Mary

A shattering poem, written 7 years after his incarceration in Northampton.  Clare's mind is ranging back to the death of his muse Mary Joyce in a house fire in 1838.  I cannot read this poem aloud without tears coming to my eyes.

A Ballad

Love is past and all the rest
Thereto belonging fled away
The most esteemed and valued best
Are faded all and gone away

How beautiful was Mary's dress
While dancing at the meadow ball

—'Tis twenty years or more at least
Since Mary seemed the first of all

Lord how young bonny Mary burnt
With blushes like the roses hue
My face like water thrown upon't
Turned white as lilies i' the dew

When grown a man I went to see
The school where Mary's name was known
I looked to find it on a Tree
But found it on a low grave stone

Now is past—was this the now
In fine straw-hat and ribbons gay
I'd court her neath the white thorn bough
And tell her all I had to say

But all is gone—and now is past
And still my spirits chill alone
Loves name that perished in the blast
Grows mossy on a church-yard stone

(11^th November 1848)

from : ‘O for one real imaginary blessing’

[Image: Eddie Bairstow]

I wooed a Gipsy wench on Sunday e'ens

& worshiped beggar girls & courted Queens

Love is the fire that burns the heart to cinders
Love is the thought that makes the poets sigh

Sweet as Queen’s portraits stuck in London windows

For loyal subjects in their love to buy

Love is of every heart the painted toy

The idol of man’s worship — faces fair
Were my enchanted magic from a boy
The pouting lip, the colour of the hair
Left me in raptures, next of kin to care
I loved & wooed them in the field like gems

Of too much value for the clown who sung
The azure bluebells in their sapphire stems
Among green bushes low their mute bells hung
These seemed love's modest maidens, dew bestrung
With blebs o' mornings glittering pearls
I loved them in the valleys where I sung

With their green drapery & crispy curls
I loved them as a crowd of blooming girls
With bonny bosom white as is the May

The wild brere blushes wi' the break o' day
Sweet as the cowslip fields that spread before thee
Sweet are the dusky clouds that sprinkle oer thee

(lines 17 to 37, 39-41)

The Later Poems of John Clare 1837-1864

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell

(Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1984)

The line I’ve removed for this post (line 38 of the poem) reads :

‘Sweet milkmaid o' May mornings — Queen Victoria’

Song, from Child Harold

In this cold world without a home
Disconsolate I go
The summer looks as cold to me
As winters frost & snow
Though winters scenes are dull & drear
A colder lot I prove
No home had I through all the year
But Marys honest love

But Love inconstant as the wind
Soon shifts another way
No other home my heart can find
Life wasting day by day
I sigh & sit & sit & sigh
For better days to come
For Mary was my hope & joy
Her truth & heart my home

Her truth & heart was once my home
& May was all the year
But now through seasons as I roam
Tis winter everywhere
Hopeless I go through care & toil
No friend I e'er possest
To reccompence for Marys smile
& the love within her breast

My love was ne'er so blest as when
It mingled with her own
Told often to be told agen
& every feeling known
But now loves hopes are all bereft
A lonely man I roam
& abscent Mary long hath left
My heart without a home

Poems of John Clare's Madness

ed. Geoffrey Grigson (RKP, 1949)

The Firetail*

Around the old and ruined wall,

About the dead and hollow tree,
The firetail's ‘tweet-tut’ fretting call
Keeps up a teasing melody.
It starts at every passer-by,
And boys that by its dwelling roam
Well know its danger-daunting cry
And watch it till its ventures home.
Its nest is made of hair and moss
And down and cobwebs very fine;
Its eggs are blue withouten gloss,
I've found as many oft as nine.
The female has a fiery tail,
And is a dull and sandy brown,
But beautiful appears the male
With crimson breast and jetty crown.

* ( Clare's 'Firetail' is the Redstart)

John Clare, Bird Poems

introduced by Peter Levi (London: Folio Society, 1980)

Read by Chris Packham on BBC TV's "Spring Watch' in early June 2013

The Fen

[Photo  : Anne Lee]

The dreary fen a waste of water goes,

With nothing to be seen but Royston crows;
The traveller journeying on the road for hours
Sees nothing but the dykes and water-flowers.
The lonely lodges scattered miles away
Lock up from fear and robbers all the day;
The merry maiden that no place dislikes
Runs out and fills her kettle from the dykes.
She hurries wildly from the face of men
And knows no company but cock and hen.
Here highland maiden sees in Sunday's hour
The glorious sight of sainfoin grounds in flower,
And meets the savoury smells that wake the morn,
The woodbine hedges and the poppied corn.

The Oxford Authors: John Clare

ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell (Oxford, 1984)

Sonnet: "O night o silent night..."

O night o silent night how sweet thy boon

That gilds so tremblingly the skyes blue vest
In its unclouded charms—the silver moon
Fair as a jewel on a virgins breast
O happiest light by lovers ever blest
How much the maiden joys thy face to see
When meeting him where all her wishes rest
She wanders tremblingly oft blessing thee

The shepherd from his folding task set free
Speaks in thy praise & welcomes thy sweet light
To find the cot where all his hopes may be
There resting rapturd on some maidens charms
Blessing the while the dingy stair of night
Left undetected in his maggys arms

The Early Poems of John Clare 1804-1822

ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and Margaret Grainger

(Oxford, 2 volumes, I-II, 1989)

There is a beauty upon womans' face

Treat for the day?  An unpublished Clare sonnet :

There is a beauty upon womans’ face

When smiles in sunny rapture dominates

There is on beauty’s cheek a winning grace

When clouded with the eloquence of tears

Sweet gem of artless loves sincerely

Womans’ bright eye is thy resting place —

To moan & sigh is every harlots forgery,

But womans’ tears like dews from roses falling:

Are the souls essence — its most deepest feeling

That words can’t utter, but can be read in thee.

Clear looking glass of the unfolded heart

Its undissembled purity to prove

For when with thee, cares, sorrows have no part

Thy further affection and thyself live love

Pet MS A18 p73

(Unpublished)