(from 'The Village Funeral')

Clare, as always, has a sonnet for the current news :

Who is but grievd to see the fatherless
Stroll with their rags unnotisc'd thro the street
What eye but moistens at their sad distress
& sheds compassions tear where ere they meet
Yon Workhouse stands as their asylum now
The place where poverty demands to live
Where parish bounty scouls his scornful brow
& grudges the scant fare he's forc'd to give —
O may I dye before I'm doom'd to seek
That last resource of hope but ill suply'd
To claim the humble pittance once a week
Which justice forces from disdainful pride
Where the lost orphan lowly bending weeps
Unnotisc'd by the heedless as they pass

Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

Native Scenes

O native scenes for ever ever dear

So blest so happy where I long have been
So charmd with nature in each varied scene
To leave ye all is cutting & severe
Ye hanging bushes that from winds woud screen
Where oft Ive shelterd from an Aprils shower
In youths past bliss in Childhoods happy hour
Ye Woods Ive wanderd searching out the nest
Ye Meadows gay that reard me many a flower

Culling my cow slips Ive been doubly blest
Huming gay fancies As I bound the prize
O Fate unkind beloved scenes adieu
Your vanishd pleasures crowd my swimming eyes
& makes this wounded heart to bleed anew

Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

A piece of Clare prose for the election

The wigs and tories may be better classified
perhaps by the terms of outs & ins for
be they wigs or tories in those situations the
outs are always convocations of “liberty”
“cruelty of taxation” & “good of the people”
while the ins are inflexible tyrants
& determined supporters of all that is
oppressing & annoying to the people &
benefitting to themselves & their connections

Pet MS A42 p.94
(Unpublished)

Wreck of the Emelie

As the saying goes... now for something completely different -- for Clare anyway!

The land it is a dangerous strand

So is the briny Sea
When man has lost his self command
How wretched he must be
Our Ship it was the ‘Emmelie’
To Cardiff she was bound
But foundered in a dangerous sea
With dangers all around

The sky was all a ink black rock
The wild fire seaming through
The Emelie recieved the shock
All in that boisterous Sea
Like seething pots the billows boiled
& frothed that briny Sea
The sailors on the masts were coiled
When wrecked the Emelie

The night came on in black & brown
& where that chauldron boiled red hot
The foundering Emelie went down
As sudden as a shot
Some clung to spars to hencoops some
Twas but a minutes space
Loud oer them boiling billows boom
& left no resting place

Above them gloomed the angry sky
& through the pitch black rock
Of clouds the splintered lightnings flye
None could resist the shock
Down & in a moment gone
Nine men plunged in the wave
& all the seamen lost but one
There met a watery grave

One still survived that fatal wreck
By billows washed ashore
Though all had hopes that stood on deck
That now can feel no more
He through the boiling waves did beat
All in that boiling sea
& on the beach upon his feet
Viewed the shipwrecked Emelie

The Later Poems of John Clare

ed. Eric Robinson and Geoffrey Summerfield

 (Manchester University Press, 1964)

The Courtship (excerpt)

Where are you going lovely maid

The morning fine & early

“I’m going to Walkerd”, Sir she said

& made across the barley

I asked her name she blushed away

The question seemed to burn her

A neighbour came & passed the day

& called her Patty Turner

I wrote my better poems there

To beautys praise I owe it

The muses they get all the praise

But woman makes the poet

A womans is the dearest love

Theres nought on earth sincerer

The leisure upon beautys breast

Can any thing be dearer

I saw her love in beauty’s face

I saw her in the rose

I saw her in the fairest flowers

In every weed that grows

Poems of John Clare's Madness

ed. Geoffrey Grigson (RKP, 1949)

Helpstone (excerpt)

Each morning wak'd with hopes before unknown

& eve possesing made each wish their own
The day gone bye left no pursuit undone
Nor one vain wish save that they went too soon
Each sport each pastime ready at their call
As soon as wanted they posses'd em all
These joys all known in happy infancy
& all I ever knew where spent on thee

& who but loves to view where these where past

& who that views but loves em to the last

Feels his heart warm to view his native place

A fondness still those past delights to trace

The vanish'd green to mourn the spot to see

Where flourish'd many a bush & many a tree

Where once the brook (for now the brook is gone)

Oer pebbles dimpling sweet went wimpering on

Oft on whose oaken plank I've wondering stood

(That led a pathway o'er its gentle flood)

To see the beetles their wild mazes run

With getty jackets glittering in the sun

So apt & ready at their reels they seem

So true the dance is figur'd on the stream

Such justness such correctness they impart

They seem as ready as if taught by art

(lines 61 to 84)

 Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

I am - Video

Clare's 'I am' -- worth a look I reckon : >>>>> Click Here <<<<<

STANZAS : To Adelaide

Adelaide beautiful Adelaide see
The spring is returning to beauty and thee
The snowdrops are breaking the soil and appear
As white as thy neck at the spring of the year

Adelaide beautiful Adelaide here

The primroses come and tis spring of the year
The primroses come and the birds mate in pairs
O when will my life be as happy as theirs

O when shall I woo thee and sit in the shade
‘Mong violets and primroses my sweet Adelaide
When in those bright eyes will those baby's appear
That I saw when I kissed thee last spring of the year

O Adelaide beautiful Adelaide hear
The snowdrops have brought thee the spring of the year
The aconites open like rays of the sun

And tell thee the pleasures of spring is begun

Then Adelaide beautiful Adelaide hear
Let us take lovers walks at the spring of the year

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

 (Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1984)

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)