Of Corncrakes and 'The Tweet of the Day'

[Image : The Corncrake – Carry Akroyd]

From 'The Landrail'

How sweet & pleasant grows the way

Through summer time again
While landrails call from day to day
Amid the grass & grain
We hear it in the weeding time
When knee deep waves the corn
We hear it in the summers prime
Through meadows night & morn
& now I hear it in the grass
That grows as sweet again
& let a minutes notice pass
& now tis in the grain
Tis like a fancy everywhere
A sort of living doubt
We know tis somthing but it ne'er
Will blab the secret out

THE CORN CRAIKS RISPY SONG
The corncraik rispt her summer call Just as the sun went down

Copper red a burning ball In woods behind the town
I wandered forth a maid to meet So bonny and so fair
No other flower was half so sweet And cole black was her hair
Upon the grasses stood the dew Bead drop O' clearest pearl
Her hair was black her eyes were blue O what a lovely Girl
Her neck was like the lilly white Her breast was like the swan
She was in heart and loves delight A worship for a Man
The corncraiks rispy song was oer The sun had left the light [alone]
I love dusk kisses on the Moor To lewder life unknown
Hid in the bosom of a flower Its lifetime there to dwell
Eternity would seem an hour And I'd be resting well

Clare lines above -- from his time in Northborough -- are from 'The Landrail', the lines italicised  were quoted on the entry in the BBC Book 'The Tweet of the Day', published on the 10th April 2014, and illustrated by this little linocut by Carry.  The second poem is much later, written during Clare's long incarceration in the Northampton General Asylum.

The book, published by Saltyard Books is by Stephen Moss and Brett Westwood with lots of illustrations by Carry.

The Lovers Meeting

Hot was the noon in summers sultry hour


The sun then raging with meridian power


When I more burning with the scorching heat


Of hot desire - lay hid in close retreat


Beneath the covert of a secret shade


Flush'd "with expectance of the lovley maid"


Sweet was the spot no one throughout the grove


Was better suited to the sports of Love

An opportunity to buy a Hand Made, limited edition, signed copy of our first book "The Lovers Meeting", edited by Roger Rowe, designed and illustrated by Anne Lee. (See pictures below)

This beautiful book has been printed by The Logan Press and hand bound by The Fine Book Bindery -- The same company produces books for The Folio Society.

This is the first time John Clare's "The Lovers Meeting" - a reworking of Ovid's Fifth Elegy, has been published outside Oxford University Press ‘Clarendon’ edition.  Authenticity has been at the heart of our volume.  The poem is presented exactly as Clare wrote it and has been typeset in a font designed in Northamptonshire in Clare's time (the Founder's Caslon type of Justin Howes).  A beautiful calligraphic ampersand has been specially created by Patrick Roe of The Logan Press to acknowledge its characteristic use by Clare.  Background information about the poem and its context is included. The book is bound by hand in two cloths of complimentary colours with gold blocked titles and has hand printed end papers designed by Anne Lee.

We do hope that many will feel able to support us in this by acquiring one of these signed and numbered books from the edition of 200 copies.

"The Lovers Meeting" is now available from me at the special price of £20 post free.  Please contact arborfield@gmail.com to order a copy, or by leaving a comment on my facebook page.  Feel free to share this posting to spread the word as far as possible.

Roger

Child Harold - The Summer Canto: High Beech (A darker extract)

My life hath been one love—no blot it out

My life hath been one chain of contradictions


Madhouses Prisons wh---re shops—never doubt


But that my life hath had some strong convictions

That such was wrong—religion makes restrictions

I would have followed—but life turned a bubble


& clumb the jiant stile of maledictions


They took me from my wife & to save trouble


I wed again & made the error double


Yet abscence claims them both & keeps them too

& locks me in a shop in spite of law


Among a low lived set & dirty crew


Here let the Muse oblivions curtain draw


& let man think—for God hath often saw


Things here too dirty for the light of day


For in a madhouse there exists no law—


Now stagnant grows my too refined clay
I envy birds their wings to flue away

Adam Foulds "The Quickening Maze" -- Shortlisted for the 'Man Booker' prize in 2009, is a wonderful exploration, in fiction, of this period.  In some ways illustrating over a 259-page novel these two verses.

