"How could I how should I..."

Yesterday morning in the Clare archive I was examining Pet MS D20, which is simply a (blue) cover of a quarto exercise book that belonged to Clare son.  It's dated 1841.  I copied one of the poems scribbled thereon (it did not seem familiar), but when I checked I found a slightly different version is part of Child Harold from, of course, 1841.  Below is my copied version from yesterday.

How could I how should I — that loved her so early
Forget when I've sung of her beauty in song
How could I forget what I've worshiped so dearly
From boyhood to manhood and all my life long
As leaves to the branches in summer comes daily
& blossoms will bloom on the stalk & the tree
To her beauty I'll cling & i'll love her as truly
& think of sweet Mary wherever I be

Child Harold

(lines 485-492)

The Clown

With hands in pocket hid and buttoned up,

The clown goes jogging merrily along;
The wind blows in his face and makes him stoop,
And rain beats hard and stops his merry song;
His shaggy coat is buttoned with a loop,
With whip held up for stroke robust and strong,
And hat half stuffed with straw to keep it up;
He gruffly hollos ‘whop’ and lobs along;
He never turns, but with a careless switch
Whoos up his team that answers with a jerk;
When friends are met he gives his coat a hitch
And cocks his beaver up and talks of work;
To lose no time he trails his whip along
And bends it 'neath his arm to tie the thong.

Northborough Sonnets

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

(Ashington/Manchester: Mid-NAG/Carcanet, 1995)

Drinking Song

Come along my good fellow

Let's sit and get mellow

For sorrow we haven’t got leisure

We've money and time

And that's just the prime

To enjoy it in comfort & pleasure

Call for ale or else wine

On roast beef we dine

And joy we shall have without measure

The parson may preach

Against ale, and beseech

His church folks to head no such liquor

But in neat sanded rooms

With young girls in their blooms

Pray who'd ever think of the vicar?

Then leave that dull dunce

Let's have sandwich for lunch

And pull at the tankard or pitcher

Let the dull parson think

Was he here but to drink

He would say beer was made for to please us

When man is a dry

A good sermon's my eye

The vicar?  His task is to tease us

Tankards foam o'er the rim

Where the fly loves to swim

And that is the lecture to please us

So come my old fellow

Let's go and get mellow

For care brings no hour of leisure

We've money and time

And just now in prime

To sit down enjoying our pleasure

'Tis summer's prime hours

And the room smells of flowers

Now boys, is the season for leisure

John Clare, Selected Poems,

ed. J.W. and Anne Tibble (Everyman, 1965)

Woman

[Image by Anne Lee]

O woman sweet witchingly woman
Amid the worlds bustle & strife
Thourt the only sweet blossom thats blooming
Perfuming the garden of life
Thourt the only pure fountain thats given
From whence all true pleasures doth flow
The angels are unknowns of heaven
But womans real angels below
Our lives woud be lives of vexation

Our days woud be days of despair
Wi out the sweet jems of creation
Soft women to sweeten our care
& powers that formd beauty protect us
If weaknesses cant be conseald
Shoud we view heavens joys as conjectures
& women as heaven reveald
& far be a souls savage natures

That cannot wi tenderness burn
That turns from a look of such creatures
As one from a statue woud turn

When beauty its charms are unsealing
From glances of eyes dewey blue
Devoid must they be of all feeling
That thrills wi no raptures to view
O women sweet witchin[g]ly women

Amid the worlds bustle & strife

Yere the only sweet blossom thats blooming
Perfuming the garden of life
Yere the only pure fountain that[s] given
From whence real happiness flow
While angels are unknowns of heaven
Sweet womens provd angels below

[Note in the MSS: —Tune ‘Away Wi This Pouting’]

Woman, Sweet Witchingly Woman

(Market Drayton: Tern Press, 1993)

This is my 1,000 posting to this blog since July 2004.

Tis autumn now & harvests reign (excerpt)

[Image : 'A Cornfield' by Peter De Wint]

Tis autumn now & harvests reign

Brown swelling hills & hollow vales
The sudden shower sweeps oer the plain
& health breaths in the shivering gales
The coveys rise—the sportsman joys
& in the stubbles bleeding fall
The hunters face glows in the chase
He loves to hear the bugle call
That loud through wood & dingle rings
As oer the fence the courser springs
The songs of home in every field
From merry harvesters is heard
The hare as yet from harm will shield
Where barley waves its tawney beard

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864,

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

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

Two early sonnets

A pair of sonnets, written at about the same time, the first published in ‘Poems Descriptive...’ the second unpublished in any popular edition?  Puzzling...

