XIJOHN CLARE

Mr. Arthur Symons edited a good selection of the poems of John Clare a few years ago, and Edward Thomas was always faithful in his praise. Yet Messrs. Blunden & Porter’s new edition of Clare’s work has meant for most of its readers the rediscovery of a lost man of genius. For Clare, though he enjoyed a “boom” in London almost exactly a hundred years ago, has never been fully appreciated: he has never even been fully printed. In 1820 he was more famous than Keats, who had the same publisher. Keats’s 1820 volume was one of the great books of English literature, but the public preferred John Clare, and three editions ofPoems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenerywere sold between January 16 and the end of March. It was not that the public had discovered a poet: it was merely that they had discovered an agricultural labourer who was a poet. At the same time, to have been over-boomed was bound to do Clare’s reputationharm. It raised hopes that his verse did not satisfy, and readers who come to an author expecting too much are apt in their disappointment to blame him for even more faults than he possesses. It is obvious that if we are asked to appreciate Clare as a poet of the same company as Keats and Shelley, our minds will be preoccupied with the feeling that he is an intruder, and we shall be able to listen to him with all our attention only when he has ceased to challenge such ruinous comparisons. I do not know whether the critics of 1820 gave more praise to Clare than to Keats. But the public did. The public blew a bubble, and the bubble burst. Had Clare, instead of making a sensation, merely made the quiet reputation he deserved, he would not have collapsed so soon into one of the most unjustly neglected poets of the nineteenth century.

In order to appreciate Clare, we have to begin by admitting that he never wrote either a great or a perfect poem. He never wrote a “Tintern Abbey” or a “Skylark” or a “Grecian Urn” or a “Tiger” or a “Red, Red Rose” or an “Ode to Evening.” He was not a great artist uttering the final rhythms and the final sentences—rhythms and sentences so perfect that they seem like existences that have escaped out of eternity.His place in literature is nearer that of Gilbert White or Mr. W. H. Hudson than that of Shelley. His poetry is a mirror of things rather than a window of the imagination. It belongs to a borderland where naturalism and literature meet. He brings things seen before our eyes: the record of his senses is more important than the record of his imagination or his thoughts. He was an observer whose consuming delight was to watch—to watch a grasshopper or a snail, a thistle or a yellow-hammer. The things that a Wordsworth or a Shelley sees or hears open the door, as it were, to still more wonderful things that the poet has not seen or heard. Shelley hears a skylark, and it becomes not only a skylark, but a flight of images, illumining the mysteries of life as they pass. Wordsworth hears a Highland girl singing, and her song becomes not only a girl’s song, but the secret music of far times and far places, brimming over and filling the world. To Clare the skylark was most wonderful as a thing seen and noticed: it was the end, not the beginning, of wonders. He may be led by real things to a train of reflections: he is never at his best led to a train of images. His realism, however, is often steeped in the pathos of memory, and it is largely this that changes his naturalism into poetry. One of the most beautiful ofhis poems is called “Remembrances,” and who that has read it can ever forget the moving verse in which Clare calls up the playtime of his boyhood and compares it with a world in which men have begun to hang dead moles on trees?

When from school o’er Little Field with its brook and wooden brig,Where I swaggered like a man though I was not half so big,While I held my little plough though ’twas but a willow twig,And drove my team along made of nothing but a name,“Gee hep” and “hoit” and “woi”—O I never call to mindThese pleasant names of places but I leave a sigh behind,While I see little mouldiwarps hang sweeing to the windOn the only aged willow that in all the field remains,And nature hides her face while they’re sweeing in their chainsAnd in a silent murmuring complains.

When from school o’er Little Field with its brook and wooden brig,

Where I swaggered like a man though I was not half so big,

While I held my little plough though ’twas but a willow twig,

And drove my team along made of nothing but a name,

“Gee hep” and “hoit” and “woi”—O I never call to mind

These pleasant names of places but I leave a sigh behind,

While I see little mouldiwarps hang sweeing to the wind

On the only aged willow that in all the field remains,

And nature hides her face while they’re sweeing in their chains

And in a silent murmuring complains.

