1836 there was a brief period when the flowers made him a clear-minded
partaker of their magic, but the improvement was not maintained, and
little by little the condition of the poet became more widley known,
till at last it reached the ears of several patrons. These advised his
immediate removal to the asylum at Northampton, a plan to which Patty
refused her consent, for she still had hopes that if her husband were
allowed to range at his will and seek a cure from the pharmacy of
nature, he would beat the disease. But Patty’s love only delayed the
inevitable. CLARE, it is true, escaped from the control suggested by
Earl Fitzwilliam, who endeavoured to place the poet at Northampton,
where a weekly dole from the nobleman’s purse would secure for the
patient some additional comforts; but he had nowhither to fly from the
severe benefactions of the friends of former days. Mr. John Taylor and
others, willing to heed now that the catastrophe to which their silence
had contributed was come by its full dimensions, clubbed together and
sent CLARE to Dr. Allen’s private lunatic asylum in Epping Forest, where
all the resources of a humane treatment were brought to bear upon his
case. He wrote a great quantity of verse, some of which was of real
worth; tended the flowers in the garden beds; wandered about the woods
hour after hour, smoking, musing, or conversing with some companion. In
the middle of July, 1841, he escaped, and eventually reached Werrington,
a hamlet lying beyond Peterborough. His chief food had been grass; blood
was trickling from his feet when Patty took the wanderer into her arms
on the roadside at Werrington. After a day’s rest at Northborough, the
poet asked for pen and ink. When these were supplied he commenced to
write his Odyssey. It is almost safe to say that no more extraordinary
a document belongs to the personal history of any genius born within our
boundaries. It is of a character to draw tears from the unsympathetic;
your Scrooge, your Quilp, could scarcely withstand its pathos. Well
might Christopher North request us to be done with our comments upon
Scotland’s usage of Burns!
The rest is soon told. CLARE, though quite harmless, was not allowed to
pass free among the country sights and sounds. For some reason or other
he was haled to the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, where he
remained for twenty-two years, neglected alike by kindred, by friends,
and by the educated mob which had once made an idol of him. At the
Asylum he was treated with unvarying mildness by the authorities, who
refused to regulate the comforts of the poet by the eleven shillings a
week supplied by Earl Fitzwilliam. That their natures were not
subservient to coinage they proved by placing CLARE--poor,
eleven-shillings-a-week JOHN CLARE--among private patients in the best
ward.
The end came in 1864, and on the 25th of May in that year the mortal
remnant of JOHN CLARE, peasant and poet, was interred at Helpstone. When
Earl Fitzwilliam was asked for a grant of the few pounds necessary for
the burial of the poet in the churchyard so beloved by him during his
lifetime, he responded by suggesting that the funeral should be that of
a pauper at Northampton. However, a few friends of the right heart
prevented this disgrace, and the body rested where the soul had marked
out for it a spot of greenery and quietude.
That some of CLARE’S poems belong of right to the excellent things of
this earth admits of no dispute. A worshipper of Nature, by whom he was
surely appointed to be one of her chief historians, he revelled in her
manifestations, whether they showed in the higher heaven of blue or in
the lower heaven of green. He was, if the phrases may pass muster, a
gossip of the rainbow, a crony of the flowers. His heart was not less
slow than that of Wordsworth to leap up with joy when he beheld standing
across the sky, its feet treading the horizon, the most splendid
triumphal arch ever devised; and though it was not granted him to render
homage to his mistress in such large accents as those which fell from
the lips of his great brother in song, he paid for her love and favours
in music far from perishable, as may be noted by all who will read the
pieces that have been selected for this volume from the “Rural Muse.”