A SCENE

The landscapes stretching view that opens wide
With dribbling brooks & rivers wider floods
& hills & vales & darksome lowering woods
With grains of varied hues & grasses pied
The low brown cottage in the shelter'd nook
The steeple peeping just above the trees
Whose dangling leaves keep rustling in the breeze—

& thoughtful shepherd bending oer his hook
& maidens stript haymaking too apear
& hodge a wistling at his fallow plough
& herdsman hallooing to intruding cow
All these with hundreds more far off & near
Approach my sight—& please to such excess
That Language fails the pleasure to express

Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)

WRITTEN IN APRIL AT WALK LODGE

Long sweeping bends of croppings brightning green
That wind along the vallies sheltering crown
Large swelling hills that nauntle up the scene
Which winters pencil tips wi bleachy brown

Here steeple points & there a misty town
As stretching thro each opening to be seen
& woods enlivning from their gloomy hue
To sprout in freshness—while the heath hills lean
In triumph on the eye their blooming goss
Wild natures brightest ornaments as now
Speckt oer wi sheep & beast & nibbling horse
That still roamd free from the long lazy plough
& the horison sweeping faintly blue
That prickt its bordering circle round the view

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822,

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

The scene it was cheery when I met my deary

[Image : Anne Lee]

The scene it was cheery when I met my deary

In even’s cool mantle of dew
T’was heaven unfolding in sunset so golden
But ah it was sweeter far sweeter beholding
Fond love at its first interview

O fond loves excesses the heart how it blesses
Wi the jem of our raptures in view
We fancy none fairer we fancy none dearer
There may be as true but we think none sincerer
Loves sketches are perfectly drew

But fancy is waining & love is complaining
Of beautys that time weareth thro
Summers day may be golden ripe flowers sweet beholding
But the honey of sweetness is springs bliss unfolding
Wi tender loves first interview

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

Child Harold (first three stanzas)

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

Now Come The Balm & Breezes Of The Spring
Not With The Pleasure's Of My Early Day's
When Nature Seemed One Endless Song To Sing
A Joyous Melody & Happy Praise
Ah Would They Come Agen—But Life Betrays
Quicksands & Gulphs & Storms That Howl & Sting
All Quiet Into Madness & Delays
Care Hides The Sunshine With Its Raven Wing
& Hell Glooms Sadness Oer The Songs Of Spring

Like Satans Warcry First In Paradise
When Love Lay Sleeping On The Flowery Slope
Like Virtue Wakeing In The Arms Of Vice
Or Deaths Sea Bursting In The Midst Of Hope
Sorrows Will Stay—& Pleasures Will Elope
In The Uncertain Cartnty Of Care
Joys Bounds Are Narrow But A Wider Scope
Is Left For Trouble Which Our Life Must Bear
Of Which All Human Life Is More Or Less The Heir

The Spring Canto: High Beech

John Clare ‘The Living Year 1841’

Tim Chilcott (ed.)

You will notice that every word is capitalised.  Clare did this in the early months of 1841, and stopped mid-poem.  No one has any idea why.

There's music in the songs of birds

There's music in the songs of birds

There's music in the bee
There's music in a womans voice
When sitting on your knee
While walking in the mossy vales
Beneath the spreading beech
Song lives in singing nightingales
And in a womans speech

To hear her wisper in the dark
'Tis heavens melody
Her calm reply her wise remark
Is more than song to me
The harp can touch no sweeter chord
In music's thrilling choice
Nor music breathe a sweeter word
Than comes from womans voice

There's music in the singing lark
That carols to the sky
To hear her wisper in the dark
'Tis heavens melody
There's music in a womans voice
While sitting on your knee
And Emma is my own heart's choice
When e'er she chooses me

