At intervals during the years 1825-26 Clare was occupied in supplying
his publishers with poems for his next volume--"The Shepherd's
Calendar," which was brought out in May, 1827, with a frontispiece by
De Wint. The descriptive poem which gives the title to the volume
consists of twelve cantos, of various measures, and is followed by
"Village Stories" and other compositions. Of the stories, that
entitled "Jockey and Jenny or, the Progress of Love," appears to have
made the most favourable impression upon Clare's contemporaries. In
this poem will be found the following bold and original apostrophe to
Night:--
Ah, powerful Night! Were but thy chances mine!
Had I but ways to come at joys like thine!
Spite of thy wizard look and sable skin,
The ready road to bliss 't is thine to win.
All nature owns of beautiful and sweet
In thy embraces now unconscious meet:
Young Jenny, ripening into womanhood,
That hides from day, like lilies while in bud,
To thy grim visage blooms in all her charms,
And comes, like Eve, unblushing to thy arms.
Of thy black mantle could I be possest,
How would I pillow on her panting breast,
And try those lips where trial rude beseems.
Breathing my spirit in her very dreams,
That ne'er a thought might wander from her heart,
But I possessed it, or ensured a part!
Of all the blessings that belong to thee,
Had I this one how happy should I be!
In "The Dream," which appeared in the same volume, Clare's muse took
a still more ambitious flight--with what success the reader has here
an opportunity to judge for himself. The obscurities in the
composition must find their excuse in the nature of the subject:--