foes to the Apennine,
Because they could not conquer. There sits Day,
Too high for Night to come at — mountains shine,
Outpeering Time, too lofty for Decay.

John Taylor, speaking of Clare

Adam Foulds’ fictional account of Clare in High Beech asylum.

“But at the height of his powers, his inspiration - it was something to behold. He lacked rhetoric. He lacked shape and used many unfamiliar words of his own dialect. But the living earth, the world he knew… if you will permit me an extravagant formulation, it sang itself through him. England sang through him, its eternal, living nature. Thousands of lines, and all of it fresh, seen, melodic, real. It was genius, absolutely. No can that power be destroyed…”

The Quickening Maze (page 175)
Jonathan Cape 2009

Child Harold (lines 864-872)

[Image : Solitude (c) Rosiehardy]

Abscence in love is worse than any fate
Summer is winter’s desert & the spring
Is like a ruined city, desolate.
Joy dies & hope retires on feeble wing;
Nature sinks heedless — birds unheeded sing.
‘Tis solitude in cities — crowds all move
Like living death — though all to life still cling —
The strongest bitterest thing that life can prove
Is woman’s undisguise of hate & love.

Child Harold (lines 732-749)

Written in the autumn of 1841.

Clare still haunted by thoughts of Mary Joyce.

Sweet solitude thou partner of my life
Thou balm of hope & every pressing care
Thou soothing silence o’er the noise of strife
These meadow flats & trees—the Autumn air
Mellows my heart to harmony—I bear
Life’s burthen happily—these fenny dells
Seem Eden in this sabbath rest from care
My heart with loves first early memory swells
To hear the music of those village bells

For in that hamlet lives my rising sun
Whose beams hath cheered me all my lorn life long
My heart to nature there was early won
For she was natures self—& still my song
Is her through sun & shade through right & wrong
On her my memory forever dwells
The flower of Eden—evergreen of song
Truth in my heart the same love story tells
—I love the music of those village bells

Enclosure (part)

Far spread the moory ground, a level scene
Bespread with rush and one eternal green,
That never felt the rage of blundering plough,
Though centuries wreathed spring blossoms on its brow.
Autumn met plains that stretched them far away
In unchecked shadows of green, brown, and grey.

Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene;
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 and tree,
Spread its faint shadow of immensity,
And lost itself, which seemed to eke its bounds,
In the blue mist the horizon's edge surrounds.

Song: "Swamps of wild rush..."

There are few places in England today that are remotely like the 'pre-enclosure' heaths that just 200 years ago would have been common. I am fortunate to live within a mile or so of one such surviving heath ~ Woodbury Commons ~ and yesterday spent a happy morning wandering through its "wild rush beds and sloughs squashy traces". Clare's poem describes almost exactly what I walked through. A stunning landscape, never cultivated, that Clare would instantly recognise as akin to his own 'Helpston' Commons.

~~ Double Click on my photo for the full effect ~~

Swamps of wild rush beds & sloughs squashy traces
Grounds of rough fallows wi thistle & weed
Flats & low vallies of king cups & daiseys
Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed

Ye commons left free in the rude rags of nature
Ye brown heaths be cloathed in furze as ye be
My wild eye in rapture adores e'ery feature
Yere as dear as this heart in my bosom to me

O native endearments I woud not forsake ye
I woud not forsake ye for sweetest of scenes
For sweetest of gardens that nature coud make me
I woud not forsake ye dear vallies & greens

Tho nature neer dropt thee a cloud resting mountain
Nor water falls tumble their music to thee
Had nature denyd thee a bush tree or fountain
Thou still woud bin lovd as an eden by me

& long my dear vallies long long may ye flourish
Tho rush beds & thistles make most of your pride
May showers never fail the greens daiseys to nourish
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side

Yer skies may be gloomy & misty yer mornings
Yer flat swampy vallies unholsome may be
Still refuse of nature wi out her adorning[s]
Yere as dear as this heart in my bosom to me

The Fall of the Year

[Maxey Mill]

Maxey Mill is still in use -- milling animal feeds. The Mill pond sluice passes under the mill. A couple of ancient mill stones are propped up against the rear wall, perhaps as a reminder of how grain was ground into flour in the past.

The Autumn's come again,
And the clouds descend in rain,
And the leaves are fast falling in the wood;
The Summer's voice is still,
Save the clacking of the mill
And the lowly-muttered thunder of the flood.

There's nothing in the mead
But the river's muddy speed,
And the willow leaves all littered by its side.
Sweet voices are all still
In the vale and on the hill,
And the Summer's blooms are withered in their pride.

Fled is the cuckoo's note
To countries far remote,
And the nightingale is vanished from the woods;
If you search the lordship round
There is not a blossom found,
And where the hay-cock scented is the flood.