Who passes by any one of these poems because he early finds a flaw, does
so at his own danger, for each of them belongs, as I venture to assert,
so indubitably to the particular treasures of pastoral poetry that I
doubt whether the contradiction of our greatest critics could frighten
me from the attitude of admiration. To influences other than those of
the countryside, CLARE remained unimpressionable. To be in London was to
long for Helpstone, the commons and pools of which were more precious to
the poet than all the glories of Westminster Abbey, and the expanses of
the artificial lakes. While he sojourned in the Metropolis the right
spark would not fall from heaven, but as soon as he wandered once more
among the scenes so long familiar to him, the Muse was his unfailing
companion. Brooks glided in his songs; birds and clouds and leafage were
foundations without which he had been well-nigh powerless. He
understood, and was content with, his limits; and so perfectly did he
accomplish his duty as Nature’s cherished amanuensis, that it is no hard
task for a man with an ounce of imagination in his being to hear the
trickle of streams, and to fancy his study carpeted with grass, while
reading JOHN CLARE’S poems within four walls. As this volume of
selections is designed for the purpose of attracting readers to a poet
whose appreciative receipts from his posterity are sadly deficient in
quantity, the publisher has thought well to ask from me the tale of
CLARE’S life, rather than my views of the poet’s work and its effect
upon his successors in the production of poetry dealing almost
exclusively with the vowels and consonants in Nature’s mighty alphabet.
Enough has been said to prove the writer no half-hearted advocate; and
if these few pages serve to increase the number of CLARE’S friends, he
will be more than satisfied, happy in the thought that he has been the
means of introducing readers to poetry as gentle as it is healing, as
simple as it is sincere. Touching its wholesomeness, how could it fail
to delight in this respect when the chief of its constituent parts were
the large and lovely expressions of Nature’s handicraft? JOHN CLARE’S
gift fell upon him direct from the skies. It came clean; and clean he
kept it from the beginning to the end of his stewardship.
NORMAN GALE.
WHAT IS LIFE?
And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream.--
Its length?--A minute’s pause, a moment’s thought.
And happiness?--A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
What is vain Hope?--The puffing gale of morn,
That robs each flow’ret of its gem,--and dies;
A cobweb hiding disappointment’s thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
--And thou, O Trouble?--nothing can suppose
(And sure the Power of Wisdom only knows),
What need requireth thee:
So free and liberal as thy bounty flows,
Some necessary cause must surely be.
But disappointments, pains, and every woe
Devoted wretches feel,
The universal plagues of life below,
Are mysteries still ’neath Fate’s unbroken seal.
And what is Death? is still the cause unfound?
That dark, mysterious name of horrid sound?--
A long and lingering sleep, the weary crave.
And Peace? where can its happiness abound?--
No where at all, save heaven, and the grave.
Then what is Life?--When stripp’d of its disguise,
A thing to be desir’d it cannot be;
Since every thing that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
’Tis but a trial all must undergo;
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man’s denied to know,
Until he’s call’d to claim it in the skies.
ADDRESS TO PLENTY
IN WINTER
O thou Bliss! to riches known,
Stranger to the poor alone;
Giving most where none’s requir’d,
Leaving none where most’s desir’d;
Who, sworn friend to miser, keeps
Adding to his useless heaps
Gifts on gifts, profusely stor’d,
Till thousands swell the mouldy hoard:
While poor, shatter’d Poverty,
To advantage seen in me,
With his rags, his wants, and pain,
Waking pity but in vain,
Bowing, cringing at thy side,
Begs his mite, and is denied.
O, thou blessing! let not me
Tell, as vain, my wants to thee;
Thou, by name of Plenty stil’d
Fortune’s heir, her favourite child.
’Tis a maxim--hunger feed,
Give the needy when they need;
He, whom all profess to serve,
The same maxim did observe:
Their obedience here, how well,
Modern times will plainly tell.
Hear my wants, nor deem me bold,
Not without occasion told:
Hear one wish; nor fail to give;
Use me well, and bid me live.
’Tis not great, what I solicit:
Was it more, thou couldst not miss it:
Now the cutting Winter’s come,
’Tis but just to find a home,
In some shelter, dry and warm,
That will shield me from the storm.