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

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

She's Lovely in her Person

She's lovely in her person               And taller in her size

Then some bards make a verse on   And lovely are her eyes
She's worth a Poets ransome          She chills my heart on fire
Her face is very handsome              And warm as my desire
O' beautifull is woman                    In her secret love for Man
Like flowers eternal blooming          And I'll win her if I can
I'll win her and I'll wear her             Like a nose gay on the breast
And on my heart I'll bear her           Like a nosegay sweetly prest
She shall be mine for ever               And that I'm sure she shall
And a pleasant kiss I'll give her       As a sweet and lovely girl
Her cheeks are like two roses          And her lips are ruby red
And whatever truth supposes          I should like her downy bed
Her cheeks are bonny roses           And auburn is her hair
Her eye as dark as sloes is            Her neck is lilly fair
She's love among the roses           When the leaves wear morning gems
Her bosom white as snows is         Her eyes two diadems
To conquor and to kill ye               If ye worship them too long
And will ye love or will ye              She's the sweetest girl in Song

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

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

From "Reccolections After a Ramble"

The rosey day was sweet & young

The clod brown lark that haild the morn
Had just her summer anthem sung
& trembling dropped in the corn

The dew raisd flower was perk & proud
The butterflye around it playd
The skyes blue clear save wooly cloud
That passt the sun without a shade
On the pismires castle hill
While the burnet buttons quakd
While beside the stone pavd rill
Cowslap bunshes nodding shakd
Bees in every peep did try
Great had been the honey shower
Soon their load was on their thigh
Yellow dust as fine as flour

(lines 1-16)

The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems (2 volumes, 1821)

The Moth a Coy Lover

The Moth a coy lover now ventures to creep

Out at night to steal kisses from flowers when asleep

But the Butterflye bold as the Bee for a plot

Kisses the flowers all the day whether willing or not

Now no longer able his sports to pursue

He lay neath a leaf to get out of the dew

Heres the Cockchaffer to with his old sullen drone

Sings as if he thought no song sweet as his own

The Bee too with grains of red dust on each thigh

Who had drained thro the day all the honey flowers dry

& in vain he attempted straight forward to drive

He reeled and mistook the way home to his hive

Till lost on this spot in a considerable fright

He makes on this thistle a bed for the night

Heres the rope dancing spider a trusting his threads

From his web on the branches high over their heads

Ah well may you laugh at the sports he doth make

While he dances away in no fears for his neck

The rest were all coupled & happy & they

Song the old merry songs which they sang at his day

Pet MS A31 p9

(Unpublished as far as I can tell)

'August'

The fields now claim them where a motley crew
Of old and young their daily tasks pursue
The barleys beard is grey and wheat is brown
And wakens toil betimes to leave the town
The reapers leave their beds before the sun
And gleaners follow in the toils begun
To pick the littered ear the reaper leaves
And glean in open fields among the sheaves
The ruddy child nursed in the lap of care
In toils rude strife to do his little share
Beside his mother poddles oer the land
Sun burnt and stooping with a weary hand
Picking his tiney glean of corn or wheat
While crackling stubbles wound his little feet
Full glad he often is to sit awhile
Upon a smooth green baulk to ease his toil
And feign would spend an idle hour to play
With insects strangers to the moiling day
Creeping about each rush and grassy stem
And often wishes he was one of them
In weariness of heart that he might lye
Hid in the grass from the days burning eye
That raises tender blisters on his skin
Thro holes or openings that have lost a pin
Free from the crackling stubs to toil and glean
And smiles to think how happy he had been
Whilst his expecting mother stops to tye
Her handful up and waiting his supply

Misses the idle younker from her side
And shouts of rods and morts of threats beside
Pointing to the grey willows while she tells
His fears shall fetch one if he still rebells

(Lines 15 to 46)
The Shepherd's Calendar with Village Stories and Other Poems (1927)

A Morning Walk

[Image : “Waiting for a Smile”(1890) by Alfred Stieglitz]

Ah sure it is a lovely day
As ever summers glory yields
& I will put my books away
& wander in the fields
Just risen is the red round sun
Cocks from the roost doth loudly bawl
& house bee busily begun
Hums round the mortered wall
& while I take my staff to start
Birds sing among the eldern leaves
& fighting sparrows glad at heart
Chirp in the cottage eaves
Nor can I help but turn & view
Ere yet I close the creaking door
The sunbeams eager peeping through
Upon the sanded floor

