The Mothers Lullaby

Tune: BBC Recording 1951 published in Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, 1975

Hush lullaby my baby nor mix thy tears with mine

I grieve to think my parents would be no friends of thine

I grieve to think thy father - O grief my words oppose

To think thy little innosence should find so many foes

Hush lullaby my baby upon thy mothers arm

My prayers shall still the storm to rest to leave my baby warm

While to thy fathers Hall we go who fast asleep doth lye

Did he know his door was lockd on thee it might unclose his eye

Hush lullaby my baby he yet thy friend may be
& bye & bye I hope to find a friend again in thee
So hush my little baby the day comes bye & bye
The storm is gone the moon is up so hush & lullaby

Hush lullaby my baby I wake thee when I sigh

To think my parents turned us out nor bade thee a goodbye

Nor sighed to see thy breath nigh gone to meet the storm so high

But god has heard & the wind is gone so hush & lullaby

Poems of the Middle Period

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and P.M.S. Dawson

Volumes I-II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)

Volumes III-IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)

John Clare and the Folk Tradition
George Deacon, 1983

Another Manuscript

A photo I took in the archive in November 2012... and this of another unpublished Clare manuscript.  It is an honour to be able to go and study these texts -- and seek to decipher Clare's handwriting!

The book I love is everywhere,
And every place the same;
God bade me make my dwelling there,
And look for better fame.
I never feared the critic's pen,
To live by my renown;
I found the poems in the fields,
And only wrote them down.

(from "Sighing for Retirement)
(lines 9 to 16)

Unpublished John Clare poem will sell for thousands

The handwriting looks authentic.  I wonder just how many 'unpublished' Clare poems are lying in wait for discovery?  BUT... there are lots unpublished in the Peterborough Library archive.

Click here to read

Ballad : Where is the heart thou once hast won

(Image : The blackened lintel of the Joyce Farmouse where Mary Joyce burned to death in 1838)

Here is Clare writing some years before in prescient mood:

Where is the heart thou once hast won

Can cease to care about thee

Where is the eye thou'st smiled upon

Can look for joy without thee

Lorn is the lot one heart hath met

That’s lost to thy caressing

Cold is the hope that loves thee yet

Now thou art past possessing

Fare thee well

We met we loved we’ve met the last

The farewell word is spoken

O Mary canst thou feel the past

& keep thy heart unbroken

To think how warm we loved & how

Those hopes should blossom never

To think how we are parted now

& parted, oh! for ever

Fare thee well

Thou wert the first my heart to win

Thou art the last to wear it

& though another claims akin

Thou must be one to share it

Oh, had we known when hopes were sweet

That hopes would once be thwarted

That we should part no more to meet

How sadly we had parted

Fare thee well

The Rural Muse (1835)

Second edition, ed. R. K. R. Thornton (Ashington and Manchester, 1982)

(Memorably sung by Carry Akroyd in Glinton Church as part of the 2009 John Clare Festival)

Some Clare news...

Some Clare news from the local paper :

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/community/community-news/new-bench-installed-at-poet-s-former-home-1-4675262

Song (from Child Harold)

When Clare wrote this poem - in 1841 - Mary Joyce had been dead for 3 years.  She, of course, was never his wife.

Did I know where to meet thee

Thou dearest in life

How soon would I greet thee

My true love & wife

How soon would I meet thee

At close of the day

Though cares would still cheat me

If Mary would meet me

I'd kiss her sweet beauty & love them away

And when evening discovers

The sun in the West

I long like true lovers

To lean on thy breast

To meet thee my dearest —

Thy eyes beaming blue

Absence pains the severest

Feel Mary's the dearest

And if Mary's absence — how can I be true

How dull the glooms cover

This meadow & fen

Where I as a lover

Seek Mary again

But silence is teasing

Wherever I stray

There's nothing seems pleasing

Or aching thoughts easing

Though Mary lives near me — she seems far away

O would these gales murmur

My love in her ear

Or a bird’s note inform her

While I linger here

But nature contrary

Turns night into day

No bird — gale — or fairy

Can whisper to Mary

To tell her who seeks her—while Mary's away

(Lines 567 - 602)

The Oxford Authors: John Clare

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell (Oxford, 1984)

Flowers

Ere yet the year is one month old,

In spite of frost and wind and snow,
Bare-bosomed to the quaking cold,
Spring's little selfsown flowers will blow;
And ever kin to early hours
Peep aconites in cups of gold,
With frilled leaves muffled round their flowers
Like tender maidens shunning cold.

