Of Colin & Lucy

Colin

You promised me, a year ago,

When autumn bleach'd the mistletoe,

That you and I should be as one;

But now another autumn's gone—

Its solemn knell is in the blast,

And love's bright sun is overcast;

Yet flowers will bloom and birds will sing,

And e'en the winter claim the spring.

Lucy

The hedges will be green again,

And flowers will come on hill and plain;

And though we meet a rainy day,

The hawthorn will be white with May.

If love and nature still agree,

Green leaves will clothe the trysting-tree;

And when these pleasing days you view,

Think Lucy's heart yet be true.

Love Cannot Die

[Christ Child by Lorna L. Effler (detail)]

In crime and enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.

From heaven it came on angel's wing
To bloom on earth, eternal spring;
In falsehood's enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die.

'Twas born upon an angel's breast.
The softest dreams, the sweetest rest,
The brightest sun, the bluest sky,
Are love's own home and canopy.

The thought that cheers this heart of mine
Is that of love—love so divine,
They sin who say in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.

The sweetest voice that lips contain,
The sweetest thought that leaves the brain,
The sweetest feeling of the heart—
There's pleasure in its very smart.

The scent of rose and cinnamon
Is not like love remembered on;
In falsehood's enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die.

O Thrice Lucky Town

[Image: 'The Saviour is Born' by Vitali Linitsky]

.

O thrice lucky town (the more lucky poor creatures)

Who ere could have thought that such luck would be thine

Such a stranger as thou art to things o' like nature

But time bringeth all things to pass—so its sighing

& O' what a blessing o' poor peoples sides

Who just before this were near pining to dead

That his Lordship’s great goodness condescends to provide

An odd sort of something that they may be fed

What a good Christian heart must his honour possess

To 'mean him so low when so high riches rank him

In giving this hodgepodge—they cant do no less

Then down on their knappers & twenty times thank him

And benevolent charity sure such as this is

'll set others a going for the good o poor ce'turs

And warm squeezing Mizers to open their fis'es

And soften the wit-leather hearts of our betters

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

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

Song: 'How can I sing the songs of love'

How can I sing the songs of love
How can I strike the chords to wake a strain
That every bosom moves
And nothing hears in vain
I've sung of blossoms blooming
In early spring
But these are cold to woman
What shall I sing

Love is the beating heart
That ever hidden secret of the soul
Of faith and life a living part
That animates the whole
'Tis in the bright eyes hidden
On beating bosoms seen
No where on earth forbidden
And woman is its queen

O where can man discover
The pleasure love conceals
But in his faithful lover
Whose ways the truth reveals
'Tis not in joys of earth
But kin to joys above
For woman was its birth
And woman's heart is love

Love and Beauty

WHEN Beauty fills the lover's eyes,
And lives like doubtful weather,
Her bosom seems to sleep with love;
They lie like birds together.

Love finds them angels ready made,
So beautiful and blooming;
But Time comes in, though half afraid,
And rudely calls them woman.

Time, like a robber, every year
Takes all the fame he gives;
While Beauty only goes away,
And Virtue only lives.

The Lovers Song

I've heard thee sing of plaintive things,
And as thy fingers swept the strings,
Thy eyes have wept most tenderly;
Then list awhile till I beguile
Thy heart with sorrow's melody.

A young heart tried a maid to move
And pined to death for very love;
The maiden naught but scorn returned
Nor dropt one tear upon his bier;
He died unhonoured and unmourned.

I knew thou'dst mourn so sad a thing;
Oh, touch, my Anna, touch the string
With sprightlier airs, nor grief endure;
That heart you weep, though wounded deep,
Is yet not past your cure.

The Gardener's Bonny Daughter

[Image: "The Gardener's Daughter; or, the Pictures"]
J. C. Horsley (1857)

.
The chaffinch in the hedgerow sings, by a brown and naked thorn
By it's tail the titmouse hings searching the buds at morn
I'll wish dirty roads away and the meadows flooded water
And court before I end the day the gardners bonny daughter

She's sweeter than the first of spring , more fair than Christmas roses
When robins by the hovel sings sweet smiles this maid discloses
Her hair so brown her eyes so bright as clear as meadow water
I'll go and have a word tonight with the gardners bonny daughter

Her cheeks they're like a coloured rose, oh a kiss would surely burn ye
Her lips are gems more red than those for love I'll go the journey
When the white thorn comes in bloom and the chaffinch lays it's lauter
I'll walk where singing birds are brief with the gardners bonny daughter

I passed the gardeners house one night my heart burned to a cinder
I saw her face and her eyes so bright she was looking through the window
But when I passed the house again I'd been pounded in a mortar
But she smiled and looked upon me then, so I love the gardeners daughter

I love the gardners daughter -- Ooh that sweet daughter

Child Harold (IV)