Child Harold - The Spring Canto: High Beech (extract)

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

At this period in 1841 Clare capitalised every word in his manuscripts.  No one has yet come up with a convincing explanation as to why.

Ballad : "Young Chloe..."

Young Chloe looks sweet as the rose

And her love might be reckoned no less

But her bosom so freely bestows

That all may a portion possess.

Her smiles would be cheering to see

But so freely they’re lavished abroad

That each silly swain well as me

Can boast of the smiles she bestowed.

Her smiles and her kisses so free

Blesses all like the rain from the sky

As the blossoms love is to the bee

Each swain is as welcome as I.

And tho’ I my folly can see

Yet still must I love and adore

Tho’ I know the love whispered to me

Is a lie told to many before.

’Tis sad that a bosom so fair

And red lips so seemingly sweet

Should study false ways to ensnare

And breath in their kisses deceit.

But beauty’s no guide to the best

The rose that out blushes the morn

While it tempts the glad eye to its breast

Will pierce the fond hand with a thorn.

Yet still must I love silly swain

And put up with all her deceit
And try to be jealous in vain
For I cannot help thinking her sweet,
When I see other swains in her bower.
I sigh and excuse what I see
And say to myself ‘is the flower
Any worse when its kissed by the bee’?

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)

Early Spring

Winter is past—the little bee resumes

Her share of sun & shade & oer the lea

Hums its first hymnings to the flowers perfumes

& wakes a sense of gratfulness in me

The little daisey keeps its wonted pace

Ere march by april gets disarmd of snow

A look of joy opes on its smiling face

Turnd to that power that suffers it to blow

Ah pleasant time as pleasing as ye be

One still more pleasing, hope reserves for me

Where suns unsetting one long summer shine

Flowers endless bloom where winter neer destroys

O may the good mans righteous end be mine

As I may witness these unfading joys

The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems

(2 volumes, 1821)

My Mary (excerpt)

Who (save in sunday bib & tuck)
Goes daily (waddling like a duck)
Oer head & ears in grease & muck
My Mary

Unus'd to pattins or to clogs

Who takes the swill to serve the hogs?
And steals the milk for cats and dogs
My Mary

Who frost & Snow as hard as nails
Stands out o' doors & never fails
To wash up things & scour the pails
My Mary

Who bussles night & day in short
At all catch jobs of every sort
& gains her mistress' favor for't
My Mary

& who is oft repaid wi praise?
In doing what her mistress says
& yielding to her wimmy ways
My Mary

For theres none apter I believe
At ‘creeping up a Mistress' sleve’
Then this low kindred stump of Eve
My Mary

Who when the baby's all besh—t
To please its mamma kisses it?
And vows no Rose on earths so sweet
My Mary 

The Poems of John Clare

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

Hopes sun shines...

Hopes sun shines sweet but who of hopes are proud

To see how soon it meeteth with a cloud

How many hopes & memorys went with thee

That forwerd looked to better destiny

Song seems not worth the muses care

Unless to grace it womans love be there

& fame is but a shadow crowned with bays

Without the cheering sun of womans grace

When thy young bosom at the tales it heard

Heavd up & panted like a timid bird

Thy splendid beauty blushed upon the sight

Like sudden frenzy of unlooked for flight

Thou haven of my trouble when I see

That lovely face the show is past with me

(Unpublished, but will figure in Anne Lee and my third book "In the Shadows")

The Woods

I love to roam the woods

Oft patted by the boughs
That meet from either side
& form an arch of leaves
Till hidden as it where from all the world
I stand & muse upon the pleasant scene

I seem to be myself
The only one that treads
The earth at such a time
So vacant is the mass
That spreads around me one hugh sea of leaves
& intertwining grains of thickest shades

No human eye is visible
No human sound attracts
The ear—but musing solitude
One unembodied thought
Thinks the heart into stillness as the world
Was left behind for somthing green & new