And then as winter's parting pledge,
Like true love in his crabbed reign,
The violets 'neath the naked hedge
Peep thro' the rustling leaves again,
Soon as from off the thicket's moss
The sunshine clears the doubting snow,
And the o'erjoyed and neighing horse
Can find a patch of green to blow.

Like jewels brought by early hours,
These little littered blossoms come;
Like wanderers from fairy bowers,
They smile and gladly find a home;
And on the threshold of the spring,
Like timid children out of doors,
They lie and wait the birds to sing,
And laugh upon the splashy moors.

In April's smiling-frowning weather,
Like younkers to a holiday,
The young flowers bud in troops together
To wait the feast of merry May;
In sunny nooks and shelter nurst,
Buds all their early blooms display,
Where sunbeams show their faces first
And make when there the longest stay.

James Reeves

Selected Poems of John Clare

(London: Heinemann, 1954)

from "Holywell"

Nature, thou accept the song,

To thee the simple lines belong,
Inspir'd as brushing hill and dell
I stroll'd the way to Holywell.
Though 'neath young April's watery sky,
The sun gleam'd warm, and roads were dry;
And though the valleys, bush, and tree
Still naked stood, yet on the lea
A flush of green, and fresh'ning glow,
In melting patches 'gan to show
That swelling buds would soon again
In summer's livery bless the plain.
The thrushes too 'gan clear their throats,
And got by heart some two'r three notes
Of their intended summer-song,
To cheer me as I stroll'd along.
The wild heath triumph'd in its scenes
Of goss and ling's perpetual greens;
And just to say that spring was come,
The violet left its woodland home,
And, hermit-like, from storms and wind
Sought the best shelter it could find,
'Neath long grass banks, with feeble powers
Peeping faintly purple flowers:
While oft unhous'd from beds of ling

The fluskering pheasant took to wing,
And bobbing rabbits, wild and shy,
Their white tails glancing on the eye,
Just prick'd their long ears list'ning round,
And sought their coverts underground.

(lines 1 – 30)

Poems of the Middle Period,

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and P.M.S. Dawson,

Volumes I-II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996);

Volumes III-IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)

from "A Sunday with Shepherds and Herdboys"

The shepherds and the herding swains

Keep their sabbaths on the plains;
For them the church bells vainly call;
Fields are their church and house and all;
They'll lie and catch the passing sound
That comes from steeples shining round,

Enjoying in the service time
The happy bells' delightful chime,
And, if they sit on rising ground,
To view the landscape spreading round,
Swimming from the following eye
In greens and stems of every dye
O'er wood and vale and fen's smooth lap
Like a richly coloured map;
Square plots of clover red and white
Scented with summer's warm delight,
And cinquefoil of a fresher stain,
And different greens of warmèd grain;
Wheat spindles bursting into ear
And browning gently; grasses sere
In swathy seed-pods dried by heat,
Rustling when brushed by passing feet;
And beans and peas of deadening green,
And cornland's ribbon strips between,
And stretching villages that lie
Like light spots in a deeper sky.
And from the fields they'll often steal
The green peas for a Sunday meal,
And in snug nooks, their huts beside,
The gipsy blazes they provide,
Shaking the rotten from the trees,
While some sit round to shell the peas,
Or pick from hedges pilfered wood
To boil on props their stolen food;
Sitting on stones or heaps of brakes,
Each of the wild repast partakes,
Telling to pass the hours along
Tales that to fitter days belong,
While one within his scrip contains
A shattered Bible's thumbed remains,
O'er whose blank leaf with pious care
A host of names is scribbled there.

(lines 1 - 42)

The Poems of John Clare,

ed. J. W. Tibble (2 volumes, Dent, 1935)

Listened to a programme -- "Costing the Earth" on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday where they opined that it was not possible to know much about what 'weeds' grew in England much before the 1900s.  The programme makers had obviously never heard of John Clare -- a wealth of such information and all 'just in passing'.  As well as all sorts of other minute details of ordinary life from an agricultural labourer who was there.  This post is dedicated to them (!)

