Gilt fashion’s follies pass thee by,
And, like the monarch of the wood,
Tower’d o’er it to the sky;
Where thou could’st sing of other spheres,
And feel the fame of future years.
Though bitter sneers and stinging scorns
Did throng the Muse’s dangerous way,
Thy powers were past such little thorns,
They gave thee no dismay;
The scoffer’s insult pass’d thee by,
Thou smild’st and mad’st him no reply.
Envy will gnaw its heart away
To see thy genius gather root;
And as its flowers their sweets display,
Scorn’s malice shall be mute;
Hornets that summer warmed to fly,
Shall at the death of summer die.
Though friendly praise hath but its hour,
And little praise with thee hath been;
The bay may lose its summer flower,
But still its leaves are green;
And thine, whose buds are on the shoot,
Shall only fade to change to fruit.
Fame lives not in the breath of words,
In public praises’ hue and cry;
The music of these summer birds
Is silent in a winter sky,
When thine shall live and flourish on,
O’er wrecks where crowds of fames are gone.
The ivy shuns the city wall,
When busy-clamorous crowds intrude,
And climbs the desolated hall
In silent solitude;
The time-worn arch, the fallen dome,
Are roots for its eternal home.
The bard his glory ne’er receives
Where summer’s common flowers are seen,
But winter finds it when she leaves
The laurel only green;
And time, from that eternal tree,
Shall weave a wreath to honour thee.
Nought but thy ashes shall expire;
Thy genius, at thy obsequies,
Shall kindle up its living fire
And light the Muse’s skies;
Ay, it shall rise, and shine, and be
A sun in song’s posterity.
I AM! YET WHAT I AM
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am--I live--though I am toss’d
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that’s dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange--nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod,
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept;
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above the vaulted sky.
* * * * *
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOHN CLARE
BY C. ERNEST SMITH
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS
Clare (John). Poems, Descriptive of Rural Life
and Scenery. 12mo., pp. 222. 1820
(Contains passages suppressed in later editions).
---- The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems.
_Portrait and Sketch of Clare’s Cottage._ 2 vols.,
12mo., pp. 216 and 211. 1821
---- The Shepherd’s Calendar, with Village
Stories and Other Poems. _Front by Dewint._
12mo., pp. 238. 1827
---- The Rural Muse. _Front, and Engraved
Title._ 12mo., pp. 175. 1835
BIOGRAPHY
Cherry (J. L.) Life and Remains of John Clare.
_Illustrations by Birket Foster._ Cr. 8vo. 1873
This volume was afterwards included in the _Chandos
Classics,_ published by Warne & Co., London.
Martin (F.) Life of John Clare. _Engraved Title._
8vo. 1865
[See also _Encyclopædia Britannica_; and _Dictionary of National
Biography_, vol. 10].
CRITICISM, ETC.
The Book of Gems, edited by S. C. Hall. 8vo. 1853
(References to Clare, pp. 162-166. Facsimile of Clare’s
Autograph at end of volume).
Casket of Gems, edited by Chas. Gibbon. 4 vols.,
Royal 8vo. N. D.
(Contains a Poem of Clare’s which has been very much
altered and revised by another hand).
Dack (Chas.) Catalogue of the Clare Centenary
Exhibition at Peterborough. 1893
(Full reports of the Centenary Celebrations appear in
_Peterboro’ Standard_, July 15, Aug. 26, Sept. 9, 1893,
and _Stamford Guardian_, Sept. 1, 1893).
De Wilde (G. J.) Rambles Roundabout, and
Poems. Cr. 8vo. _Northampton,_ N. D.
(Includes much interesting matter about Clare and his
birthplace).
Four Letters from Rev. W. Allen to Lord Radstock
on the Poems of Clare. 12mo. 1823
Heath (Richard). The English Peasant: His Past
and Present. Sm. 8vo. 1899
(Exhaustive account of Clare occupies large portion of
the book).
Holland (J.), and J. Everett. James Montgomery.
7 vols., 8vo. 1854-6
(References to Clare, vol. iv., pp. 96-175).
Hood (E. Paxton). The Peerage of Poverty.
Cr. 8vo. N. D.
(An account of Clare occupies some fifty pages.)
Poets and the Poetry of the Century, edited by
Alfred H. Miles. Keats to Lytton. 12mo. N. D.
(Clare, by Hon. Roden Noel, pp. 79-106).
Redding (Cyrus). Fifty Years’ Recollections.
3 vols., p. 8vo. 1858
(Vol. III., pp. 216, references to Clare).
Stoddard (R. H.) Under the Evening Lamp.
Cr. 8vo. 1893
(Essay on Clare, pp. 120-134).
Wilson (Professor). Clare’s Rural Muse. 16 pp.
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, August, 1835.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES, ETC.
Anti-Jacobin Review. June, 1820.
Baldwin’s London Magazine. March, 1820.
Blackwood’s Magazine. August, 1835.
Eclectic Review. April, 1820.
Gentleman’s Magazine. February, 1820.
Literary World. August and September, 1893.
London Magazine. I., 5-11--323-29. IV., 540-8.
New Monthly Magazine. March, 1820.
Notes and Queries. Ist S., vi., 196; IInd S., v., 186; IVth S.,
xi., 127; Vth S., ii., 302; VIIth S., x., 187.
Peterborough Standard. July 15, August 26, and September 2 and 9, 1893.
Quarterly Review. May, 1820, pp. 166-75.
Stamford and Rutland Guardian. Aug. and Sept., 1890; May and June,
1891; Sept., Oct., and December, 1893.
[Illustration: THE RUGBY PRESS]