[Image: ‘Grey Fox’ by Carry Akroyd]
http://www.carryakroyd.co.uk/

From: The Winter Canto: Northborough

Tis winter & the fields are bare & waste
The air one mass of ‘vapour clouds & storms’
The suns broad beams are buried & overcast
& chilly glooms the midday light deforms
Yet comfort now the social bosom warms
Friendship of nature which I hourly prove
Even in this winter scene of frost & storms
Bare fields the frozen lake & leafless grove
Are natures grand religion & true love

(lines 901 to 909)

Child Harold (III)

[Image: ‘Bendy Lane’ by Carry Akroyd]
http://www.carryakroyd.co.uk/

From: The Autumn Canto: Northborough

Song
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 skyes 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 & fadeing 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 hearts 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

(lines 840 to 863)

Child Harold (II)

[Image: ‘Summer Parish’ by Carry Akroyd’
http://www.carryakroyd.co.uk/

From: The Summer Canto: High Beech
[June? – mid-July]

Ballad
Summer morning is risen
& to even it wends
& still Im in prison
Without any friends

I had joys assurance
Though in bondage I lie—
I am still left in durance
Unwilling to sigh

Still the forest is round me
Where the trees bloom in green
As if chains ne'er had bound me
Or cares had ne'er been

Nature's love is eternal
In forest & plain
Her course is diurnal
To blossom again

For home & friends vanished
I have kindness not wrath
For in days care has banished
My heart possessed both

My hopes are all hopeless
My skys have no sun
Winter fell in youths mayday
& still freezes on

But Love like the seed is
In the heart of a flower
It will blossom with truth
In a prosperous hour

True love is eternal
For God is the giver
& love like the soul will
Endure—& forever

(lines 10 to 41)

Child Harold

[The next four postings will be excerpts from Clare’s Child Harold]

[Image: 'Out of Doors' by Carry Akroyd]
http://www.carryakroyd.co.uk/

From: The Spring Canto: High Beech
Ballad
The Blackbird Has Built In The Pasture Agen
& The Thorn Oer The Pond Shows A Delicate Green
Where I Strolled With Patty Adown In The Glen
& Spent Summer Evenings & Sundays Unseen
How Sweet The Hill Brow
& The Low Of The Cow
& The Sunshine That Gilded The Bushes So Green

When Evening Brought Dews Natures Thirst To Allay
& Clouds Seemed To Nestle Round Hamlets & Farms
While In The Green Bushes We Spent The Sweet Day
& Patty Sweet Patty Was Still In My Arms
The Love Bloom That Redded Upon Her Sweet Lips
The Love Light That Glistened Within Her Sweet Eye
The Singing Bees There That The Wild Honey Sips
From Wild Blossoms Seemed Not So Happy As I
How Sweet Her Smile Seemed
While The Summer Sun Gleamed
& The Laugh Of The Spring Shadowed Joys From On High

While The Birds Sung About Us & Cattle Grazed Round
& Beauty Was Blooming On Hamlets & Farms
How Sweet Steamed The Inscence Of Dew From The Ground
While Patty Sweet Patty Sat Locked In My Arms

(lines 1108 to 1129)

Note:
“Clare’s habit of capitalising the first letter of all words informs every piece of extant date material between 17 March and 1 May 1841. It seems very likely that such ‘upper-casing’ characterised all his writing between early March and mid-May, and that the capitalised stanzas of Child Harold can therefore be reliably ascribed to this period”

John Clare – The Living Year 1841 (Tim Chilcott, editor) Trent Editions 1999

I am

[“The grass below — above the vaulted sky”]
[And the madhouse walls nowhere in sight]
.
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest — that I loved the best —
Are strange — nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below — above the vaulted sky.

An interesting piece on Clare’s “I am”, including a reading and the quote above, can be found on The Atlantic Online at http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/soundings/clare.htm

Tis Martinmass* from rig to rig

[Image: Carry Akroyd]

.

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

*Martinmas the feast day of Martin of Tours, is on the 11th November each year.

Old Ballad

O silly love! O cunning love!
An old maid to trepan:
I cannot go about my work
For loving of a man
I cannot bake, I cannot brew,
And, do the best I can
I burn the bread and chill the mash,
Through loving of a man

Shrove Tuesday last I tried, and tried,
To turn the cakes in pan
And drop’t the batter on the floor
Through thinking of a man
My mistress screamed, my master swore,
Boys cursed me in a troop
The cat was all the friends I had
Who helped to clean it up

Last Christmas eve, from off the spit
I took the goose to table
Or should have done, but teasing Love
Did make me quite unable
And down slip’t dish, and goose, and all
With din and clitter-clatter
All but the dog fell foul on me
He licked the broken platter

Although I'm ten years past a score
Too old to play the fool
My mistress says I must give o'er
My service for a school
Good faith! What must I do, and do
To keep my service still
I'll give the winds my thoughts to love
Indeed and so I will

