Christmas (7)

Now tis Winter plainly shown by the icicles which hang pendant from the low mossy eaves of the woodmans cottage -- who now with his mattocks and leather doublet is ready to begin his winters labour to cut down the wood in the still forrest and plash [shape] the hedge to stand as a fence against intruding cattle -- He and he only knows & sees the beauties & horrors of winter mingled together tho the short day – 

 

 For the shepherd cuts his journeys short & now only visits his flock on nescessity – Croodling with his hands in his pockets and his crook under his arms he tramples the frosty plain with dithering haste glad and eager to return to the warm corner of his cottage fire -- His favorite tree (where he was wont in summer to stretch his limbs in idle dalliance on the flowrey turf beneath its cooling shade) is now left desolate robbed both of its idle shepherd & the green foliage that clothd its summer boughs – 

 

 The Milk-boy too in his morning rambles no longer saunters to the pasture as he had used to do in summer (pausing on every pathway flower & swanking idly along; often staring with open mouth thoughtlessly musing on the heavens as if he could wish for somthing in the passing clouds leaning his lazy sides gainst everystile he come{s} to and can never get his heavy cloutred shoon over the lowest without resting      sighing as he retires with the deepest regret to leave such easy chairs) – 

 

But now in hasty claumping tried finding nothing but cold & snow to pause on he never stops to cawm his thoughtless head about – but shuffling along he make{s} the frosty plain reecho with his hasty bruzzing foot-steps – the stiles which where (were) so hard to climb over in summer are now scald (scaled) with the greatest ease and he wishes for nothing but his journey's end – prefering the sheltering warm confines of the farm yard and stables before the frozen plain – 

 

 But tis not so with the woodman no He glories in the weather & rising early in the dark morning ere the copper colored streaks appear to spread over the eastern skie – he pursues his journey over many new made hills and valleys of new fallen snow with “heart felt glee” cheering his rugged way with the oft repeated scrap of an harmless old song making the rihmy feathered thickets rezound in rural melody      Thus he cheerfully sallutes the winter morning till at length [he] enters the wild forrest – Here he brushes along his well known winding pad and the many intricating turns that leads to its deepest recesses – and then the beauties of witherd nature “surround him on every side”

 

Beauties of a winter Forrest (excerpt)

Hidden Treasures (Arbour Editions) 2016/9

Christmas (6)

The holly bush a sober lump of green

Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown & grey

& smiles at winter be it eer so keen

With all the leafy luxury of May

& O it is delicious when the day

In winters loaded garment keenly blows

& turns her back on sudden falling snows

To go where gravel pathways creep between

Arches of evergreen that scarce let through

A single feather of the driving storm

& in the bitterest day that ever blew

The walk will find some places still and warm

Where dead leaves rustle sweet & give alarm

To little birds that flirt & start away

(Winter Walk - MP V 225)

Christmas (5)

Image: Carry Akroyd

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

('Child Harold - lines 901 to 909)

Christmas (4)

The final part of 'Christmas' from The Shepherd's Calendar.  Typical of Clare that there is a barbed sting in the last 4 verses: the flight of those of privilege to poetry as their only real 'authentic' celebration of Christmas?  Finding for me an echo in 2021 in the popular celebration of 'the holidays' in warm and secure 'tradition', but without the content.

The wooden horse with arching head,
Drawn upon wheels around the room,
The gilded coach of gingerbread,
And many-colour'd sugar-plum,
Gilt-cover'd books for pictures sought,
Or stories childhood loves to tell,
With many an urgent promise bought,
To get to-morrow's lesson well.

And many a thing, a minute's sport,
Left broken on the sanded floor,
When we would leave our play, and court
Our parents' promises for more.
Tho' manhood bids such raptures die,
And throws such toys aside as vain,
Yet memory loves to turn her eye,
And count past pleasures o'er again.

Around the glowing hearth at night,
The harmless laugh and winter tale
Go round, while parting friends delight
To toast each other o'er their ale;
The cotter oft with quiet zeal
Will musing o'er his Bible lean;
While in the dark the lovers steal
To kiss and toy behind the screen.

