Sunday Poetry - John Clare

The UK seems to be experiencing a hot summer this year & many people are enjoying the heat. It's the middle of winter here & I'm loving the cold & the rain but, each to their own!
I thought I would celebrate the warmth of summer for those of you in the North with this poem, Summer Tints, by John Clare.

How sweet I've wander'd bosom-deep in grain,
When Summer's mellowing pencil sweeps his shade
Of ripening tinges o'er the checquer'd plain:
Light tawny oat-lands with a yellow blade;
And bearded corn, like armies on parade;
Beans lightly scorch'd, that still preserve their green;
And nodding lands of wheat in bleachy brown;
And streaking banks, where many a maid and clown
Contrast a sweetness to the rural scene,--
Forming the little haycocks up and down:
While o'er the face of nature softly swept
The ling'ring wind, mixing the brown and green
So sweet, that shepherds from their bowers have crept,
And stood delighted musing o'er the scene.

For those of us in the South or for anyone not enjoying the hot weather, here's Emmonsail's Heath in Winter.

I love to see the old heath's withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling,
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow and flaps its melancholy wing,
An oddling crow in idle motion swing
On the half-rotten ash-tree's topmost twig,
Beside whose trunk the gypsy makes his bed.
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread;
The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn
And for the haw round fields and closen rove,
And coy bumbarrels, twenty in a drove,
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
And hang on little twigs and start again.

Sunday Poetry - John Clare

I've been reading Ronald Blythe's memoir, The Time by the Sea, & it made me think of John Clare, a poet much loved by Blythe. I also seem to be continuing the themes of melancholy & parting that feature in the poems by Byron & Keats that I've posted in the last couple of weeks. A young girl parting from her loved one, a soldier off to war, knowing that they will probably never meet again.

Sad was the day when my Willie did leave me,
Sad was the moments that winged him away,
And oh most distressing and most it did grieve me
To witness his looks when I pressed him to stay!
It hurt him to think that in vain was my crying,
Which I couldn't help though I knew it so too -
The trumpets all sounding the colours all flying
A soldier my Willie he couldn't but go.

The youths never heeding tomorrow and danger
Were laughing and toasting their girls o'er their beer,
But oh my poor Willie just like a lost stranger
Stood speechless among them half-dead as it were!
He kissed me - 'twas all - not a word when he started,
And oh in his silence too much I could see:
He knew for a truth, and he knew broken-hearted,
That kiss was the last he should ever give me.

Sunday Poetry - John Clare

This will be the final John Clare poem in Sunday Poetry for a while. As well as the 1968 Penguin Book of Romantic Verse (where the last few week's poems have come from) I also own a much newer & bigger anthology, The New Penguin Book of Romantic Verse. This 2001 anthology has impeccably Romantic credentials as it was edited by Jonathan Wordsworth (descended from the poet's brother, Christopher) & his wife, Jessica. This anthology is organized by theme so I thought I would choose a few poems from each section & see how many favourites I can find, along with some new poems. This book has a much greater proportion of poems by women. Actually, that's not such an achievement as there are no poems by women in the 1960s anthology which is sad but unsurprising.

This poem, An Invite, to Eternity, is reminiscent of old ballads like The Unquiet Grave, in which the dead speak to those left behind.

Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor life nor light to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity,
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not!

Say, maiden; wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be -
That was and is not -yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?

Sunday Poetry - John Clare

Another poem by John Clare. This one's a melancholy tale of unspoken love, secrecy & shyness. As always, Clare's descriptions of the natural world are lovely.

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where'er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good-bye.

I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till e'en the breeze would knock me down;
The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,
The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.

Sunday Poetry - John Clare

Another poem by John Clare this week. After over a week of hot days & no rain in sight, I'm looking for a little wish fulfillment. A cool early Spring day in the English countryside is just what I need to imagine during a Melbourne summer. The Pale Sun is something I can only dream about at this time of year.
I've also discovered this lovely blog about the life & works of John Clare. I'm going to enjoy exploring the archive over the next little while.