& lonely—& Ive thought
In such a spot to build
An hermitage or hut
With books & leisure left
How sweet t'would be but then again
I've turned to my old home & felt it vain

Yet sure a hut close thatched
Chafed by oerleaning boughs
In such a place when night
Dark on the crowd of trees
Found us locked in beside a blazing fire
Might give us happiness & pleasing fears

Fear books can give us
When we read strange tales
Of dwellers in the depths
Of earths untrodden shades
Where woods surround lone huts impassable
& nought lives near them but the hope of heaven

The Midsummer Cushion

ed. Kelsey Thornton and Anne Tibble

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

To P++++

[Image: Anne Lee]

Fair was thy bloom when first I met

Thy summers maiden blossom
& thou art fair & lovely yet
& dearer to my bosom
O thou wast once a wildling flower
All garden flowers excelling
& still I bless the happy hour
That led me to thy dwelling

Though nursed by field & brook & wood
& wild in every feature
Spring neer unsealed a fairer bud
Nor formed a blossom sweeter
& of all flowers the spring has met
& it has met with many
Thou art to me the fairest yet
& lovliest of any

Though ripening summers round thee bring
Buds to thy swelling bosom
That wait the cheering smiles of spring
To ripen into blossom
These buds shall added blessings be
To make our love sincerer
For as their flowers resemble thee
Theyll make thy memory dearer

& though thy bloom shall pass away
By winter overtaken
Thoughts of the past will charms display
& many joys awaken
When time shall every sweet remove
& blight thee on my bosom
Let beauty fade—to me & love
Thoult neer be out of blossom

Poems by John Clare

ed. Norman Gale (Rugby: George E. Over, 1901)

A Character (excerpt)

[Image: Anne Lee]

One of Clare’s early poems that we have chosen to figure in our planned 4^th volume “Amorous Johny”

Her face cloth'd in blushes like the east in a morning
Sheds a lustre so healthful and gay
And O! her sweet neck is with Cupids adorning
More whiter than blossoms of May.

Her beautiful bosom with love sweetly swelling
Whould make e'en a Hermit to long
And O! of her eyes and her lips theres no telling
They'r out o' the reach of my song.

Her height with the rest in exactest propotion
Nought defective throughout can be seen
And her fine limbs conceal'd will oft show their sweet motion
When met by the wind on the green.

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

Nobody Cometh to Woo

[Image by Anne Lee]

Recorded in the early 1990s as 'Lucy’s Lament' by Vikki Clayton

On Martinmas eve the dogs did bark,

And I opened the window to see,

When every maiden went by with her spark

But ne’er a one came to me.

And O dear what will become of me?

And O dear what shall I do,

When nobody whispers to marry me—

Nobody cometh to woo?

None's born for such troubles as I be:

If the sun wakens first in the morn

"Lazy hussy" my parents both call me,

And I must abide by their scorn,

For nobody cometh to marry me,

Nobody cometh to woo,

So here in distress must I tarry me—

What can a poor maiden do?

If I sigh through the window when Jerry

The ploughman goes by, I grow bold;

And if I'm disposed to be merry,

My parents do nothing but scold;

And Jerry the clown, and no other,

E’er cometh to marry or woo;

They think me the moral of mother

And judge me a terrible shrew.

For mother she hateth all fellows,

And spinning's my father's desire,

While the old cat growls bass with the bellows

If e’er I hitch up to the fire.

I make the whole house out of humour,

I wish nothing else but to please,

Would fortune but bring a new comer

To marry, and make me at ease!

When I've nothing my leisure to hinder

I scarce get as far as the eaves;

Her head's instant out of the window

Calling out like a press after thieves.

The young men all fall to remarking,

And laugh till they're weary to see't,

While the dogs at the noise begin barking,

And I slink in with shame from the street.

My mother's aye jealous of loving,

My father's aye jealous of play,

So what with them both there's no moving,

I'm in durance for life and a day.

O who shall I get for to marry me?

Who will have pity to woo?