(lines 1-16)

The Midsummer Cushion

ed. Kelsey Thornton and Anne Tibble

(Ashington and Manchester: Mid-NAG and Carcanet, 1979)

A Song

In Fashionable Style

O throw aside those carless ways
My conscous heart to move
Affected anger but betrays
Suspicous doubts of love
That face were frowns at will can dwell
Were cold deciet beguiles
May just as easy & as well
Dissemble while it smiles
Tis cruel when false smiles betrays
The heart into a snare
But crueler when slighting ways
Turns pleasures to despair
Thy face is fair let that suffice
& scorn a meaner power
Truth adds to beautys fading price
As fragrance to the flower
Yet tho you frown or smile in jest
My folly must declare
A weakness burning in my breast
Feels all in earnest there

The Letters of John Clare

ed. Mark Storey (1985)

The Shy Lover

I often longed, when wandering up and down,

To hear the rustle of thy Sunday gown;
And when we met, I passed, and let thee go,
And felt I loved, but dare not tell thee so:
Snares are so thickly spread on woman's way,
The common ballad teaches, men betray.
I thought and felt it rudeness if I tried,
And well-meant kindness might be misapplied.
I longed to walk with thee, where waters play
And lined with water-cresses all the way;
And read the poets as I went along
And thought they knew thy name in every song.
The mind on thee and beauty's music dwells,
And listens to the sound of Glinton bells.

John Clare, Northborough Sonnets,

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

(Ashington/Manchester: Mid-NAG/Carcanet, 1995)

Clare's attitude to 'work'

"After I had done with going to school it was proposed that I should be bound apprentice to a shoemaker, but I rather disliked this bondage.   I whimpered and turned a sullen eye on every persuasion, till they gave me my will.  A neighbour then offered to learn me his trade -- to be a stone mason, but I disliked this too... I was then sent for to drive the plough at Woodcroft Castle of Oliver Cromwell memory; though Mrs. Bellairs the mistress was a kind-hearted woman, and though the place was a very good one for living, my mind was set against it from the first; ... one of the disagreeable things was getting up so early in the morning... and another was getting wetshod ... every morning and night -- for in wet weather the moat used to overflow the cause-way that led to the porch, and as there was but one way to the house we were obliged to wade up to the knees to get in and out... I staid here one month, and then on coming home to my parents they could not persuade me to return.  They now gave up all hopes of doing any good with me and fancied that I should make nothing but a soldier; but luckily in this dilemma a next-door neighbour at the Blue Bell, Francis Gregory, wanted me to drive plough, and as I suited him, he made proposals to hire me for a year -- which as it had my consent my parents readily agreed to."

from Clare's unfinished autobiography

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

Robinson, et. al
Poems of the Middle Period
OUP

Eternity of time

Amazing, grand eternity of time!

Where things of greatest standing grow sublime,
Less from long fames, and universal praise,
Than wearing as the ‘ancient of old days’
‘Old days,’ once spoken, seems but half the way
To reach that night-leap of eternal day.
Miltonic centuries, each a mighty boast,
Shakespearian eras — worlds, without their host,
Engraved upon the adamant of fame
By pens of steel, in characters of flame —
To which the forest oaks' eternal stay
Are but as points and commas in their way —
These less than nothings are to ruin's doom,
When suns grow dark, and earth a vast and lonely tomb.

The Poems of John Clare

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

To a Primrose

At the age of sixteen, if we may trust the account given by his early friend Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, in the "London Magazine" for January, 1820, Clare composed the following sonnet "To a Primrose":

Welcome, pale primrose, starting up between
Dead matted leaves of oak and ash, that strew
The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through,
'Mid creeping moss and ivy's darker green!
How much thy presence beautifies the ground!
How sweet thy modest, unaffected pride
Glows on the sunny bank and wood's warm side!
And where thy fairy flowers in groups are found
The schoolboy roams enchantedly along,
Plucking the fairest with a rude delight,
While the meek shepherd stops his simple song,
To gaze a moment on the pleasing sight,
O'erjoyed to see the flowers that truly bring
The welcome news of sweet returning Spring.
   
J.L.CHERRY

LIFE AND REMAINS of JOHN CLARE (1872)