Opening of the Morning

A Sketch

Tis the time just as morning is breaking
& the Colour arching blue skye
Just as the black clouds of the night are forsaking
Brightning up like as Marys blue eye

Where the red morns streaks was sweetly emerging
In the easts enlarging light
Just like the red corral beads of the Virgin
When hung on her neck so white

When the fresh springs of delight is beaming
& larks waken the labourers toils
When the first smile of the summer is gleaming
As sweet as when Mary smiles

Sweet when the dappeled sky is shrouded
In its milky water hue
Like as Mary her bosom's Clouded
Skin so white & veins so blue

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

(Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1989)

[Image : Mike Hobson]

The Wealthy Dolt

The wealthy dolt for wit and sense

Though college’d and begrammared

Just as a nail that never stirs

No further than it’s hammered

And when he’s made complete to act

Of wisdom’s [face] a farce on

In making nothing else the fact

Is that he’ll make a parson

Pet MS A42 p104

Unpublished fragment

[For Julian and the 'Clare' students from City College, Plymouth]

Lassie I love thee

Lassie I love thee

The heavens above thee
Look downwards to move thee
And prove my love true

My arms round thy waist love
My head on thy breast love
By a true man caressed love
Ne'er bid me adieu

Thy cheeks full o' blushes
Like the rose in the bushes
In a love stream it gushes
With over delight

Though clouds may come o'er thee
Sweet maid I'll adore thee
As I do now before thee
I’ll Love thee tonight

It stings me to madness
To see thee all gladness
While I'm full o sadness
Thy meaning to guess

Thy gown is deep blue love
In honour of true love
Ever thinking of you love
My love I'll confess

My love ever shewing
Thy hearts worth the knowing
It is like the sun glowing
And hid in thy breast

Thy lover behold me
To my bosom I'll fold thee
For thou love thou'st just told me
So here thou may rest

J.L. Cherry, Life and Remains of John Clare

(London and Northampton: Frederick Warne and J. Taylor and Son, 1873)

Incidentally, Cherry's book is readily available free as an e-book.

Winter

The morning wakens with the lumping frails

Chilly & cold — the early rising clown
Hurkles along & blows his finger nails
Iceicles from the cottage eves hang down
Which passing childern wish for in their play
— The fields once clad in autumns russet brown
Spreads like the eye its circle far away
In one hugh sheet of snow — from the white wood
The crows all silent seek the dreary fens
& starnels blacken through the air in crowds
The sheep stand bleating in their turnip pens
& loath their frozen food—while labouring men
Button their coats more close from angry clouds
& wish for night & its snug fire agen

The Poems of John Clare

ed. J. W. Tibble (2 volumes, Dent, 1935)

[Image: Carry Akroyd]

from "Child Harold"

Fame blazed upon me like a comets glare
Fame waned & left me like a fallen star
Because I told the evil what they are
& truth & falshood never wished to mar
My Life hath been a wreck — & I've gone far
For peace & truth — & hope — for home & rest
— Like Edens gates — fate throws a constant bar —
Thoughts may o'ertake the sunset in the west
— Man meets no home within a womans breast

Though they are blazoned in the poets song
As all the comforts which our lifes contain
I read & sought such joys my whole life long
& found the best of poets sung in vain
But still I read & sighed & sued again
& lost no purpose where I had the will
I almost worshiped when my toils grew vain
Finding no antidote my pains to kill
I sigh a poet & a lover still

(lines 426 - 443)

Tim Chilcott (ed),

John Clare, The Living Year, 1841

(Nottingham: Trent Editions, 1999)

[Image: Mike Hobson]

Tis martinmass from rig to rig

Tis martinmass from rig to rig

Ploughed fields & meadow lands are blea
In hedge & field each restless twig
Is dancing on the naked tree
Flags in the dykes are bleached & brown
Docks by its sides are dry & dead
All but the ivy bows are brown
Upon each leaning dotterels head
Crimsoned with awes the awthorns bend
Oer meadow dykes & rising floods
The wild geese seek the reedy fen
& dark the storm comes oer the woods
The crowds of lapwings load the air
With buzes of a thousand wings
There flocks of starnels too repair
When morning oer the valley springs

The Poems of John Clare,

ed. J. W. Tibble (2 volumes, Dent, 1935)

[Image: Starling flock over Dartmoor, January 2013]

The Maid I Love

The maid I love is fair as driven snow

Her raven curls around her white neck flow
Like light from the darkness comes above
Is the beautiful girl that I love

The maid I love is like the wild hedge rose
That by woodside in the hedge row blows
Her lily hand is hidden in a glove
Soft are the features of the maid I love

An heart hidden thought it seems to me
A womans worth is there in a maids simplicity
Hope glances on her eyelids from above
Oh sweet is the presence of the maid I love

As roses in the green bud lie concealed

In the summers sunny breath are revealed
So in hidden thought that fair one I approve
Who will waken up my heart to her love

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

(Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1984)

O thou mysterious past...