And if the wind my love should lose
Right foolish were the play
For I should mourn what I had lost
And love another day
With crosses and with losses
Right double were the ill
So I'll e'en bear with love and all
Alack, and so I will

Recorded in 1991 as ‘Mad Meg’ by Vikki Clayton:
Midsummer Cushion -- Prestige Records [CDSGP008]
(The odd word changed)

---oOo---

Vikki’s version includes the following alternative verse (also in a Clare Manuscript held in Peterborough), instead of the final verse above with the additional two lines completing the song:

I’ll sit from morn till dewy eve
Tho chairs & tables dance
Till on the midnight’s sutty wings
The witches ride to France
I’ll sit on till I’m roaring full
& well can hold no more
& then I’ll like Tom Hickathrift*
To bed upon the floor

Thro’ the loving of a man
Thro’ the lusting of a man

*Tom Hickathrift was a legendary figure of East Anglian folklore — he famously battled a giant, and is sometimes said to be a giant himself, though normally he is just represented as possessing giant-like strength.

Song: My buxome young Lassie

My buxome young Lassie my bonny young Lassie
To see thy white bosom I'm all of a flutter
My bonny young lassie there’s nought to surpass ye
While staring afore thee I nothing can utter

Words broken in halves make me stutter and stammer
I ache to say something but can’t get [it] out
A frown from thy face love is like a sledge hammer
Mashing bones into powder and knocking brains out

But the look o thy smile love is soft as a feather
And the hue o thy bosom is whiter than down
We'd both be in heaven love completed together
God 'd may be sent Angels as comforters down

My fair bonny lassie my dear bonny Lassie
Thy face is as sweet as the rose bloom o June
Thy eyes are as bright as the brooks while they pass ye
And thy voice like the Nightingales sweetly i' tune

My happy young maiden my bonny young maiden
As dear as the Apple & light o' my eye
How rich is thy beauty arrayed in the Plaiden
The rose on thy cheek wears an heavenly dye

Thy legs & thy arms are the marble o nature
Thy bosoms the seat & the pillow o joy
Come to my arms thou divinest young creature
And let me enfold thee all blushing & coy

From "The Wish"

My chamber window should oer look the east
That in delicious views my eyes might feast
There girt with crimson see the morning sun
Thro distant trees his journey just begun
Still mounting every moment stages higher
And as his height increases so the fire
At other times succeeds the vapouring mist
Hiding each object quite from east to west.
While other mornings shine with pearly dews
Then is the time to look for distant views.

(lines 79-88)

Somthing New (excerpt)

How varying is the taste of man
Still eager to pursue
That ever pleasing novelty
In meeting somthing new

In infancy the rage begins
(So tempting is the view)
Babes throw aside their once lov'd things
To sigh for somthing new

The hoop to day which boys are seen
So eager to pursue
To morrow lies a toy despis'd
Exchang'd for somthing new

Young miss's (if not catch'd in time)
-- Be lovers ere so true
Grow fickle tires & turns 'em off
To seek for somthing new

Old maids whom every hope forsakes
The self same end pursue
& put their wrinkl'd mouths in form
To look for somthing new

Autumn

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
The casement all the day
And from the mossy elm tree takes
The faded leaf away

Twirling it by the window pane
With thousand others down the lane
I love to see the shaking twig
Dance till the shut of eve

The sparrow on the cottage rig
Whose chirp would make believe
That spring was just now flirting by
In summers lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke
Curl upwards through the naked trees
The pigeons nestled round the coat
On dull november days like these

The cock upon the dunghill crowing
The mill sails on the heath agoing
The feather from the ravens breast
Falls on the stubble lea

The acorns near the old crows nest
Fall pattering down the tree
The grunting pigs that wait for all
Scramble and hurry where they fall

Left in the World Alone

Left in the world alone
Where nothing seems my own
And everything is weariness to me
'Tis a life without an end
'Tis a world without a friend
And everything is sorrowful I see

There's the crow upon the stack
And other birds all black
While november's frowning wearily
And the black-clouds dropping rain
'Till the floods hide half the plain
And everything is weariness to me

The sun shines wan and pale
Chill blows the northern gale
And odd leaves shake and shiver on the tree
While I am left alone
Chilled as a mossy stone
And all the world is frowning over me

Written in November

Autumn I love thy latter end to view
In cold novembers day so bleak & bare
When like lifes dwindld thread worn nearly thro
Wi lingering pottering pace & head bleachd bare
Thou like an old man bids the world adieu
I love thee well & often when a child
Have roamd the bare brown heath a flower to find
& in the moss clad vale & wood bank wild
Have cropt the little bell flowers paley blue
That trembling peept the sheltering bush behind
When winnowing north winds cold & blealy blew
How have I joyd wi dithering hands to find
Each fading flower & still how sweet the blast
Would bleak November’s hour restore the joy that’s past