O she was more than fair - divinely fair

O she was more then fair — divinely fair
Can language paint the soul in those blue eyes
Can fancy read the feelings painted there
— Those hills of snow that on her bosom lies
Or beauty speak for all those sweet replies
That through loves visions like the sun is breaking
Wakeing new hopes & fears & stifled sighs
From first love's dreame's my love is scarcely waking
The wounds might heal but still the heart is aching

Her looks was like the spring her very voice
Was springs own music more then song to me
Choice of my boyhood nay my souls first choice
From her sweet thralldom I am never free
Yet here my prison is a spring to me
Past memories bloom like flowers where e'er I rove
My very bondage though in snares — is free
I love to stretch me in this shadey Grove
& muse upon the memories of love

Child Harold (lines 1256 - 1273)

from "Solitude"

Wishing to despise as then
Brunts of fate, and scorn of men;
When fate's demons thus intrude,
Then I seek thee, Solitude,
Where the abbey's height appears
Hoary 'neath a weight of years;
Where the mouldering walls are seen
Hung with pellitory green;
Where the steeple's taper stretch
Tires the eye its length to reach,
Dizzy, nauntling high and proud,
Top-stone losing in a cloud;
Where the cross, to time resign'd,
Creaking harshly in the wind,
Crowning high the rifted dome,
Points the pilgrim's wish'd-for home;
While the look fear turns away,
Shuddering at its dread decay.
There let me my peace pursue
'Neath the shades of gloomy yew,
Doleful hung with mourning green,
Suiting well the solemn scene;
There, that I may learn to scan
Mites illustrious, called man,
Turn with thee the nettles by
Where the grave-stone meets the eye,
Soon, full soon to read and see
That all below is vanity.

(lines 183-210)

Clare's Grave

With another Clare Festival approaching it may be timely to remind pilgrims to Clare's grave that the designer of Clare's very distinctive gravestone, memorably described by Charles Causley* as 'an upturned stone boat', was one Michael Drury, a Lincoln architect, who happens to have been a son of Edward Bell Drury, the Stamford bookseller, originally from Lincoln, who alerted his publisher cousin John Taylor to Clare's talents. There is a nice symmetry in the fact that Drury senior first 'discovered' the poet and Drury junior commemorated his last resting place.

I owe this information to a clipping from the Stamford Mercury, 13 August 1864, preserved in a notebook in the Godfrey Collection at Peterborough Museum (PMS G2, p.21).

Edward Drury also had a brother named Michael, a Philadelphia bookseller, mentioned on p.156 of Jonathan Bate's biography. There was also a George Drury, of Barholm, near Market Deeping, on the committee that raised funds for the gravestone by public subscription, and it seems likely that he too belonged to this family. A quick search of the UK Telephone Directory shows that Drury is still quite a common name in Lincolnshire, and chances are the family line continues to this day. Perhaps at some future Festival we may even see Clare descendants and Drury descendants converge at the graveside, which would be a very fitting communion indeed.

Greg Crossan
John Clare Society Newsletter No 92 (June 2006)

* “Helpston”

Hills sank like green fleets on the land's long rim
About the village of toast-coloured stone.
Leaving the car beside the Blue Bell, we
Walked with a clutch of flowers the clear lane
Towards the grave.

It was well combed, and quiet as before.
An upturned stone boat
Beached at God's thick door.
Only the water in the spiked grave-pot
Smelt sourly of death.
Yet no wind seemed to blow
From off the fen or sea
The flowers flickered in the painted pot
Like green antennae,
As though John Clare from a sounding skull
Brim with a hundred years of dirt and stone
Signalled to us;
And light suddenly breathed
Over the plain.

Later, drinking whisky in The Bull at Peterborough,
The face of the poet
Lying out on the rigid plain
Stared at me
As clearly as it once stared through
The glass coffin-lid
In the church-side pub on his burial day:
Head visible, to prove
The bulging brain was not taken away
By surgeons, digging through the bone and hair
As if to find poems still
Beating there;
Then, like an anchor, to be lowered fast
Out of creation's pain, the stropping wind,
Deep out of sight, into the world's mind.

Charles Causley

[Cornishman Charles Causley died on November 4, 2003, at the age of 86.]

The red bagged bee...

The red bagged bee on never weary wing
Pipe's his small trumpet round the early flowers
& the white nettles by the hedge in spring
Hears his low music all the sunny hours
Till clouds come on & leaves the falling showers
Herald of spring & music of wild blooms
It seems the minstrel of springs early flowers
On banks where the red nettle flowers it comes
& there all the long sunny morning hums

On a Journey: Fragment

The coy hedge-sparrow flaps her wing
And hops about the hedges,
And soon to brood the early spring
Will have some downy pledges;
They'll lift their heads and cree and crow
Hid by the dyke's bulrushes,
Almost before the winter haw
Has left the leafing bushes.

