Schoolboys in Winter

The schoolboys still their morning ramble take 
To neighboring village school with playing speed
Loitering with passtimes leisure till they quake
Oft looking up the wild geese droves to heed
Watching the letters which their journeys make
Or plucking haws on which their fieldfares feed
& hips and sloes -- and on each shallow lake 
Making glib slides were they like shadows go 
Till some fresh passtimes in their minds awake
Then off they start anew & hasty blow 
Their numbd and clumpsing fingures till they glow
Then races with their shadows wildly run 
That stride huge giants oer the shining snow 
In the pale splendour of the winter sun. 

Early Poems II 586

Come let us sit down on this baulk of mown hay...

[Image: 'Harvest Scene" - John Linnell (1792-1882)]

This poem has haunted me since I transcribed it from the Archives around 18 months ago.  Anne Lee and I published it in "In the Fields" (Arbour Editions 2015) but that edition is long sold out.  So I am glad to let readers of this weblog into my secret passion.

Come let us sit down on this baulk of mown hay

I love in such places to sweeter delay

Were wheat on one side us nods down with its ear

& beans on the other in blossom appear

Perfuming the lare of the partridge that lies

In the wood shadows basking their forest supplys

& hare - heres a beaten bath tracks his retreat

Feels timidly safer in his harbour of wheat

On this mown baulk no doubt he oft ventures to play

When a grasshoppers rustle might fright him away

How sweet and how lovely such places appear

I cannot help wishing our cottage was here

With the wild bees for neighbours the whole summer long

& the lark ever near us a piping his song

With beans in full blossom close up to our door

& cows in the distance lowing loud on the moor

With grasshoppers leaping were cattle might roam

& partridges calling at night by our home

Were we might sit at night by our window & see

The timid hare feed & at play on the lea

I lie in our chamber & list if we please

The nightingale song in yon thick spinney trees

While evening kept deeping its shadows of brown

& the shepherd boy sing from his toils to the town

How sweet we might find it & doubtless as sweet

To that boy would it be thats now tracking the wheat

For the corn poppy red as a fox hunters coat

& cockle flowers pale of a less showy sort

& blue caps as rich in their sweet summer dye

As the blue eyes of love or the deep bearing sky

No doubt if he knew what our wishes was at

While hes wreathg that garland to stick in his hat

Hed happily join us with excited delight

To have his hut here all these pleasures among

With all his hearts pastimes forever in sight

& be the field tenant the whole summer long

Pet MS A31 p158R

Song: O Edinborough Katy’s a beautiful girl

O Edinborough Katy’s a beautifull girl
Her eyes bright as sunshine her teeth white as pearl
Her waist little mair then the span of baith han's
Yet her bosom & shoulders are broader then man's
This Edinborough Katys a beautiful girl
Her eyes bright as sunshine her teeth white as pearl
As soft as a cushion a armfull to span
With a bosom & shoulders as broad as a man

O Edinborough Katy she bluims like a lily
The pride o' a' Scotland the pride o' her Willy
Is Edinbro' Katy as weel as the town
& she waulks on the mountain while the sun gangs down
O Endinbro Katy's a beautiful girl
Her eye is rich auburn her teeth white as pearl
O Edinburough Katy's as red as a rose
As down the fair streets of the city she goes

O Edinburgh Katy[s] suns twa three & twenty
The stranger he luiks on her beauty sae dainty
& scarcely believes her as yet in her teens
& she scarcely can think what the strangers luik means
For Katy cant bear to be speerd at bye ony
Her shoulders sae broad & her bosom sae bonny
This Edinburough Katy's the lily sae dear
& the flower o' the city at the Spring o' the year

LP I 232

A little 'Scottish' Clare for Burns Birthday today
(The spelling and punctuation? typical Clare)

The Flood

[Image: Kathryn Parsons]

On Lolham Brigs in wild & lonely mood

Ive seen the winter floods their gambols play
Through each old arch that trembled while I stood
Bent oer its wall to watch the dashing spray
As their old stations would be washed away
Crash came the ice against the jambs & then
A shudder jarred the arches—yet once more
It breasted raving waves & stood agen