Old customs! Oh! I love the sound,
However simple they may be:
Whate'er with time hath sanction found,
Is welcome and is dear to me.
Pride grows above simplicity,
And spurns them from her haughty mind,
And soon the poet's song will be
The only refuge they can find.

The Shepherd's Calendar
December (lines 97 - 128)

Coleridge or Clare?

Fairly amused to find this in an email from a friend (I live in Ottery St. Mary the birthplace of Coleridge):

"Entry on Samuel Taylor Coleridge fot the 3 volume 'Thoemmes Dictionary of British Classicists' (Bloomsbury / Thoemmes 2004). The entry focuses on Coleridge's classical scholarship as influenced by his wider metaphysical views of the importance of language and philological research as the keys to understanding western culture. Particular attention is given to the ways in which Coleridge's philosophy of language mediated his theological views and his understanding of both myth and race."

Clare? He was dragged up but wrote the most sublime poetry. One of the main reasons I love his work is precisely because you don't need a Classical, elitist education to understand it. Clare tears your heart apart, producing bright shattered pieces of glass which dazzle the mind lost in poetic darkness and fills it with a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours. Oh! and he wrote the most prescient prophetical poetic words, and he shares my understanding of race too.

Swamps of wild rush beds...

There are few places in England today that are remotely like the 'pre-enclosure' heaths that just 200 years ago would have been common. I am fortunate to live within a mile or so of one such surviving heath ~ Woodbury Commons ~ and yesterday spent a happy morning wandering through its "wild rush beds and sloughs squashy traces". Clare's poem describes almost exactly what I walked through. A stunning landscape, never cultivated, that Clare would instantly recognise as akin to his own 'Helpston' Commons.

~~ Double Click on my photo for the full effect ~~

Swamps of wild rush beds & sloughs squashy traces
Grounds of rough fallows wi thistle & weed
Flats & low vallies of king cups & daiseys
Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed

Ye commons left free in the rude rags of nature
Ye brown heaths be cloathed in furze as ye be
My wild eye in rapture adores e'ery feature
Yere as dear as this heart in my bosom to me

O native endearments I woud not forsake ye
I woud not forsake ye for sweetest of scenes
For sweetest of gardens that nature coud make me
I woud not forsake ye dear vallies & greens

Tho nature neer dropt thee a cloud resting mountain
Nor water falls tumble their music to thee
Had nature denyd thee a bush tree or fountain
Thou still woud bin lovd as an eden by me

& long my dear vallies long long may ye flourish
Tho rush beds & thistles make most of your pride
May showers never fail the greens daiseys to nourish
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side

Yer skies may be gloomy & misty yer mornings
Yer flat swampy vallies unholsome may be
Still refuse of nature wi out her adorning[s]
Yere as dear as this heart in my bosom to me

... from October

Like to a painted map the landscape lies

And wild above shine the cloud thronged skies
The flying clouds urged on in swiftest pace
Like living things as if they runned a race
The winds that oer each coming tempest broods
Waking like spirits in their startling moods
Fluttering the sear leaves on the blackning lea
That litters under every fading tree
And pausing oft as falls the patting rain
Then gathering strength and twirling them again
Till drops the sudden calm—the hurried mill

Is stopt at once and every noise is still

The startld stockdove hurried wizzing bye

As the still hawk hangs oer him in the sky

Crows from the oak trees quawking as they spring

Dashing the acorns down wi beating wing

The Shepherd's Calendar, with Village Stories, and Other Poems (1827)

Blackberrying

I was out on the bike this morning, and I saw what I always consider the first fruits of autumn... blackberries.  My mind immediately went to Clare 200 years ago.

Blackberrying may appear to be a trivial subject in John Clare's poetry, generally referred to in passing as a characteristic autumnal activity, along with collecting elderberries to make wine, or hazel nuts, or mushrooms, or water-cress, or gathering rotten wood for the cottage-fire.  Essentially, it is not different from those other rural activities, which formed part of the cottager's economy in every part of Europe.

