from "The Wish"

Ah scenes so happy void of all controul
Your seeming prospects heightens up my soul;
E'en now so bright the fairy vision flies,
I mark its flight as with possesing eyes
But thats in vain—to hope the wish was gave
It clogs the mind and binds the heart a slave.
Tis nothing but a wish one vents at will
Still vainly wishing and be wanting still
For when a wishing mind enjoys the view
He dont expect it ever will come true,
Yet when he cherishes the pleasing thought
He still keeps wishing till he wants for nought,
And so will I—My eyes shall wander oer
A Pleasent prospect, Acres just threescore,
And this the measure of my whole domains
Should be divided into woods and plains,
O'er the fair plains should roam a single cow
For not one foot should ever want the plough
This would be toiling so I'd never crave
One single thing where labour makes a slave.
Tho health from exercise is said to spring
Foolhardy toil that health will never bring.
But 'stead of health—dire ills a numerous train
Will shed their torments with afflictive pain.
Be as it will I hold in spite of strife
That health ne'er rises from a labouring life

(lines 177 to 202)

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

from "Walks in the Woods"

[Image : Anne Lee]

It doth one's spirits good to go
Through beds of fern that fan below.
The rustle that the branches make
While giving way to let me through,
The leaves that for a moment shake
As out a blackbird hasty flew—
Oh, there is stillness in the noise
That brings to quiet many joys.

Yes, as the bouncing branches start
And backward hurry to their place,
A rapture rushes at the heart,
A joy comes flushing in the face;
I feel so glad I can't explain
My joy, and on I rush again.
And now I meet a stoven full
Of clinging woodbines all in flower;
They look so rich and beautiful—
Though loath to spoil so sweet a bower—
My fingers itch to pull them down
To take a handful to the town.

So then I mix their showy bloom
With many pleasant-looking things,
And fern leaves in my posy come;
And then so beautifully clings
The heart-leaved bryony round the tree,
It too must in a posy be.
Enchanter's nightshade, some few sprigs
—So sweet a spot it blossoms in—
And within reach the leafiest twigs
Of oak, if such my reach can win;
And still unwilling to give o'er
I stoop till I can hold no more.

(lines 113 to 144)

The Poems of John Clare

ed. J. W. Tibble

(2 volumes, Dent, 1935)

I saw thee in lifes witching hour...

[Image: Anne Lee]

I saw thee in lifes witching hour

  I thought thee all divine

& sweeter still thou fairey flower

  Frail hope bespoke her mine

But why need I repent the day

  Which years have left with thee

Since one frail spring scarce stopt to say

  That hope can never be

The world full early frowned on me

  & shaped our lives contrary

It dashed the hopes I had for thee

  & made thee haughty Mary

For still methinks had I been born

  To meet lifes smiles so early

Pride neer had made me treat with scorn

  A name I loved so dearly

I felt in times now fled and gone

  By many a cheery token

The links that our hearts seem one

  Should not so soon be broken

But life a seeming shower at best

    Is nothing that it seems

& dreams of love were hope will rest

  Are nothing else but dreams

Poems of the Middle Period

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

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

"What is Joy..."

[Image of Clare's Grave : Ann Lee]

A recent discovery, hidden in Clare's Prose...

& what is joy or bliss or happiness
Mere trifling parents of a laugh or smile
That are but cares decked in a different dress
To cheat our hearts & sooth our hopes awhile
Mere sabbaths in lifes agonizing toil
To catch our breath while in its style we dwell
Prolonging (?life) by shadows that beguile
For joys beginnings have one tale to tell
& bring their end a heart  ach[e] & far[e]well

(Unpublished)

from "The Travellers"

Being rather faint for want o' drink
(Yet not so sadly off for chink)
I went to ha' some beer
On entering in a house at hand
(As alehouses do mostly stand
To catch all passers by)
I told my wants & sat me down
'Gen two near neighbours o' the town
A talking very sly
At which so eager o' my beer
I first ga' little heed to hear
Untill I 'gan to see

Some queerish beckons come in vogue
& hear the name o' thief & rogue
& then a look at me

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

Mid summer cushions

[Children's Midsummer Cushions round Clare's Grave on the Friday nearest his birthday, the 13th July.  BUT not 'field flowers' of course.)

Found this on Friday, whilst looking for something else... well known, but this is the original manuscript:

It is a very old tho not a very common custom now among villagers in summer time to stick a piece of green sward full of field flowers & place it as an ornament in their cottages which ornaments are called mid summer cushions & as these trifles are field flowers of humble pretentions & of various

I thought the the (sic) above cottage custom gave one an opportunity to select a little that was not inapplicable to the contents of the vol - not that I wish the reader to imagine that by so doing

I consider these poems in the light of flowers that can even ornament a cottage by their presence yet if the eye of beauty can feel any entertainment in their perusal I shall take it as the proudest of commendations & if the lover of simple images & rural scenery finds anything to commend my end & aim is gratified

(Written on both sides of a newspaper label which is addressed to

          Mr John Clare

          Helpstone

          Mk. Deeping )

(Clare did write anything after 'various' in the first paragraph, or 'doing' in the second.  Pretty typical of much of his prose work.)