O thou mysterious past from time set free

What hopes joys fears lye buried under thee

The very winds that passed where thou didst dwell

& clouds slow sailing oer that happy dell

Where charged with idle messages of sighs

& anxious wishes of my gazing eyes

When ere thou wandered out at evenings hour

My heart was jealous of each happy flower

I thought they crowded in thy pleasant ways

To woo thy beauty & to win thy praise

I thought the folding star with eager climb

Gained evenings twilight arch before her time

& moons more soon than they were wont to be

Shone out on purpose to be found by thee

Pet MS A42 p103
Unpublished Sonnet

[Image: Mike Hobson]

To a Winter Scene

Hail scenes of Desolation & despair

Keen Winters over bearing sport & scorn
Torn by his Rage in ruins as you are
To me more pleasing then a summers morn
Your shatter'd scenes appear—despoild & bare
Stript of your clothing naked & forlorn
—Yes Winters havoc wretched as you shine
Dismal to others as your fate may seem
Your fate is pleasing to this heart of mine
Your wildest horrors I the most esteem.—
The ice-bound floods that still with rigour freeze
The snow clothd valley & the naked tree
These sympathising scenes my heart can please
Distress is theirs—& they resemble me

Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

Address to a lark singing in Winter

Aye—little Larkie whats the reason

Singing thus in winter season
Nothing surely can be pleasing
To make the[e] 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 guest

Poor little songster vainly cheated
Stay leave thy singing uncompleated
Drop were thou was beforehand seated
In thy warm nest
Nor let vain wishes be repeated
But sit at rest

(Lines 1 - 18)
Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

Beautifull poetry I bow to thee

Beautifull poetry I bow to thee

Here in the midst of winter & of dearth
I trace the sunny climes of Italy
& all the georgeous Edens upon earth
Far from the land that chilled my early birth
To Stambouls plains & rich perenial hours
Rich Turkey's climes & all the wealth of earth
O poesy thy unexausted powers
Gives me these summers of eternal flowers
Sweet Italy & Turkey full as sweet
When shall I meet agen in heavens own eye
Those angels & those houris that would greet
My wanderings in romes hills & Stambouls sky
Where Eden in mans reach would bloom & lie
With woman's smiles about him on loves wing
Fluttered around me in the sweetest sky
Joy realized the love my memories sing
Beautys fond smile & loves eternal spring

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

(Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1984)

January (from The Shepherd's Calendar)

A WINTERS DAY

Withering and keen the winter comes
While confort flyes to close shut rooms
And sees the snow in feathers pass
Winnowing by the window glass
And unfelt tempests howl and beat
Above his head in corner seat
And musing oer the changing scene
Farmers behind the tavern screne
Sit—or wi elbow idly prest
On hob reclines the corners guest

Reading the news to mark again
The bankrupt lists or price of grain
Or old moores anual prophecys
That many a theme for talk supplys
Whose almanacks thumbd pages swarm
Wi frost and snow and many a storm
And wisdom gossipd from the stars
Of politics and bloody wars
He shakes his head and still proceeds
Ne'er doubting once of what he reads
All wonders are wi faith supplyd
Bible at once and weather guide

(lines 1-22)

The Shepherd's Calendar; with Village Stories, and other Poems

Taylor (1827)

from "Child Harold"

Tis winter & the fields are bare & waste
The air one mass of ‘vapour clouds & storms’
The suns broad beams are buried & oercast
& chilly glooms the midday light deforms
Yet comfort now the social bosom warms
Friendship of nature which I hourly prove
Even in this winter scene of frost & storms
Bare fields the frozen lake & leafless grove
Are natures grand religion & true love

(lines 901-909)

John Clare, The Living Year, 1841 

Tim Chilcott (ed)

(Nottingham: Trent Editions, 1999)

Remember Thee Love? Yes!

Remember thee love? Yes! How can I forget thee

Since the very first hour that my happiness met thee

Remember thee love what the sword cannot sever
Is mine and mine only for ever and ever
Remember thee love? Yes! I will love remember
From April to May and from June to December
The past and the present and hereafter to come
I'll remember them all for thy heart is my home
I'll think of thee love i' thy happiest smile
Till the sunbeams o' day leave the Night to our Isle
Till the end o' the world thou my darling shall prove
And the finish o' times the begining o' Love

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

(Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1984)

from "The Parish"

Here shines the man of morals Farmer Finch

Smooth tongued & fine an angel every inch
In outward guise & never known as yet
To run in Taverns Brothels or in debt
In public life all punctual honest true
& flattery gives his graces double due
For pitys gifts are never public made
But there his name & guinea is displayed

In double views to answer prides desire
To purchase praise & to be dubbed Esquire