Tis death any longer to tarry me,

And what shall a poor maiden do?

John Clare, Poems: Chiefly from Manuscript

ed. Edmund Blunden and Alan Porter

(London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1920)

Thy spirit visits me like dew (excerpt)

The wild flowers have a feeling
O'er my calm senses stealing
And love's soft dreams revealing
Seem wispering from the bowers

The foxgloves freckled bells
That blossom by the wood
And in the forrest dells
In the midst of solitude

There I hear my lover call
Where the whitethorn forms a wall
And the foxglove blossoms tall
In the tears of eve bedewed

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

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

An excerpt from 'A dedication to **** '

To thee earth swarmd with lovly things
The butterflye with spangld wings
& dragon flye & humble bee
Humd dreams of paradise with thee
& o thou fairest dearest still
If natures wild misterious skill
Beams that same rapture in thine eye
& left a love that cannot dye
If that fond taste was born to last
Nor vanishd with the summers past
If seasons as they usd to be
Still meet a favou[r]d smile with thee
Then thou accept for memorys sake
All I can give or thou canst take
A parted record known to thee
Of what has been no more to be
The pleasant past the future sorrow
The blest today & sad tomorrow—

(lines 45 to 62)

Selected Poems and Prose of John Clare

ed. Eric Robinson and Geoffrey Summerfield

(Oxford, 1967, 1978)

To an infant sister in Heaven

Clare was a twin.  His sister -- although "A fine bonny wench" died within days.  John the weakling infant, survived.  Here he is years later writing of the sister he never knew.

Bessey—I call thee by that earthly name

That but a little while belongd to thee—
Thou left me growing up to sin & shame
& kept thy innoscence unstaind & free
To seek the refuge of a heaven above
Where lifes bud opens in eternity
Bessey when memory turns thy lot to see

A brothers bosom yearns thy bliss to prove
& sighs oer wishes that was not to be
Oh had we gone together had I been
Strange with the world as thou thy mothers love
What years of sorrows I had never seen
Fullness of joy that leaves no hearts to bleed
Had then with thine been purchasd cheap indeed

The Poems of John Clare

ed. J. W. Tibble

(2 volumes, Dent, 1935)

From Dobson and Judie

One of Clare's early narrative poems, set very firmly in Helpstone

Old Dob when sitting by the fire
Will often bid old Judie ‘hark
‘I fear the wind is rising higher
 ‘And o the night is dismal dark’

‘Ah think’ he cries, (while Judie smoaks)
‘In this most dismal wintry night
‘How many poor tir'd travelling folks
‘Now meets the storm in woeful plight!’

‘Perhaps now at this very hour
‘Some poor lost soul lays—down his head
‘Beneath a tree which turns no shower
‘And cannot find a better bed’

‘For cloth'd with snow instead of dew
‘No longer they a shelter yield
‘More worse I know 'twill winnow thro
‘Then standing in the open field’

‘O heavens now the wind gets higher
‘It grieves me;—yet I'm pleas'd to think
‘How we are blest with house and fire
‘A good warm bed, and meat, and drink,’

‘And if the lost:—(I hope as well)
‘Should ever find their homes again
That true old-saying then will tell
‘How sweet the pleasure after pain!’

(lines 137 to 160)

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

The crowing coks the morns for told (extract)

The crowing coks the morns for told

The Sun begins to peep
And Shepherds Wistling to the Fold
Sets free the Captive Sheep
Oer pathless plains at early hours
The Sleepy Rustic goes
The dews brushd off from Gras & flowers
Bemoists his hardend Shoes

For every leaf that forms a shade
& flowrets silken top
& every shivering bent & blade
Bends with a pearly drop
But soon shall fly these pearly drops
The Sun advances higher
& stretching oer the mountain tops
Sweet Gilds the Village spire

(lines 1-16)

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

Written in April at Walk Lodge

A little known Clare sonnet from 1818 that will figure in our collection "The Poet in Love", with Mike Hobson's image which will accompany it.

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

EP II 120

Pet MS A11 p5