SONG : "Come beautiful maiden while autumn delays"

[Image : Anne Lee]

Come beautiful maiden while autumn delays
And the sunsets so sweet in the gold tinted west
While the fading beach tree sets the woods in a blaze
And the lark sings his song e're he sinks into rest

In Autumns gone by how fondly I press't thee
And loved thee sincerely, and so I do now
As I wandered along with thee ever near me
While the leaves they were fading on every bough

The sky rolls away with its ocean of clouds
The earth seems as ocean, as billows the grove
Woods roar like the sea or the ships flapping shrouds
But earth has warm places for beings that love
By the hedges my sweet one we'll wander unseen
Where the leaves of all colours are leaving the trees
Where the rush beds all ripple like water so green
And not a wild flower is in bloom on the lea's—

Yet love is as warm as the sun in the sky
And the winds they breath[e] music though ever so loud
The lark pipes its song in the fleecy clouds high
And the crow o'er the ploughed fields walks lonely and proud—
Then come my dear maiden enjoy the sweet morning
Down the walk in the meadows we'll wander away
There the bramble hedge hangs o'er the path like an awning
And the hedge sparrow hides at the bottom all day

Come in the fields then my first loved Mary
Come while the harp of the woods is in tune
Here neath the knotty old oak we will tarry
While the sun press the hedges as warm as in June
Though time passes on thy name is a pleasure
So come my sweet Mary we'll wander alone
And I'll tell thee the trials I've suffered, My treasure
Yet forget every one if you'll call me your own—

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

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

The Autumnal Morning (excerpt)

Wild woods ring in echos round

Wi many a lusty rural sound
Thro the day the wooping call
Of ramping nutters ceasless brawl
Weaving branches tearing down
Plucking nuts now ripe & brown

Boys as soon as loosd from school
Run to get their pockets full
& many a village clown [in extacys]
Rustling mong the faded trees
That bend beside her path is seen
Like the woodlands rural queen

Snatching hastes handfuls while she hies
To milking where her red cow lies
Venturing oer the woodland stile
Shepherds leave their sheep awhile
Dreading squalls & turning back
They snached a nut or 2 to crack

While the pindard* quirking out
As the lawyer squints about

Siezes on the chances found
& drives the straying sheep to pound
The Hedger who wi many a tap
Drives the stake down in the gap

Leaves his gaps & leaves his toil
& claims a share of autumns spoil
In short as full as it can snive*
The hamlets dead & woods alive
The once so still & silent shade
Is now a scene of uproar made

(lines 55 to 84)

'Bird's Nest: Poems by John Clare'

Anne Tibble (Ashington: Mid-NAG, 1973)

*Pindard = The impounder straying livestock

*Snive = Cram or stuff

See also my post ‘Gleaners or Thieves?’ for a piece by Professor Eric Robinson on, amongst other things, nutting : http://johnclare.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/gleaners-or-thieves.html

From "Solitude"...

A minute's length, a zephyr's breath,
Sport of fate, and prey of death,
Tyrant to-day, to-morrow gone,
Distinguish'd only by a stone,
That fain would have the eye to know
Pride's better dust is lodg'd below—
While worms like me are mouldering laid,
With nothing set to say ‘they're dead’—
All the difference, trifling thing,
That notes at last the slave and king.
As wither'd leaves, life's bloom when stopt,
That drop in autumn, so they dropt;
As snails, which in their painted shell
So snugly once were known to dwell,
When in the schoolboy's care we view
The pleasing toys of varied hue,
By age or accident are flown,
The shell left empty, tenant gone—
So pass we from the world's affairs,
And careless vanish from its cares;
So leave, with silent, long farewell,
Vain life—as left the snail his shell.

(lines 213 to 234)

The Poems of John Clare

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

Autumn

[Image: Peter de Wint]

Summer is gone & all the merry noise

Of busy harvest in its labouring glee
The shouts of toil the laughs of gleaning boys
Sweeing at dinner hours on willow tree
The cracking whip the scraps of homely song
Sung by the boys that drive the loaded wain
The noise of geese that haste & hiss along
For corn that litters in the narrow lane
Torn from the waggon by the hedge row trees
Tinkles of wetting scythes amid the grain
The bark of dogs stretched at their panting ease
Watching the stouk were mornings dinner lay
All these have past & silence at her ease
Dreams autumns mellancholly life away

Selected Poems of John Clare (1964)

Leonard Clark (ed)

A PLOUGHMANS SKILL AT CLASSIFICATION AFTER THE LINEIAN ARRANGEMENT

‘Go wipe your shoes’ says mistress shrew

To Hodge who up for's dinner drew
‘'Tis'n't fitting that such hogs as you
‘Shou'd come into a house’
‘Why not’ says hodge—‘if thats the case
‘I cant come in a better place
‘For surely there is no disgrace
For hogs to herd wi' Sows

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

On Mr -------- Locking up the Public Pump

To lock up Water—must undoubted stand

Among the Customs of a Christian land
An Action quite Uncommon and unknown
Or only practic'd in this place alone
A Thing unheard of yet in Prose or Rhyme
And only witness'd at this present time
—But some there is—a stain to Christian Blood
That cannot bear to do a Neighbour good
—No!—to be kind and use another well
With them's a torment ten times worse then hell

Such Fiends as these whose charity wornt give
The begging Wretch a single chance to live
—Who to nor Cats nor Dogs one crumb bestows
Who even grut[c]h the droppings of their Nose
—Its my Opinion of such Marngrel curs
Whom Nature scorns to own and Man abhors
That could they find a f---t of any use
They'd even burst before they'd set it loose!

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

"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.