 

In the English fens, the inhabitants believed that the produce of the wasteland came to them by right.  Also in the fens: "At dusk, the passer-by might be confronted by silently-moving lines of shadowy figures, their backs bent under the weight of trunks and piled-up wood, as they headed for home". Clare referred to this wood as "rotten," omitting the word "wood" occasionally.

 

Where stickers stroll from day to day

And gather loads of rotten wood

And poachers left in safety stray

When midnight wears its deepest mood.

(from Walks in the Woods)

 

Clare's natural sympathies are with the "stickers," as he calls them: the "wood-men," on the other hand, the agents of the landowners, are "terrifying rascals" who "make a prison of the forrests and are its joalers." (sic) Just as the fallen wood belonged by right to the local inhabitants in the forests in all parts of Europe, so, according to popular belief, did the fallen wood belong to the locals near the oak woods of Stamford, and, in both regions, led to conflict between landowners and peasants, between the lord's steward and gypsies, or the woodman and villagers.

 

The conflict over wood extended to other products of the waste -- rabbits, hares, birds, withies, reeds, cresses, sloes, dewberries, nuts, mushrooms, elderberries, wild strawberries and blackberries, not to mention eggs, snakes, deer, eels, fish, and other edibles.  The custom of nutting, which Clare celebrates, was particularly disliked by the landowners, their servants and the tenant-farmers.  The pages of the Stamford Mercury and Drakard's Stamford News are filled with advertisements and articles regarding the practice; the Mercury, upholding the rights of the landowners, the News those of the rural population.

(Robinson & Rowe)

 

Clare's political comments (again)

Clare's comments aways seem fresh and topical whenever I read them... here are two, both of which are not too well known.

"I fear these tory radicals these out of place patriots (or parrots) who are so loud in their [complaints] against the present ministry       [They] only want to make paddles of the people to sail into their harbours of old sinecures    & then to be again themselves      they will be as silent of suffering people and all such alusions - as an old maid of her age or an old borough monger of common honesty"

"The wigs & torys may be better classified perhaps by the terms of outs & ins    for be they wigs or torys in those situations    the outs are always vociverators of “liberty” “cruelty of taxation” & “good of the people”    while the ins are inflexible tyrants & determined supporters of all that is oppressing & annoying to the people   & benefitting to themselves & their connections"

Likely written in the mid-1820s.

Not the 2021 Festival... BUT

Not the 2021 Festival

Some idea of what some of us be doing on the 9^th and 10th July @ Helpston

 

There being no John Clare Society Festival this year, a few of us will still be meeting to honour the great man this year at Helpston.  Not ‘official’ of course, but I wanted to attract everyone’s attention!  Anyone who would like to join us will be very welcome indeed, for any of the days.

 

Friday 9th

Helpston 2021. Folk I guess will be travelling on the 9th or 10th so several of us thought it might be good to start to gather in the Bluebell, after 7pm on the 9^th for a convivial chat over a drink. It has already been announced that there will be the usual ‘Folk Evening’ at the Bluebell that evening, always a treat.

Saturday 10th

We will be meeting at 10:00am – 10:15am at Butter Cross in the centre of Helpston.  From there we will walk across the road to St. Botolph’s Church and Clare’s grave.  New Rector Gary (a Clare fan of course) is conducting a ‘Clare BCP Service' at 11am.  Only 30 places available however.

 

After which can either have a bite at the BBell and then stroll around the village, OR...go by car to St. Andrew’s Church, Northborough (via Maxey) and Patty’s grave (and other members of the family) – and finally to St. Benedict’s Church, Glinton and Mary’s grave.  Be armed with something of Clare’s poems/prose to read by each graveside. We do not intend to lay wreaths just honour each individual in our own way.

 

I am informed that the Cottage will be open for drinks (according to their website).

 

That evening we will certainly will return to the Bluebell for dinner as many of us have in earlier years.