To wait the shock as stubborn as before
—White foam brown crested with the russet soil
As washed from new ploughed lands—would dart beneath
Then round & round a thousand eddies boil
On tother side—then pause as if for breath
One minute—& ingulphed—like life in death

Whose wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift then shadows in a stormy day

Things trail & turn & steady—all in vain
The engulphing arches shoot them quickly through
The feather dances flutters & again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat
Seeming as faireys whisked it from the view
& danced it oer the waves as pleasures boat
Light hearted as a merry thought in may—
Trays—uptorn bushes—fence demolished rails

Loaded with weeds in sluggish motion stray
Like water monsters lost each winds & trails
Till near the arches—then as in affright
It plunges—reels—& shudders out of sight

Waves trough—rebound—& fury boil again

Like plunging monsters rising underneath
Who at the top curl up a shaggy main
A moment catching at a surer breath
Then plunging headlong down & down—& on
Each following boil the shadow of the last
& other monsters rise when those are gone
Crest their fringed waves—plunge onward & are past
—The chill air comes around me ocean blea
From bank to bank the water strife is spread
Strange birds like snow spots oer the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past & fled
—On roars the flood—all restless to be free
Like trouble wandering to eternity

MP IV 234

"The floods come oer the meadow leas"

Clare in a dark, dark mood as the weather, although autumnal, seems to him hardly to mirror the realisation and bleakness 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 skies 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 & fading 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 heart’s 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

Child Harold (1150 - 1173)
The Living Year 1841
Tim Chilcott (1999)

The pelting storm...

Well, I can't yet be certain, but I came across this whilst in the archives this week, and I do not think it has surfaced before.  However, I'm making no claims, I just really love the world that it instantly conjures into existence.  Clare in about 1827-ish (I think).

The boy bends into the pelting storm

With folded arms & hand held over his nose

Then turns his back to catch his breath again

& button[s] up his coat or slouch his hat

To hide his eyes or shake the gathered snow

From off his garments then with couraged warmed
He turns about & faces it again

Pet MS B3 p28

A couple more short verses on this manuscript page, which I am still trying to find in the various indices.  Watch this space!

The Shepherds Calendar

Just some of the lines from 'January' that his publisher John Taylor cut from Clare's poem.  So very much NOT the (published) 1827 text.  What did Taylor have against them?  

I have split into 'verses' of eight lines simply to aid reading on a screen!

While labour still pursues his way


& braves the tempest as he may


The t[h]resher first thro darkness deep


Awakes the mornings winter sleep


Scaring the owlet from her prey


Long before she dreams of day


That bli[n]ks above head on the snow


Watching the mice that squeaks below


& foddering boys sojourn again


By ryhme hung hedge & frozen plain


Shuffling thro the sinking snows

Blowing his fingers as he goes

To where the stock in bellowings hoarse


Call for their meals in dreary close


& print full many a hungry track


Round circling hedge that guards the stack


Wi higgling tug he cuts the hay


& bares the forkfull loads away


& morn & evening daily throws


The little heaps upon the snows


The shepherd too in great coat wrapt


& straw bands round his stockings lapt


Wi plodding dog that sheltering steals

To shun the wind behind his heels

Takes rough & smooth the winter weather

& paces thro the snow together

While in the fields the lonly plough

Enjoys its frozen sabbath now

& horses too pass time away

In leisures hungry holiday

Rubbing & lunging round the yard


Dreaming no doubt of summer sward

MP I 3

The Old Year

The Old Year's gone away

To nothingness and night
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night
He left no footstep mark or place
In either shade or sun
Tho' last year he'd a neighbours face
In this he's known by none

All nothing every where
Mists we on mornings see
They have more substance when they're here
And more of form than he
He was a friend by every fire
In every cot and hall
A guest to every hearts desire
And now he's nought at all

Old papers thrown away
Or garments cast aside
E'en the talk of yesterday
Are things identified
But time once torn away
No voices can recall
The eve of new years day
Left the old one lost to all
Jany 1st/45

Tibbles II 465

The wind blows happily on every thing...

Driving across Woodbury Common yesterday I noticed that all the gorse was in blossom, thousands of bushes looking totally wonderful in the wind and intermittent sunlight.  Put me in mind of this little known poem from Clare's Asylum years.  I know it's not Spring, but tell that to the East Devon Heathland - Clare in 1845 describing the very scene as if he was sitting beside me.