Toiling in the naked fields,
Where no bush a shelter yields,
Needy Labour dithering stands,
Beats and blows his numbing hands;
And upon the crumping snows
Stamps, in vain, to warm his toes.
Leaves are fled, that once had power
To resist a summer shower;
And the wind so piercing blows,
Winnowing small the drifting snows,
The summer shade of loaded bough
Would vainly boast a shelter now:
Piercing snows so searching fall,
They sift a passage through them all.
Though all’s vain to keep him warm,
Poverty must brave the storm.
Friendship none, its aid to lend:
Health alone his only friend;
Granting leave to live in pain,
Giving strength to toil in vain;
To be, while winter’s horrors last,
The sport of every pelting blast.
Oh, sad sons of Poverty!
Victims doom’d to misery;
Who can paint what pain prevails
O’er that heart which Want assails?
Modest Shame the pain conceals:
No one knows, but he who feels.
O thou charm which Plenty crowns:
Fortune! smile, now Winter frowns:
Cast around a pitying eye!
Feed the hungry, ere they die.
Think, oh! think upon the poor,
Nor against them shut thy door:
Freely let thy bounty flow,
On the sons of Want and Woe.
Hills and dales no more are seen
In their dress of pleasing green;
Summer’s robes are all thrown by,
For the clothing of the sky;
Snows on snows in heaps combine,
Hillocks, rais’d as mountains, shine,
And at distance rising proud,
Each appears a fleecy cloud.
Plenty! now thy gifts bestow;
Exit bid to every woe:
Take me in, shut out the blast,
Make the doors and windows fast;
Place me in some corner, where,
Lolling in an elbow chair,
Happy, blest to my desire,
I may find a rouzing fire;
While in chimney-corner nigh,
Coal or wood, a fresh supply,
Ready stands for laying on,
Soon as t’other’s burnt and gone.
Now and then, as taste decreed
In a book a page I’d read;
And, inquiry to amuse,
Peep at something in the news;
See who’s married, and who’s dead,
And who, through bankrupt, beg their bread:
While on hob, or table nigh,
Just to drink before I’m dry,
A pitcher at my side should stand,
With the barrel nigh at hand,
Always ready as I will’d,
When ’twas empty, to be fill’d;
And, to be possess’d of all,
A corner cupboard in the wall,
With store of victuals lin’d complete,
That when hungry I might eat.
Then would I, in Plenty’s lap,
For the first time take a nap;
Falling back in easy lair,
Sweetly slumbering in my chair;
With no reflective thoughts to wake
Pains that cause my heart to ache,
Of contracted debts, long made,
In no prospect to be paid;
And, to Want, sad news severe,
Of provisions getting dear:
While the Winter, shocking sight,
Constant freezes day and night,
Deep and deeper falls the snow,
Labour’s slack, and wages low.
These, and more, the poor can tell,
Known, alas, by them too well,
Plenty! oh, if blest by thee,
Never more should trouble me.
Hours and weeks will sweetly glide,
Soft and smooth as flows the tide,
Where no stones or choaking grass
Force a curve ere it can pass:
And as happy, and as blest,
As beasts drop them down to rest,
When in pastures, at their will,
They have roam’d and eat their fill;
Soft as nights in summer creep,
So should I then fall asleep;
While sweet visions of delight,
So enchanting to the sight,
Sweetly swimming o’er my eyes,
Would sink me into extacies.
Nor would pleasure’s dream once more,
As they oft have done before,
Cause be to create a pain,
When I woke, to find them vain:
Bitter past, the present sweet,
Would my happiness complete.
Oh; how easy should I lie,
With the fire up-blazing high,
(Summer’s artificial bloom,)
That like an oven keeps the room,
Or lovely May, as mild and warm:
While, without, the raging storm
Is roaring in the chimney-top,
In no likelihood to drop;
And the witchen-branches nigh,
O’er my snug box towering high,
That sweet shelter’d stands beneath,
In convulsive eddies wreathe.