 

Well... something like that anyway.  I’ll being a few books for those wishing to catch up with the Chapbook series and would be happy to give a talk, or conduct the walk, if required!  Very open to suggestions.

 

Roger R.

There's something in the air...

180 years ago, a once famous poet decided to leave the asylum he lad lived in for three years, and walk the 80-odd miles up the Great North Road to his home in Northborough on the very fringe of the fens, just a few miles north of Peterborough.  The poet was of course, John Clare, and very troubled of mind he trekked the route virtually feeling his way, mile after mile.  In 2020/21 there must be something in the air, for there are four new books that explore his famous walk.  

The first, 'The Descending Spiral' (Roger Rowe : Arbour Editions Chapbook No.16), seeks to examine Clare's state of mind during that fateful year.  A year that saw him escape from one asylum in the Summer of 1841 only to be committed to another just after Christmas.  The evidence for this exploration of the confused mind of the poet was and is his vast output of verse and prose written during the year.

The second book, 'Love's Cold Returning' (Ellis Hall & Bridget Somekh' : Thirteen Eighty One Press), is an exploration in prose and poetry, with numerous colour photographs, seeking out the remains of Clare's world in the twenty-first century, of the route he took and the folk he met.  Moving from canals and aqueducts to gridlocked roads, from common land and open heath to land banks and intensive agriculture. Truly a detective story, a historical adventure and a meditation on love and loss.

The third book, 'Child Harold' (Roger Rowe : Arbour Editions Chapbook No.20), contains the actual text of Child Harold, it is believed for the first time in a dedicated volume.  The text is fairly well known, but it is ordered in the way outlined briefly by Clare scholar Salman Al Wasiti in an appendix to his PhD thesis in the 1970s.  The order of Clare's Child Harold poems has been debated for 50 years, but not published in this form until now.

The fourth book, to be published in June 2021, 'A Length of Road' (Robert Hamberger : John Murray Press), is a part memoir, part travel-writing, part literary criticism, it is a deeply profound and poetic exploration of class, gender, grief and sexuality through the author's own experiences and through the autobiographical writing of poet John Clare. Clare attempting to return to his idealized first love, Mary, unaware that she had died three years earlier.

Three Springs

[Image:  Glinton Church and graveyard]

For some while Clare found the reports of Mary Joyce's hard to believe, but then in late 1841 he wrote this... 

 

O Mary dear, three Springs have been

Three Summers too have blossomed here

Three blasting Winters crept between

Though absence is the most severe

Another Summer blooms in green

But Mary never once was seen

I've sought her in the fields & flowers

I've sought her in the forest groves

In avenues & shaded bowers

& every scene that Mary loves

E'en round her home I seek her here

But Mary’s absent every-where

‘Tis autumn & the rustling corn

Goes loaded on the creaking wain

I seek her in the early morn

But cannot meet her face again

Sweet Mary she is absent still

& much I fear she ever will

She died three years before, the day after Clare's birthday.

The Dream (excerpt)

Clare in a dark, dark mood...

Red lightning shot its flashes as they came

& passing clouds seemed kindling into flame 

& strong & stronger came the sulphury smell

With demons following in the breath of hell 

Laughing in mockery as the doomed complained 

Losing their pains in seeing others pained 

Fierce raged destruction sweeping oer the land 

& the last counted moment seemed at hand 

As scales near equal hang the earnest eyes 

In doubtful balance which shall fall or rise

So in the moment of that crashing blast 

Eyes hearts & hopes paused trembling for the last 

Loud burst the thunders clap & yawning rents 

Gashed the frail garments of the elements 

Then sudden whirlwinds winged with purple flame 

& lightnings flash in stronger terrors came 

Burning all life & nature where they fell 

& leaving earth as desolate as hell 

          
(lines 43-60)

The Ladybird

Ladybird ladybird where art thou gone

Ere the daisy was open or the rose it was spread 

On the cabbage flower early thy scarlet wings shone 

I saw thee creep off to the tulip bed

 