The wind blows happily on every thing

The very weeds that shake beside the fold
Bowing they dance—do any thing but sing
& all the scene is lovely to behold
Blue mists of morning evenings of gold
How beautifull the wind will play with spring
Flowers beam with every colour light beholds
Showers oer the Landscape flye on wet pearl wings
& winds stir up unnumbered pleasant things

I love the luscious green before the bloom
The leaves & grass & even beds of moss
When leaves gin bud & spring prepares to come
The Ivys evergreen the brown green gorse
Plots of green weeds that barest roads engross
In fact I love the youth of each green thing
The grass the trees the bushes & the moss
That pleases little birds & makes them sing
I love the green before the blooms of spring

LP I 205

CHRISTMASS (II)

Wi merry mirth beguiling care

Old customs keeping wi the day
Friends meet their christmass cheer to share
And pass it in a harmless way
Old customs O I love the sound
However simple they may be
What ere wi time has sanction found
Is welcome and is dear to me

Pride grows above simplicity
And spurns it from her haughty mind
And soon the poets song will be
The only refuge they can find
The shepherd now no more afraid
Since custom doth the chance bestow
Starts up to kiss the giggling maid
Beneath the branch of mizzletoe

That neath each cottage beam is seen
Wi pearl-like-berrys shining gay
The shadow still of what hath been
Which fashion yearly fades away
And singers too a merry throng
At early morn wi simple skill
Yet imitate the angels song
And chant their christmass ditty still

And mid the storm that dies and swells
By fits—in humings softly steals
The music of the village bells
Ringing round their merry peals

(December - lines 37-64)

The Shepherd's Calendar - with village stories, and other poems.  Taylor - 1827

Christmas in Helpstone

CHRISTMASS

Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winter sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The hus wife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles

Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi evergreens
 The snow is beesomd from the door
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi its thorny pricks
And yew and box wi berrys small
These deck the unusd candlesticks
And pictures hanging by the wall

Neighbours resume their anual cheer
Wishing wi smiles and spirits high
Glad christmass and a happy new year
To every morning passer bye
Milk maids their christmass journeys go
Accompanyd wi favourd swain
And childern pace the crumping snow
To taste their grannys cake again

Hung wi the ivys veining bough
The ash trees round the cottage farm
Are often stript of branches now
The cotters christmass hearth to warm
He swings and twists his hazel band
And lops them off wi sharpend hook
And oft brings ivy in his hand
To decorate his chimney nook

(December - lines 1-32)

The Shepherd's Calendar - with village stories, and other poems.  Taylor - 1827

To the memory of Keats

Clare's publisher John Taylor was also Keats’s publisher.   From the earnings of Clare first magnificent collection  "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery" (1820), Taylor, without asking Clare, provided financial assistance for Keats’s journey to Rome.  Keats left in September 1820 but died in Rome on the 23rd February 1821.

Thy worldly hopes & fears have pass'd away

No more its trifling thou shalt feel or see
Thy hopes are ripening in a brighter day
While these left buds thy monument shall be
When rancours wounds are past in nought away
Enlarging failings known to more then thee
& beautys feign diminish few display
When these are past thou child of poesey
Thou shalt survive—ah while a being dwells

In natures joys with soul to warm as thine
With eye to view her fascinating spells
& dream entranced oer each form divine
Worth wild enthusiast shall be cherish'd here
& thine with him shall linger & be dear

Pet MS A13 p11
Village Minstrel II 207

Byron...

On the 12th July 1824 Clare found himself in the throng witnessing Lord Byron's funeral procession.  Here is an excerpt from Clare writing about Lord Byron just after this date, and as part of an essay on "Popularity" which was published in 'The European Magazine' in November 1825 (his only published essay).  As has been recorded elsewhere, there are dozens of manuscript texts of the essay, which Professor Eric Robinson and I have been working upon for some years. I am hoping to publish a complete essay in due course.  We have been particularly struck by Clare's line, "He had an ambition of attaining papularity either at discount or interest" which was overlooked in the published article.