Then while, tyrant-like, the storm
Takes delight in doing harm.
Down before him crushing all,
Till his weapons useless fall;
And as in oppression proud
Peal his howlings long and loud,
While the clouds, with horrid sweep,
Give (as suits a tyrant’s trade)
The sun a minute’s leave to peep,
To smile upon the ruin’s made;
And to make complete the blast,
While the hail comes hard and fast,
Rattling loud against the glass;
And the snowy sleets, that pass,
Driving up in heaps remain
Close adhering to the pane,
Stop the light and spread a gloom,
Suiting sleep, around the room:--
Oh, how blest ’mid these alarms,
I should bask in Fortune’s arms,
Who, defying every frown,
Hugs me on her drowny breast,
Bids my head lie easy down,
And on Winter’s ruins rest.
So upon the troubled sea,
Emblematic simile,
Birds are known to sit secure,
While the billows roar and rave,
Slumbering in their safety sure,
Rock’d to sleep upon the wave.
So would I still slumber on,
Till hour-telling clocks had gone,
And, from the contracted day,
One or more had click’d away.
Then with sitting wearied out,
I for change’s sake, no doubt,
Just might wish to leave my seat,
And, to exercise my feet,
Make a journey to the door,
Put my nose out, but no more:
There to village taste agree;
Mark how times are like to be;
How the weather’s getting on;
Peep in ruts where carts have gone;
Or, by stones, a sturdy stroke,
View the hole the boys have broke,
Crizzling, still inclin’d to freeze;--
And the rime upon the trees.
Then to pause on ills to come,
Just look upward on the gloom;
See fresh storms approaching fast,
View them busy in the air,
Boiling up the brewing blast,
Still fresh horrors scheming there.
Black and dismal, rising high,
From the north they fright the eye:
Pregnant with a thousand storms,
Huddled in their icy arms,
Heavy hovering as they come,
Some as mountains seem--and some
Jagg’d as craggy rocks appear
Dismally advancing near:
Fancy, at the cumbrous sight,
Chills and shudders with affright,
Fearing lest the air, in vain,
Strive her station to maintain,
And wearied, yeilding to the skies,
The world beneath in ruin lies.
So may Fancy think and feign;
Fancy oft imagines vain:
Nature’s laws, by wisdom penn’d,
Mortals cannot comprehend;
Power almighty Being gave,
Endless Mercy stoops to save;
Causes, hid from mortals’ sight,
Prove “whatever is, is right.”
Then to look again below,
Labour’s former life I’d view,
Who, still beating through the snow,
Spite of storms their toils pursue,
Forc’d out by sad Necessity
That sad fiend that forces me.
Troubles, then no more my own,
Which I but too long had known,
Might create a care, a pain;
Then I’d seek my joys again:
Pile the fire up, fetch a drink,
Then sit down again and think;
Pause on all my sorrows past,
Think how many a bitter blast,
When it snow’d, and hail’d, and blew,
I have toil’d and batter’d through.
Then to ease reflective pain,
To my sports I’d fall again,
Till the clock had counted ten;
When I’d seek my downy bed,
Easy, happy, and well fed.
Then might peep the morn, in vain,
Through the rimy misted pane;
Then might bawl the restless cock,
And the loud-tongued village clock;
And the flail might lump away,
Waking soon the dreary day:
They should never waken me,
Independent, blest, and free;
Nor, as usual, make me start,
Yawning sigh with heavy heart,
Loth to ope my sleepy eyes,
Weary still, in pain to rise,
With aching bones and heavy head,
Worse than when I went to bed.
With nothing then to raise a sigh,
Oh, how happy should I lie
Till the clock was eight, or more,
Then proceed as heretofore.
Best of blessings! sweetest charm!
Boon these wishes while they’re warm;
My fairy visions ne’er despise;
As reason thinks, thou realize:
Depress’d with want and poverty
I sink, I fall, denied by thee.