Ladybird ladybird where art thou flown 

Thou wert here in the morning before the sun shone 

Just now up the bowl o' the damson tree 

You passed the gold lichen & got to the grey 

Ladybird ladybird where can you be 

You climb up the tulips & then fly away 

 

You crept up the flowers while I plucked them just now 

& crept to the top & then flew from the flowers 

O sleep not so high as the damson tree bough 

But come from the dew i' the eldern tree bowers 

 

Here's lavender trees that would hide a lone mouse 

& lavender cotton wi' buttons o' gold 

& bushes o' lads love as dry as a house 

Here's red pinks & daisies so sweet to behold 

 

Ladybird ladybird come to thy nest 

The gold beds i' the rose o the sweet brier tree 

Wi rose coloured curtains to pleasure thee best 

Come Ladybird back to thy Garden & Me 

Pet MS C3 p189

The Moorhen and the Coot

Water Hen (Moorhen)
They are very common with us they make a nest of flags & bull rushes lines with grass & place it on a branch of thorn or willow that hangs over the stream & sometimes they make it on a clump of bull rushes in the middle of the stream they lay 9 eggs of a pale ash color spotted with lilac & jocculate colored spots the young ones are coveverd with brown down & take the water as soon as they get out of the shell They build in old pits in the meadows & in lone ponds about the closes if undisturbed…

Coot

The coot is like the more hen in its habits but larger it haunts lakes in meadows & solitary marshes but never builds its nest in branches that overhand the stream – it beats down a place in the midst of a reed bed or flag clump & rests its nest on them that touches the water it lays a great number of eggs as many as 12 or 14 larger then the more hens of a dirty white color spotted with dull spots the nest is made of flags bulrushes & grass like the more hens but it is wove together so stout as to resist the floods that happen to rise while she sits on her eggs & if the nest looses its hold of the rushes it floats on the top of the water like a boat & the old one is said to sit on it unconserned but I have not seen this tho I have found the nest landed on dry land as left by the floods with the eggs in it unmolested – the young ones take to the water as soon as they leave the shells & return to it at night like the more hen These birds are subject to lice which is so common to them that it has grown into a saying that any thing filthy is ‘as lousey as a coot’

Published in 'The Naked Fen' (Arbour Editions - 2021)

Content thy home be mine

 

Content thy home be mine
Do not my suit disdain
They who prefer the worlds to thine
Shall find it false & vain
From broken hopes & storms I flye
To hide me in thy peaceful sky

The flatterers meet with smiles
The cunning find their friends
Without I made my pilgrimage         
& so met small amends
I looked on fame as merits plea
Twas spring but winter frowned on me

To cringe to menial slaves
To worship titled power
To bend the knee to knaves
The price of earthly dower
Is what I neer was taught to pay
So empty [that] Ive turned away

Where pleasing is to flatter
Where loving is to hate
To praise what we at heart abuse
In love & church & state
This is the worlds but not my game
So poor I am without the shame

Tho flattery findeth friends
In every grade & state
& telling truth offends
The lowly & the great
Truth when the worst is bye shall rise
When follys vapour stinks & flyes

Prides pomps are shadows all
& Titles honours toys
Great births in merits oft are small
& all their praise but noise
Rainbows upon the skyes of May
Fade soon but scarce so soon as they

Then sweet content be thine to call
My sorrows as thy due
For grief is natural to all
As is to night the dew
As disappointed hopes decay
My heart shall struggle & be gay

As hopes from earth shall disappear
With thee Ill not despair
For thou canst look at heaven & see
The vagrant waiting there
& while thou smilest I shall see 

Thy lives last gift the best shall be

An amazing poem I transcribed in the Peterborough Archives. I could not find it published anywhere, so with Professor Eric's encouragement I published it myself in 'Hidden Treasures' (2016) - now in its 2nd edition (2019) - £6 (post free to the UK).