A sunday never comes or foul or fair
That misses him at church throughout the year
The priest himself boasts as the mans reward
That he near preached a sermon but he heard
Such is the man in public all agree
That saints themselves no better men could be

But now of private life lets take the view
—In that same church & in that very pew
Where he each sabbath sings & reads & prays
He joins the vestry upon common days
Cheating the poor with leveys doubly laid
On their small means that wealth may be defrayed
To save his own & others his compeers
He wrongs the poor whom he has wrongd for years

Making the house of prayer the house of sin
& placing Satan as high priest within

Such is this good church going morral man
This man of morrals on deseptions plan
So knaves by cant steer free from sins complaints
& flatterys cunning coins them into saints
Tho justice Terror who the peace preserves
Meets more of slander then his deeds deserves

A blunt opinionated odd rude man
Severe & selfish in his every plan
Or right or wrong his overreasoning heart
Believes & often overacts his part
Tho pleading want oft meets with harsh replies
& truths too often listend too as lies
Altho he reigns with much caprice & whim
The poor can name worse governers then him

His gifts at Christmass time are yearly given
No doubt as toll fees on the road to heaven
Tho charity or looses byt or wins
Tis said to hide a multitude of sins
& wether wealth-bought-hopes shall fail or speed
The poor are blest & goodness marks the deed
Tho rather leaning to the stronger side
He preaches often on the sins of pride

(lines 1370 to 1417)

The Poems of John Clare

ed. J. W. Tibble (2 volumes, Dent, 1935)

Christmas (last)

Around the glowing hearth at night,
The harmless laugh and winter tale
Go round, while parting friends delight
To toast each other o'er their ale;
The cotter oft with quiet zeal
Will musing o'er his Bible lean;
While in the dark the lovers steal
To kiss and toy behind the screen.
Old customs! Oh! I love the sound,
However simple they may be:
Whate'er with time hath sanction found,
Is welcome and is dear to me.
Pride grows above simplicity,
And spurns them from her haughty mind,
And soon the poet's song will be
The only refuge they can find.

(lines 113-128)

‘December’

The Shepherd's Calendar (1827)

Christmas (VII)

The wooden horse with arching head,
Drawn upon wheels around the room,
The gilded coach of gingerbread,
And many-colour'd sugar-plum,
Gilt-cover'd books for pictures sought,
Or stories childhood loves to tell,
With many an urgent promise bought,
To get to-morrow's lesson well;
And many a thing, a minute's sport,
Left broken on the sanded floor,
When we would leave our play, and court
Our parents' promises for more.
Tho' manhood bids such raptures die,
And throws such toys aside as vain,
Yet memory loves to turn her eye,
And count past pleasures o'er again.

(lines 97 – 112)

‘December’The Shepherd's Calendar (1827)

Christmas (VI)

As tho' the homestead trees were drest,
In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves,
As tho' the sun-dried martin's nest,
Instead of ickles, hung the eaves,
The children hail the happy day—
As if the snow were April's grass,
And pleas'd, as 'neath the warmth of May,
Sport o'er the water froze to glass.
Thou day of happy sound and mirth,
That long with childish memory stays,
How blest around the cottage hearth
I met thee in my younger days!
Harping, with rapture's dreaming joys,
On presents which thy coming found,
The welcome sight of little toys,
The Christmas gift of cousins round.

(lines 81-96)

'December'

The Shepherd's Calendar (1827)

Christmas (V)

While snows the window-panes bedim,

The fire curls up a sunny charm,
Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim,
The flowering ale is set to warm;
Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,
Sits there, its pleasures to impart,
And children, 'tween their parents' knees,
Sing scraps of carols o'er by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,
Climb up the window-seat with glee,
Likening the snow to falling feathers,
In fancy's infant ecstasy;
Laughing, with superstitious love,
O'er visions wild that youth supplies,
Of people pulling geese above,
And keeping Christmas in the skies.

(lines 65 - 80)

'December'

The Shepherd's Calendar (1827)

Christmas (IV)

And oft for pence and spicy ale,

With winter nosegays pinn'd before,
The wassail-singer tells her tale,
And drawls her Christmas carols o'er.
While prentice boy, with ruddy face,
And rime-bepowder'd, dancing locks,
From door to door with happy pace,
Runs round to claim his ‘Christmas box.’
The block upon the fire is put,
To sanction custom's old desires;
And many a faggot's bands are cut,
For the old farmers' Christmas fires;
Where loud-tongued Gladness joins the throng,
And Winter meets the warmth of May,
Till feeling soon the heat too strong,
He rubs his shins, and draws away.

(lines 49 - 64)

'December'

The Shepherd's Calendar (1827)