The blackbird's wing was drabbling wet
With the shower so sudden coming
As on the whitethorn bush he sat
Where the wild white rose was blooming;
The young ones in a nest of love,
Where the hedge the bramble hopples,
Cree'd, cawed and stretched their necks above
With their down all hung with dropples.

The jay set up his copple crown
And screamed to see a stranger
And swopt and hurried up and down
To warn the birds of danger;
And magpies where the spinney was
Noised five and six together,
While patiently the woodman's ass
Stood stretching round his tether.

The World's End

To hunt birds' nests on summer morns,
So far my leisure seemed to run,
I've paused to wonder where I'd got
And thought I'd got beyond the sun;
It seemed to rise another way,
The very world's end seemed as near;
Some strange bush pointed where it lay,
So back I turned for very fear
With eager haste and wonder-struck,
Pursued as by a dreaded spell,
Till home—Oh, could I write a book,
I thought, what wonders I could tell!
And when again I left the town
To the world's end I thought I'd go
And o'er the brink just peep adown
To see the mighty depths below.

John Clare and the folk tradition

George Deacon's thesis is that John Clare, the Northamptonshire poet, was a product of the folk tradition. His evidence for this is largely taken from the Clare manuscripts at Northampton and Peterborough Libraries. From these sources he has reproduced Clare's collections of song texts, his two tune-books for the fiddle, and relevant references in his poetry, autobiographical notes, and correspondence, including mention of customs. These records are prefaced by an important essay that successfully relates Clare's poetry to the oral tradition in which he grew up, in which he participated, and of which he was an observer. Deacon asserts, “His poetry has a musicaliiy redolent of the tunes he played and assiduously collected, while its rhythm and metre are as much a product of ballad and song as they are of a conscious attempt to innovate” (p. 10). The book is a tour de force, meticulously edited and annotated, and the remarks that follow should be seen in this context.

Without doubt John Clare was a remarkable man and his legacy provides us with a unique insight into the village culture of Helpston in the early nineteenth century. There is justification to Deacon's claim that Clare was almost certainly the first song collector in southern England, preceding John Broadwood by twenty or more years. Following the Scottish tradition of publishing ballad collections exemplified by Allan Cunningham, Tannahill, and Burns, Clare set about preparing his own. His primary source was his parents, but he also included songs from a shoemaker and a shepherd. Most of the fifty-two songs are unsourced, and many of these show the signs of Clare's own hand to a greater or lesser extent. While it is to be regretted that Clare's documentation is so sparse and that he has failed to distinguish between accurate oral record and his own input, we cannot overlook the fact that Clare was working from within the tradition. After all, if Clare had not been the poet, he would certainty never have bothered recording any songs, and we would have missed out on such classic items as ‘The Maid of Ocram Or Lord Gregory,' his version of' ‘Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires,' or 'The False Knight's Tradegy'.

A review of George Deacon’s seminal book
“John Clare and the folk tradition”
Sinclair Browne (1983)
(Unknown Source)


The book is still available - click on the link on the left.

The Maple Tree

The maple with its tassel flowers of green,
That turns to red a staghorn-shaped seed,
Just spreading out its scolloped leaves is seen,
Of yellowish hue, yet beautifully green;
Bark ribbed like corderoy in seamy screed,
That farther up the stem is smoother seen,
Where the white hemlock with white umbel flowers
Up each spread stoven to the branches towers;
And moss around the stoven spreads, dark green,
And blotched leaved orchis, and the blue bell flowers;
Thickly they grow and neath the leaves are seen;
I love to see them gemmed with morning hours,
I love the lone green places where they be,
And the sweet clothing of the maple tree.

June

[Image: The Shepherd’s Calendar (June) – Carry Akroyd]

The hay time butterflyes dance up and down
And gads that teaze like whasps the timid maid
And drive the herdboys cows to pond and shade
Who when his dogs assistance fails to stop
Is forcd his half made oaten pipes to drop
And start and halloo thro the dancing heat
To keep their gadding tumult from the wheat
Who in their rage will dangers overlook
And leap like hunters oer the pasture brook
Brushing thro blossomd beans in maddening haste
And stroying corn they scarce can stop to taste
Labour pursues its toil in weary mood
And feign woud rest wi shadows in the wood
The mowing gangs bend oer the beeded grass
Where oft the gipseys hungry journeying ass
Will turn its wishes from the meadow paths
Listning the rustle of the falling swaths

John Clare – The Shepherd’s Calendar (June - excerpt)

Bright June has come, and the barley's silken beard grows long and green, and on Lolham Bridge Field it nods and dances to every shifting whim of the wind.

