I AM / 857
899 510 I lost earth's joys but felt the glow Of heaven's flame abound in me: Till loveliness and I did grow The bard of immortality. 3 I loved, but woman fell away; I hid me from her faded fame: I snatch'd the sun's eternal ray,? And wrote till earth was but a name. 154 In every language upon earth, On every shore, o'er every sea, I gave my name immortal birth, And kept my spirit with the free. Aug. 2, 1844 1924 I Am 51015I 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 oblivion's host, Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes:? And yet I am, and live?like vapours tossed 2 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; Even the dearest that I love the best Are strange?nay, rather, stranger than the rest. 3 I long for scenes where man hath 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. 1842-46 1848
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85 8 / JOH N CLAR E An Invite to Eternity 510isi 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 hath 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? 2 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? 203 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? 25304 The land of shadows wilt thou trace And look?nor know each other's face, The present mixed with reasons gone And past and present all as one? Say maiden, can thy life be led To join the living with the dead? Then trace thy footsteps on with me? We're wed to one eternity. 1847 1848
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THE PEASANT POET / 859
Clock a Clay'
In the cowslip's peeps I lie,2 Hidden from the buzzing fly, While green grass beneath me lies, Pearled wi' dew like fishes' eyes;
5 Here I lie, a Clock a Clay, Waiting for the time o' day.
2
While grassy forests quake surprise, And the wild wind sobs and sighs, My gold home rocks as like to fall
io On its pillars green and tall; When the pattering rain drives by Clock a Clay keeps warm and dry.
3
Day by day and night by night, All the week I hide from sight;
is In the cowslip's peeps I lie, In rain and dew still warm and dry; Day and night and night and day, Red black-spotted Clock a Clay.
4
My home it shakes in wind and showers,
20 Pale green pillar topped wi' flowers, Bending at the wild wind's breath, Till I touch the grass beneath; Here still I live, lone Clock a Clay, Watching for the time of day.
ca. 1848 1873
The Peasant Poet
He loved the brook's soft sound, The swallow swimming by; He loved the daisy-covered ground, The cloud- bedappled sky.
5 To him the dismal storm appeared The very voice of God, And where the evening rack0 was reared mass of clouds Stood Moses with his rod.
1. The ladybird, or ladybug. The sixth and last Shakespeare's The Tempest: 'Where the bee sucks, lines allude to the children's game of telling the there suck I: / In a cowslip's bell 1 lie.' 'Peeps': hour by the number of taps it takes to make the i.e.. pips?single blossoms o( flowers growing in a ladybird fly away home. cluster. 'Cowslip': a yellow primrose. 2. Cf. the opening lines of Ariel's song in act 5 of
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86 0 / JOHN CLARE
And everything his eyes surveyed,
10 The insects i' the brake, Were creatures God Almighty made? He loved them for His sake: A silent man in life's affairs, A thinker from a boy,
15 A peasant in his daily cares?? The poet in his joy.
1842-64 1920
Song
I hid my love when young while 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.
5 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 goodbye.
I met her in the greenest dells,