He was an Oliver Cromwell with the critics he broke up their long standing parliment & placed his own will in the speakers chair which they humbly accepted     they submitted to one that scorned to be shackeld & changed the bit in his stead they praised & respected him    nay & worshiped him    he was all in all in their mouths & their writings   but I suspect their hearts had as much love for him as the peasantry had for witches in the last century     who spoke well of them to their faces because they dare not do otherwise for fear of meeting an injury

He had an ambition of attaining popularity either at discount or interest     he was singular in his genius by sporting with subjects that time has rendered {so} sacred as to become the universal hopes of {all} human existances     to him they appeared as the common infirmities of earthly happiness – universal doubts & visions of unrealizing happiness – he won the applause of popularity less by his sterling merit as a poet then by his odditys as a man (...)  there were his infirmities – they are but as spots in the sun – his merits & his excellences out shine them & make them of less consequense then shadows – his powers are beyond my pen & I shall not venture to praise them – the sun does want the light      the light of a lamp or candle to show its glory – he is enrolled among the immortals & shines as the jewel in the crown of modern literature

Pet MS A49 p6-7

"Een winter deemed so desolate a waste"

Let's have something new.  Not sure if this is published, I found it in a manuscript last June, and cannot find it anywhere.

Een winter deemed so desolate a waste

Hath crowds of beautys to the man of taste

& oft he walks about on quiet days

Full many things to notice & to praise

Where oer the snow clad fields the little feet

Of hares are printed that betray their seat

& woods so still he een may hear the sound

Of small wrens footsteps or the heaving ground

While trees & branches make a splendid show

Of lights & shadows hung in wreaths of snow

Beside the fire large apples lay to roast

& in a hugh brown pitcher creaming ale

Was warming seasoned with a nut meg toast

The merry group of gossips to regale

With in the chimney top the threating gale            

Howld angrily & loud but coud not scare                          

The crickets raptures from its merry tale                         

Around her feet the glad cat curld her tail

Listing the crickets song with half shut eyes           

While in the chimney top loud roars the gale

Pet MS A42 p105

The Fortune Teller

I had scarcely sat down to examine the beautiful flower before I discovered a smoke rising from the wood which I found to proceed from a camp of gispies & I had scarcely discovred the smoke before a fine dark gipsey girl stood before me with her fine black hair parted over her forhead wrapt in a red silk hankerchief & a red cloak negligently fastened with a hook & eye just below the swelling of a bosom that might win a wish from a prince to make a pillow of under the green wood tree & with as little ceremony as if she had known me a lifetime

Pet MS A46 p56-7

THE DAISY BUTTON TIPP'D WI' DEW

The daisy button tipped wi' dew Green like the grass was sleeping
On every thing 'neath heaven blue In moonlight dew was weeping
In dark wood sung the Nightingale The moon shone round above me
My arms were clasped round Mary Gale My dearest do you love me
Her head a woodbine wet wi' dew Held in the moonlight sleeping
And two in one together grew Wi' daisy buds a weeping
O' Mary Gale sweet Mary Gale How round and bright above thee
The moon looks down on grassy vale My dearest can you love me
How sweet the moonlight sleeps and still Firdale and hedge row brere
The mole wharps mound and distant hill Is moonlight every where
The totter grasses pendalums Are still as night above me
The bees are gone and nothing hums My dearest do you love me
The moonlight sleeps o'er wood and wall Sweet Mary While you'r nigh me
Can any charm O' courtship fail And any joy pass by me
The gossamer all wet wi' dew Hung on the brere above me
She leaned her cheek and said ‘I do’ And ever mean to love thee    

LP II 775

The Invitation

Come hither, my dear one, my choice one, and rare one,
And let us be walking the meadows so fair,
Where on pilewort and daisies the eye fondly gazes,
And the wind plays so sweet in thy bonny brown hair.

Come with thy maiden eye, lay silks and satins by;
Come in thy russet or grey cotton gown;
Come to the meads, dear, where flags, sedge, and reeds appear,
Rustling to soft winds and bowing low down.

Come with thy parted hair, bright eyes, and forehead bare;
Come to the whitethorn that grows in the lane;
To banks of primroses, where sweetness reposes,
Come, love, and let us be happy again.

Come where the violet flowers, come where the morning showers
Pearl on the primrose and speedwell so blue;
Come to that clearest brook that ever runs round the nook
Where you and I pledged our first love so true.

Tibbles II 480