Early Morning Ploughboy

I thought I was up sooner than usual & before morning was on the stir out of doors     but I am pleasantly disappointed by the whistle of the ploughboy past the window making himself merry & trying to make the dull weather dance to a very pleasant tune which I know well & yet cannot recollect the song      but there are hundreds of these pleasant tunes familiar to the plough & the splashing stream & the little fields of spring that have lain out the brown rest of winter & grew into mirth with the sprouting grain    the cheep(?) of the sky lark    & the old songs & ballads that even accompany field(?) happiness in following the plough – by neither head(?) known   or noticed    by all the world beside

Pet MS B6 p99

The Tale of Fisher Man

A flight of fancy from John Clare

(recently uncovered)

 

When we recieve a favour from fortune we ought to make use of it as if it was the last we should meet with

 

Pet MS A18 p R254

Pet MS A42 p118 has ‘great’ inserted before ‘favour

 

 

A young fisherman who lived near the sea was very industrious & very thriving in his industry   but he thirsted after more wealth the possesion of which was his happ[i]ness     he had a cottage & land but he thought happiness dwelt in a pallace    who when he did ever so well he wished to do better     he was ever merry as a fisherman but he thought he should be happy as a gentleman

 

& rowing [on the sea] full of these fancys of [wealth]     one fine morning he   by accident   meet with an old man in a very old fashioned boat     the young man was going speedily with wind & tide but the old man was going as speedily against both  & the young man was astonished & thought if he had such a boat he should be next to a gentleman     ‘should you’    said the old man   tho the young fellows thoughts never rose so high as a whisper   yet the old man knew    & ‘if you should like my boat’   continued he   ‘you shall have it in exchange for yours & if [you] mind you may then very soon be a gentleman tho for my part I would rather have your lot then that of a gentlemans    for remember’ said the old man ‘the gods give mortals the liberty to amass riches but leave the use of them entirely to their own discretion &what is one mans food is another mans poison   as wants increase with means & temptations increse with pleasures’ – 

 

‘I change’   said the young [man] cutting the old mans story [short]   & the old man laughed loud as he leapt in to the young mans boat & as the young man got into his   the old man shook his head & bid him good speed – when they instantly parted the old man sped [at] a horse gallop with wind & tide   & the young man at double speed against both     this was the very contrary way to which he wished to proceed & he insatantly seized the rudder to manage the boat    when to his utter astonishment the boat shot plump down into the bottom of the sea as fast & head foremost as a race horse could gallop down the steep side of mount Atlas [into the valleys beneath it]    & fall as far    went the young man down & down until at last he rested on the sands & bottom of the immense ocean

 

he was astonished even to fear & saw the waters for miles above him & miles about him & yet he breathed as free from choaking as he did before he started [while dibbing cabbages in his garden]     how it could be he could not tell but so it was & as his eyes began to clear of their supprise as began to look about him to see the strange country he was in     & every thing was new & nothing like what he had seen before     there were large forrests as high as his own wood but leafey & when he came to examine them they were of pearls & corral    there were monsters of extradinary size & shape 

 

& what he had never expected to have accosted a lady approached him   not very handsome to be sure   for she had green hair   red eyes   & teeth of odd shape   yet she seemed young & well shaped     he accosted her but she seemed not to understand him & stooping as if to amuse her self by picking up things from the sand   she offered him a handful    & they were guineas & Portugal dollars & bright as if minted but yesterday     

 

he lay all this time leaning on his rudder & accepting them eagerly & was for leaping out to get more   but the moment he left the rudder    that moment   the boat sprang upward as light as an eggshell & was at the top of the sea in a thought    & at the mooring before his own cottage before he could think twice about the matter     as he leapt ashore with his money which    tho the lady held it in her hand    was as much as he could haul out in an old fish crail

 

his wife grew fearful at the sight of so much money & more fearful when he related the story   so he resolved not to let her know the extent of his treasure     he counted & counted & all to no purpose for it was without numbe[r]   & without end     so before he went [to] bed a thought struck him that the old man might call again & exchange boat[s]   & he instantly resolved to secure the rudder to make use of another oppertunity to get more    for tho he was now a gentleman    another such a hawl might make him a Lord     & the rudder was secured accordingly