From dawn to dusk the frantic bees wallow in fox-glove and bean flower as though no glut of labour or journeying could fill their store with honey enough for all. And from dawn to dusk, when the sun shines, the mowing teams are out upon Heath Field. The swish of their curved scythes is the sound of June breathing and the rasp of the whet-stones against the iron blades is the sound of June coughing. For sickness and health are as rain and shine, and all men know that for every week of fine weather there will be a debt to pay in slanting showers. And a closer look betrays the rotten teeth, the small-pox scars, the twisted spines, the swollen joints and all the curses that hard labour and a scant wage bring.

Parker Clare swings his blade in the mowing line, as ready as any though stiffer than some. From time to time he calls a halt to mop his face. Around him the cut swathes sweeten the air. Behind him the raking women turn and toss yesterday's labour and at the far end of the field the lifted hay-cocks wait upon the wain.

On Woodcroft Field Ann and Sophie Clare have been gathering and shelling beans with the other women in John Close's employ, Sophie's ears acute to the rise and fall of the gossip that surrounds her, gleaning what she can.

John has joined a shearing team, working his way from farm to farm these last five weeks.

Such is the timeless round of summer labour upon the face of the parish, an old, hard, familiar melody. But there is a new sound alongside the sighing of the scythe, the bleating of the sheep and the rising and falling of the talk. It is the sound of posts being hammered into the ground and measuring chains pulled tight between. The sound of ropes being stretched across fields and commons where new boundaries will fall, of men shouting from mark to mark where roads will be cut or streams straightened, of splashes of red paint being daubed onto trees that are to be felled. The Earl of Fitzwilliam has sent surveyors out to mark the lie of the land for enclosure. Slowly, from day to day, a new pattern of squares, fine as the web of a net or a snare, is set across the looping, winding limbs of the parish.

Hugh Lupton – The Ballad of John Clare (Chapter 4)

Farewell to love...

Farewell to love and all I see
In these dull English skies
For all the world turns round wi' me
Lost in thy two bright eyes

So fare-thee-well—a lover lost
I go where none can blame
And dearly shall I rue the cost
And scarcely keep a name

The little flowers and wild birds song
I leave them far away
In other lands and other tongues
A lonely bard to stray

In other lands I'll think of thee
Nor mortal love adore
The north star must its temple be
Where nought can change no more

The Pansy

It does me good, thou flower of spring,

Thy blossoms to behold;

Thou bloom'st when birds begin to sing,

In purple and in gold.

Along the garden-beds so neat

Thy flowers their blooms display,

When sparrows chirp and lambkins bleat

And hopes look up for May.

Then Emma thinks the heart's-ease blooms

When she the pansy sees;

But I see sleep among the tombs,

With heart that's ill at ease,

That asks for what it's lost and loved—

A quiet home and friends,

Where nature's feelings were approved

And peace made life amends;

Where love was all I had to sing,

And there these pansy flowers

Came shining in the dews of spring

To cheer the sunny hours.

But years may pass, as they have passed,

And I may hope in vain,

With hopes that linger to the last,

To see them bloom again.

The fairest flower that ever bloomed,

Or garden ever blest,

Looks cold to care, and ne'er was doomed

To ease the heart's unrest.

The heart's-ease in her happy hour

Might Emma's fancy please,

But life will often pluck the flower

And feel but ill at ease.

The memory of Love

Her face to me was memory for life
Her looks her ways in winning forms would steal
& left a pain I never ceased to feel
Her very voice would memory’s partner be
& music lingered in the sound with me
Her troubling form was long about my sight
O’er day dreams dozing or in sleep by night
My dreams wore constantly that pleasing pain
The face of her I loved & could not gain

An Acroustic

Matchless the maid whom I so highly prize
In whom my evry hope encenter'd lies
She seems to me the fairest of the fair
She's more to me then hurds to mizards are
But O alas my love can't meet return
Eternally in secresy I burn
Taught by those friends to Silence.—Fear & shame
Secret I sigh for what I durst not name
Yet when that form appears which all excels
Nature my love by conscious blushes tells
E'en when her lovly face from sight retires
Wish after wish in fruitles hopes expires
But now I will (tho fearfull) tell my mind
O then sweet maiden tender prove & kind
Nor treat my humble suit with slight disdain
A smart most piercing to a love-sick swain
So lovly maid if you will tender prove
Hear him who fond (tho truley) tells his love
Trust swains no more who oft in outward shew
On lies depend to gain the point in view
No turn from these to him that loves thee true

from "Solitude"

NOW as even's warning bell
Rings the day's departing knell,

Leaving me from labour free,
Solitude, I'll walk with thee:

Whether 'side the woods we rove,
Or sweep beneath the willow grove;

Whether sauntering we proceed
'Cross the green, or down the mead;

Whether, sitting down, we look
On the bubbles of the brook;

Whether, curious, waste an hour,
Pausing o'er each tasty flower;

Or, expounding nature's spells,
From the sand pick out the shells;

Or, while lingering by the streams,
Where more sweet the music seems,

Listen to the soft'ning swells
Of some distant chiming bells

Mellowing sweetly on the breeze,
Rising, falling by degrees,

Dying now, then wak'd again
In full many a 'witching strain,

Sounding, as the gale flits by,
Flats and sharps of melody.