NOON
All how silent and how still;
Nothing heard but yonder mill:
While the dazzled eye surveys
All around a liquid blaze;
And amid the scorching gleams,
If we earnest look, it seems
As if crooked bits of glass
Seem’d repeatedly to pass.
Oh, for a puffing breeze to blow!
But breezes are all strangers now;
Not a twig is seen to shake,
Nor the smallest bent to quake;
From the river’s muddy side
Not a curve is seen to glide;
And no longer on the stream
Watching lies the silver bream,
Forcing, from repeated springs,
“Verges in successive rings.”
Bees are faint, and cease to hum;
Birds are overpower’d and dumb.
Rural voices all are mute,
Tuneless lie the pipe and flute:
Shepherds, with their panting sheep,
In the swaliest corner creep;
And from the tormenting heat
All are wishing to retreat.
Huddled up in grass and flowers,
Mowers wait for cooler hours;
And the cow-boy seeks the sedge,
Ramping in the woodland hedge,
While his cattle o’er the vales
Scamper, with uplifted tails;
Others not so wild and mad,
That can better bear the gad,
Underneath the hedge-row lunge,
Or, if nigh, in waters plunge.
Oh! to see how flowers are took,
How it grieves me when I look:
Ragged-robins, once so pink,
Now are turn’d as black as ink,
And the leaves, being scorch’d so much,
Even crumble at the touch;
Drowking lies the meadow-sweet,
Flopping down beneath one’s feet
While to all the flowers that blow,
If in open air they grow,
Th’ injurious deed alike is done
By the hot relentless sun.
E’en the dew is parched up
From the teasel’s jointed cup:
O poor birds! where must ye fly,
Now your water-pots are dry?
If ye stay upon the heath,
Ye’ll be choak’d and clamm’d to death:
Therefore leave the shadeless goss,
Seek the spring-head lin’d with moss;
There your little feet may stand,
Safely printing on the sand;
While, in full possession, where
Purling eddies ripple clear,
You with ease and plenty blest,
Sip the coolest and the best.
Then away! and wet your throats;
Cheer me with your warbling notes:
T’will hot noon the more revive;
While I wander to contrive
For myself a place as good,
In the middle of a wood:
There aside some mossy bank,
Where the grass in bunches rank
Lifts its down on spindles high,
Shall be where I’ll choose to lie;
Fearless of the things that creep,
There I’ll think, and there I’ll sleep;
Caring not to stir at all,
Till the dew begins to fall.
THE UNIVERSAL EPITAPH
No flattering praises daub my stone,
My frailties and my faults to hide;
My faults and failings all are known--
I liv’d in sin--in sin I died.
And oh! condemn me not, I pray,
You who my sad confession view;
But ask your soul, if it can say,
That I’m a viler man than you.
THE HARVEST MORNING
Cocks wake the early morn with many a crow;
Loud-striking village clock has counted four;
The labouring rustic hears his restless foe,
And weary, of his pains complaining sore,
Hobbles to fetch his horses from the moor:
Some busy ’gin to teem the loaded corn,
Which night throng’d round the barn’s becrowded door;
Such plenteous scenes the farmer’s yard adorn,
Such noisy, busy toils now mark the Harvest Morn.
The bird-boy’s pealing horn is loudly blow’d;
The waggons jostle on with rattling sound;
And hogs and geese now throng the dusty road,
Grunting, and gabbling, in contention, round
The barley ears that litter on the ground.
What printing traces mark the waggon’s way;
What busy bustling wakens echo round;
How drive the sun’s warm beams the mist away;
How labour sweats and toils, and dreads the sultry day!
His scythe the mower o’er his shoulder leans,
And whetting, jars with sharp and tinkling sound;
Then sweeps again ’mong corn and crackling beans,
And swath by swath flops lengthening o’er the ground;
While ’neath some friendly heap, snug shelter’d round
From spoiling sun, lies hid the heart’s delight;
And hearty soaks oft hand the bottle round,
Their toils pursuing with redoubled might--
Great praise to him is due that brought its birth to light.