My true love's fled away
Since we walked 'mid cocks of hay,
On the Sabbath in the Summer of the year;
And she's nowhere to be seen
On the meadow or the green,
But she's coming when the happy Spring is near.

When the birds begin to sing,
And the flowers begin to spring,
And the cowslips in the meadows reappear,
When the woodland oaks are seen
In their monarchy of green,
Then Mary and love's pleasures will be here.

The Shepherd's Calendar ~ October

[Image: 'October' by Carry Akroyd]

The inly pleased tho solitary boy
Journeying and muttering o’er his dreams of joy
Haunting the hedges for the wilding fruit
Of sloe or blackberry just as fancys suit
The sticking groups in many a ragged set
Brushing the woods their harmless loads to get
And gipseys camps in some snug sheltered nook
Where old lane hedges like the pasture brook
Run crooking as they will by wood and dell
In such lone spots these wild wood roamers dwell
On commons where no farmers claims appear
Nor tyrant justice rides to interfere
Such the abodes neath hedge or spreading oak
And but discovered by its curling smoke
Puffing and peeping up as wills the breeze
Between the branches of the coloured trees
Such are the pictures that October yields
To please the poet as he walks the fields

Song: O Love is but a Butterfly (Part)

[Image: Meadow Brown or Gatekeeper]

.

O Love is but a Butterfly
Fond of Green fields and the blue sky

Aye, love is fond of liberty
Green valleys and bright flowers
Sings seeking honey with the bee
For all the summer hours
A silent solitary thing
That lives within itself
You only see his azure wing
That flies from pride and pelf*

O Love is like a Butterfly
Fond of green fields and purple sky

This love's a very tender thing
That withering fades from crime
A singing bee without a sting
A flower in frost and rime
More tender then the simple maid
Who from seduction flies
More fair then flowers that love can braid
The birth of Paradise

(* pelf, OE 'riches')

The Shepherd's Calendar

September (excerpt)

Anon the fields are wearing clear
And glad sounds hum in labours ear

When children halloo ‘here they come’
And run to meet the harvest home

Stuck thick with boughs and thronged with boys
Who mingle loud a merry noise

Glad that the harvests end is nigh
And weary labour nearly bye

Where when they meet the stack thronged yard
Cross bunns or pence their shouts reward

Then comes the harvest supper night
Which rustics welcome with delight

When merry game and tiresome tale
And songs increasing with the ale

Their mingled up roar interpose
To crown the harvests happy close

While rural mirth that there abides
Laughs till she almost cracks her sides

Song: 'My love's like a lily my love's like a rose'

My love’s like a lily my loves like a rose
My love’s like a smile the spring morning’s disclose
And sweet as the rose on her cheek—her love glows
When sweetly she smileth on me

& as cold as the snow of the lily—my rose
Behaves to pretenders who ever they be
In vain higher stations their passions disclose
To win her affections from me

My love’s like the lily my love’s like the rose
My love’s like the smile the spring morning’s disclose
& fine as the lily & sweet as the rose
My loves beauty bloometh to me

& smiles of more pleasure my heart only knows
To think that pretenders who ever they be
But vainly their love & their passions disclose
My love remains constant to me

.

[A song that is part of the collection of Clare Songs & Ballads that I have chosen and for which my son has composed tunes in a 'folk' idiom ~ we hope to record 'demos' this week]

.

Turn again thou sweet beguiling

[Image: "The beguiling of Merlin" ~ Edward Burne-Jones]

Turn again thou sweet beguiling
Tho like summer suns they be
Painting shadows from thy smiling
While thy heart is false to me

Turn again & let me languish
If thy heart is falsly seen
In lovd scenes if death shoud ambush
Sure his weapons not so keen

Turn again & be't my duty
Thus to rob my soul of rest
If while feasting on thy beauty
Serpents wrankle to my breast

Turn again thou false alluring
Sweet the tale thy smilings tell
Sure in death theres small enduring
Killd by weapons lovd so well

Sun-Rising in September

With the settled and beautiful weather of the past week, and we are promised the coming week, a poem from Clare which beautifully summarises what many will feel this September.

How delightfuly pleasant when the cool chilling air
By September is thrown o’er the globe
When each morning both hedges and bushes do wear
Instead of their green—a grey robe.
To see the sun rise thro the skirts of the wood
In his mantle so lovely and red
It cheers up my spirits and does me much good
As thro the cold stubbles I tread.

Tho’ not that his beams more advances the scene
Or adds to the Landscape a charm
But all that delights me by him may be seen
That the ensuing hours will be warm.
And this with the poet as yet in the world
In a parallel sense will comply
For when he does view the gay scenes there unfurl'd
‘Tis only to light him on high.