(lines 1 - 24)

The Gardener's Bonny Daughter (Click here)

A live recording of 'The Gardener's Bonny Daughter' from the Albion Band.  There have of course been many of Clare's songs and poems set to music, but few in the idiom that he would have known and loved.  Here, in a live album, Vikki Clayton sings her own arrangement of the song.

Slight changes from Clare's 'lyrics', but a treat!

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 Gardner's 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

from "The Pasture"

I think when the glad shepherd lay
On the velvet sward stretched, for a bed,
On the bosom of sunshiny May,
While a hillock supported his head.

I think when, in weeding, the maid
Made choice of a hill for her seat;
When the winds so deliciously played
In her curls, 'mid her blushes so sweet.

I think of gay groups in the shade,
In hay-time, with noise never still,
When the short sward their gay cushions made.
And their dinner was spread on a hill.

I think when, in harvest, folks lay
Underneath the green shade of a tree,
While the children were busy at play,
Running round the huge trunk in their glee.

Joy shouted wherever I went;
And e'en now such a freshness it yields,
I could fancy, with books and a tent,
What delight we could find in the fields.

A Walk on High Beach, Loughton

I loved the Forest walks and beechen woods,
Where pleasant Stockdale showed me far away
Wild Enfield Chase, and pleasant Edmonton;
While Giant London, known to all the world,
Was nothing but a guess among the trees,
Though only half a day from where we stood.
Such is ambition! only great at home,
And hardly known to quiet and repose.
I loved the Forest walk, and often stood
To hear boys halloo to their wilder sheep;
While quiet Turner sat upon a hill,
And gentle Howard cut his sticks and sang.
The Sticker trailed her faggot on the ground,
And all the Forest seemed to live with joy.

May

[Image: The Shepherd’s Calendar (May) – Carry Akroyd]

Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise

John Clare – The Shepherd’s Calendar (May - excerpt)

This fortnight last John has worked the gardens of John Close's farm. Thistle, campion, poppy, fumitory, yellow charlock, pimpernel, groundsel, all must yield to the hoe before they bloom and seed and overwhelm, for all they're the common flowers that he loves best. But a man must work and John must sentence them as weeds and condemn them to have their green grip upon the soil scratched away. And having served his time as executioner, must trudge back to Close's yard, clean his hoe and take his place in line to receive his paltry wage.

And now, his pocket lined with pennies, he sought his solace.

Once inside the woods and shaken free of the ceaseless gossip and the women's shrill laughter and the hacking cough of poor Jem Farrar. Once he was free of the tireless scratching of iron to stony soil and the day's slate had been wiped clean by sweet solitude, John Clare set his mind to the next day's holiday.

From the willows bordering Round Oak Water he cut slim withies and wound them together into a loop. From the may the wood's margin he found sprays that were breaking into early white blossom...

Hugh Lupton – The Ballad of John Clare (Chapter 2)

Graves of Infants

Infants' gravemounds are steps of angels, where
Earth's brightest gems of innocence repose.
God is their parent, so they need no tear;
He takes them to his bosom from earth's woes,
A bud their lifetime and a flower their close.
Their spirits are the Iris of the skies,
Needing no prayers; a sunset's happy close.
Gone are the bright rays of their soft blue eyes;
Flowers weep in dew-drops o'er them, and the gale gently sighs.

Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower,
Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye.
Each death
Was tolled on flowers as Summer gales went by.
They bowed and trembled, yet they heaved no sigh,
And the sun smiled to show the end was well.
Infants have nought to weep for ere they die;
All prayers are needless, beads they need not tell,
White flowers their mourners are, Nature their passing bell.

from Child Harold

I rest my wearied life in these sweet fields
Reflecting every smile in natures face
& much of joy this grass — These hedges yields
Not found in citys where crowds daily trace
Heart pleasures there hath no abideing place
The star gemmed early morn the silent even
Hath pleasures that our broken hopes deface
To love too well leaves nought to be forgiven
The Gates of Eden is the bounds of heaven

(lines 1222 to 1230)