Upon the waggon now, with eager bound,
The lusty picker whirls the rustling sheaves;
Or, resting ponderous creaking fork aground,
Boastful at once whole shocks of barley heaves:
The loading boy revengeful inly grieves
To find his unmatch’d strength and power decay;
The barley horn his garments interweaves;
Smarting and sweating ’neath the sultry day,
With muttering curses stung, he mauls the heaps away.
A motley group the clearing field surround;
Sons of Humanity, oh ne’er deny
The humble gleaner entrance in your ground;
Winter’s sad cold, and Poverty are nigh.
Grudge not from Providence the scant supply:
You’ll never miss it from your ample store.
Who gives denial--harden’d, hungry hound,--
May never blessings crowd his hated door!
But he shall never lack, that giveth to the poor.
Ah, lovely Emma! mingling with the rest,
Thy beauties blooming in low life unseen,
Thy rosy cheeks, thy sweetly swelling breast;
But ill it suits thee in the stubs to glean.
O Poverty! how basely you demean
The imprison’d worth your rigid fates confine:
Not fancied charms of an Arcadian queen
So sweet as Emma’s real beauties shine:
Had Fortune blest, sweet girl, this lot had ne’er been thine.
The sun’s increasing heat now mounted high,
Refreshment must recruit exhausted power;
The waggon stops, the busy tool’s thrown by,
And ’neath a shock’s enjoy’d the bevering hour.
The bashful maid, sweet health’s engaging flower
Lingering behind, o’er rake still blushing bends;
And when to take the horn fond swains implore,
With feign’d excuses its dislike pretends.
So pass the bevering hours, so Harvest Morning ends.
O Rural Life! what charms thy meanness hide;
What sweet descriptions bards disdain to sing;
What loves, what graces on thy plains abide:
Oh, could I soar me on the Muse’s wing,
What rifled charms should my researches bring!
Pleas’d would I wander where these charms reside;
Of rural sports and beauties would I sing;
Those beauties, Wealth, which you in vain deride,
Beauties of richest bloom, superior to your pride.
ON AN INFANT’S GRAVE
Beneath the sod where smiling creep
The daisies into view,
The ashes of an Infant sleep,
Whose soul’s as smiling too;
Ah! doubly happy, doubly blest,
(Had I so happy been!)
Recall’d to heaven’s eternal rest,
Ere it knew how to sin.
Thrice happy Infant! great the bliss
Alone reserv’d for thee;
Such joy ’twas my sad fate to miss,
And thy good luck to see;
For oh! when all must rise again,
And sentence then shall have,
What crowds will wish with me, in vain,
They’d fill’d an infant’s grave.
TO AN APRIL DAISY
Welcome, old Comrade! peeping once again;
Our meeting ’minds me of a pleasant hour:
Spring’s pencil pinks thee in that blushy stain,
And Summer glistens in thy tinty flower.
Hail, Beauty’s Gem! disdaining time nor place;
Carelessly creeping on the dunghill’s side;
Demeanour’s softness in thy crimpled face
Decks thee in beauties unattain’d by pride.
Hail, ’Venturer! once again that fearless here
Encampeth on the hoar hill’s sunny side;
Spring’s early messenger! thou’rt doubly dear;
And winter’s frost by thee is well supplied.
Now winter’s frowns shall cease their pelting rage,
But winter’s woes I need not tell to thee;
Far better luck thy visits well presage,
And be it thine and mine that luck to see.
Ah, may thy smiles confirm the hopes they tell
To see thee frost-bit I’d be griev’d at heart;
I meet thee happy, and I wish thee well,
Till ripening summer summons us to part.
Then like old mates, or two who’ve neighbours been,
We’ll part, in hopes to meet another year;
And o’er thy exit from this changing scene
We’ll mix our wishes in a tokening tear.
SUMMER EVENING