Pale sunbeams gleam
That nurtur a few flowers
Pilewort & daisey & a sprig o' green
On whitethorn bushes
In the leaf srewn hedge

These harbingers
Tell spring is coming fast
& these the schoolboy marks
& wastes an hour from school
Agen the old pasture hedge

Cropping the daisey
& the pilewort flowers
Pleased with the Spring & all he looks upon
He opes his spelling book
& hides her blossoms there

Shadows fall dark
Like black in the pale sun
& lye the bleak day long
Like black stock under hedges
& bare wind rocked trees

'Tis chill but pleasant - 
In the hedge bottom lined
With brown seer leaves the last
Year littered there & left
Mopes the hedge sparrow

With trembling wings & cheeps
Its welcome to pale sunbeams
Creeping through - & further on
Made of green moss
The nest & green-blue eggs are seen

All token spring & every day
Green & more green hedges & close
& everywhere appears -
Still 'tis March
But still that March is Spring

Sunday Poetry - John Clare

I've decided to start the New Year with some Romantic poetry. I have a copy of the Penguin Book of Romantic Verse edited by David Wright & published in 1968 so I'll be choosing my Sunday poetry from here for the next little while.

I became interested in John Clare last year when I chose one of his poems for this spot so here's another one. I tend towards the melancholy in my choices of poetry so I thought I should make a resolution to find something a little more cheerful & I think this lovely poem, Meet Me In The Green Glen, is perfect.

Love, meet me in the green glen,
    Beside the tall elm-tree,
Where the sweetbriar smells so sweet agen;
    There come with me.
        Meet me in the green glen.

Meet me at the sunset
    Down in the green glen,
Where we've often met
    By hawthorn-tree and foxes' den,
        Meet me in the green glen.

Meet me in the green glen,
    By sweetbriar bushes there;
Meet me by your own sen,
    Where the wild thyme blossoms fair.
        Meet me in the green glen.

Meet me by the sweetbriar,
    By the mole-hill swelling there;
When the west glows like a fire
    God's crimson bed is there.
        Meet me in the green glen.

Sunday Poetry - John Clare

This lovely poem, called First Love, seems to exemplify the sadness & melancholy of John Clare's poetry for me. Clare (picture from here) was parted from his first love, Mary, but often harked back to this period of his life when he was confined in an asylum.

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale,
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked 'what could I ail?'
My life and all seemed turned to clay.


And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my sight away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start;
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.


Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice
And love's appeal to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before:
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.

Sunday poetry - John Clare

Penny left a comment on last week's Sunday Poetry post recommending this poem by John Clare (portrait from here). I'm up to the Romantic poets in my anthology but the book I'm taking my Sunday Poetry from (A Book of English Poetry collected by G B Harrison 1950) had no John Clare in it at all. So, I turned to another old anthology, The Penguin Book of English Romantic Verse ed by David Wright (1968) & there it was. Was Clare omitted from the earlier book (the first edition of Harrison's book was published in 1937, my copy is a reprint of the revised edition) from lack of space or was he just not in fashion? His work was forgotten for over a hundred years after his death & only rediscovered in the middle of the 20th century.

Clare was well-known as a rural poet in the tradition of Robert Burns & he was deeply attached to his native village in Northamptonshire. When he moved only a few miles away, he was very much affected & his poems began to reflect this sense of loss. He was parted from his first love, Mary Joyce, & although he married another woman, he harked back to Mary during his periods of mental illness, imagining he was married to her. He spent almost the last 20 years of his life in an asylum & his poetry is full of lost love as well as his loss of the English countryside. I Am is a poem full of melancholy, loneliness & longing for peace and, as Penny said, written when the poet was in the asylum.

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 oblivions host,
Like shadows in love - frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live like vapours tost.


Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest - that I love the best -
Are strange - nay, rather stranger than the rest.


I long for scenes where man has never trod,
A place where woman never smiled 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.