 

he now got weary of fishing & looked out for amusments suitable to his station     his altered condition soon got into full cry   like a fox chase    & the county round was running over with 

guesses & surmises    for his money was wasted in foolish bargains & scattered like chaff before the wind   as he knew there was plenty [more] where that came from     he bought a horse & then he coveted a gig    & then he resolved on a coach      the very next sea voyage he made in his new boat   & he determed after a while to build a ship & become [a] merchant    but these large thoughts & extravagant notions just grew up in his thoughts as the last of his treasures became exausted     

 

so he out with his rudder & off to sea   where he was not long in dileberating before he laid hold of the rudder & down he went to the bottom   swifter then a shooting star from the sky     but this was not the spot on which he at first alighted   nor could he find it if he tryed    as there was nothing on the sea to mark – the scenes here was very different     the monsters were more numorious but much less & the groves

 

< there is a break in the manuscript at this point >

 

It resumes…

 

her journey     so she set out on her travels & passed for a fine woman     she took plenty of money & cloaths with her & even thought it rudeness to offer kindness without asking & never took it     so she went on & never talked to any one & thought of nothing but the prince & the journey     she soon found herself in the great forrest & when she could get no further she did as her sister bid her   but the bushes would not part & the brambles did not heed her fine cloaths   but tore her gown & would not let her go on     she did not know what to do & tryed to get back   when a great beast rushed past her & shook the trees & broke down the bushes     she was afraid but went on & met the old man

 

she soon got sight of the fine house & troops of men passed her & took no notice    & when she got there a man opened the gate    before she could ask anybody   & led her into the palace     what she saw would have written a book & she would soon have been lost   but a guide showed her the way     she thought she saw the old man go out of one of the rooms   who had got there before her

 

she was surprised to find a garden in the middle of the hall   & finer flowers then she had ever seen   when a fine man came out of a harbour & took her by the hand & bade her sit down     he talked to her as if he had known her for years & bade her make herself at home     & read her delightful stories out of books     every thing was brought [to] her before she seemed to want it   & when he took her into the house the servants waited on her as if she had been there before     & when she got up in a morning the finest dresses where laid ready   & she never knew how they were brought   & books where always laid on the table to read     the prince told her to take no notice of any body & she only thought of home now & then   & said nothing

 

Pet MS A18 p R254

Pet MS A42 p18

Pet MS B9 p51-3

 

 

For the tale of fisherman

 

It is a common saying that our wants increases with our means but it is a truer fact that our wants increase faster then our means -- & leave us in debt.

 

Pet MS A18 p R254

 

He was always thinking about being a gentleman & he thought if he could find a few pounds in a wreck to bring him a new suit of cloaths he should be one   & he soon found a treasure that not only bought him a suit   but purchases a lease of his cottage in the bargain   & now all that he wanted to make him a gentleman was anew boat     in this he was not long dissapointed for { blank ] old man

 

Pet MS A18 p R254

Morning

O now the crimson east its fire streak burning 


Tempts me to wander neath the blushing morn 


Winding the zig zag lane turning & turning 


As winds the crooked fences wilderd thorn 


O wheres the eye can gaze upon the dawn 
 

That flushes yon blue sky of cloudless heaven 


& gilds the prospect round below—what eye 


Can look upon the beautys morn has given 


& look unmovd, sure neer a soul thats living 


The soul must be extinct who passes bye 


I cannot pass the very bramble weeping 


Neath dewy tear drops that its spears surround 


Like harlots mockery on the wan cheek creeping 


Gilding the poison that is meant to wound 


I cannot pass the bent ere gales have shaken 


Its transient crowning off each point adorning 


But all the feelings of my soul awaken 


To own the witcheries of most lovley morning 


EP II 213

from 'Walking with John Clare'

Arbour Editions (2018)