The pity that we find in this poem is, perhaps, the dominant emotion in Clare’s work. Helpless living things made the strongest appeal to him, and he honoured the spear-thistle, as it had never been honoured in poetry before, chiefly because of the protection it gave to the nesting partridge and the lark. In “Spear Thistle,” after describingthe partridge, which will lie down in a thistle-clump,

and dustAnd prune its horse-shoe circled breast,

and dust

And prune its horse-shoe circled breast,

he continues:

The sheep when hunger presses soreMay nip the clover round its nest;But soon the thistle wounding soreRelieves it from each brushing guestThat leaves a bit of wool behind,The yellow-hammer loves to find.The horse will set his foot and biteClose to the ground lark’s guarded nestAnd snort to meet the prickly sight;He fans the feathers of her breast—Yet thistles prick so deep that heTurns back and leaves her dwelling free.

The sheep when hunger presses sore

May nip the clover round its nest;

But soon the thistle wounding sore

Relieves it from each brushing guest

That leaves a bit of wool behind,

The yellow-hammer loves to find.

The horse will set his foot and biteClose to the ground lark’s guarded nestAnd snort to meet the prickly sight;He fans the feathers of her breast—Yet thistles prick so deep that heTurns back and leaves her dwelling free.

The horse will set his foot and bite

Close to the ground lark’s guarded nest

And snort to meet the prickly sight;

He fans the feathers of her breast—

Yet thistles prick so deep that he

Turns back and leaves her dwelling free.

We have only to compare the detail of Clare’s work with the sonorous generalisations in, say, Thomson’sSeasons—which he admired—to realise the immense gulf that divides Clare from his eighteenth-century predecessors. Clare, indeed, is more like a twentieth-century than an eighteenth-century poet. He is almost more like a twentieth-century than a nineteenth-century poet. He is “neo-Georgian” in his preferencefor the fact in itself above the image or the phrase. The thing itself is all the image he asks, and Mr. W. H. Davies in his simplest mood might have made the same confession of faith as Clare:

I love the verse that mild and blandBreathes of green fields and open sky,I love the muse that in her handBears flowers of native poesy;Who walks nor skips the pasture brookIn scorn, but by the drinking horseLeans o’er its little brig to lookHow far the sallows lean across.

I love the verse that mild and bland

Breathes of green fields and open sky,

I love the muse that in her hand

Bears flowers of native poesy;

Who walks nor skips the pasture brook

In scorn, but by the drinking horse

Leans o’er its little brig to look

How far the sallows lean across.

There is no poet, I fancy, in whose work the phrase, “I love,” recurs oftener. His poetry is largely a list of the things he loves:

I love at early morn, from new-mown swathTo see the startled frog his route pursue;To mark while, leaping o’er the dripping path,His bright sides scatter dew,The early lark that from its bustle fliesTo hail his matin new;And watch him to the skies:To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,With earnest heed and tremulous intent,Frail brother of the morn,That from the tiny bents and misted leavesWithdraws his timid horn,And fearful visions weaves.

I love at early morn, from new-mown swath

To see the startled frog his route pursue;

To mark while, leaping o’er the dripping path,

His bright sides scatter dew,

The early lark that from its bustle flies

To hail his matin new;

And watch him to the skies:

To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,With earnest heed and tremulous intent,Frail brother of the morn,That from the tiny bents and misted leavesWithdraws his timid horn,And fearful visions weaves.

To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,

The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,

With earnest heed and tremulous intent,

Frail brother of the morn,

That from the tiny bents and misted leaves

Withdraws his timid horn,

And fearful visions weaves.

As we read Clare we discover that it is almost always the little things that catch his eye:

Grasshoppers go in many a thrumming spring,And now to stalks of tasselled sow-grass cling,That shakes and swees awhile, but still keeps straight;While arching ox-eye doubles with his weight.Next on the cat-tail grass with farther boundHe springs, that bends until they touch the ground.

Grasshoppers go in many a thrumming spring,

And now to stalks of tasselled sow-grass cling,

That shakes and swees awhile, but still keeps straight;

While arching ox-eye doubles with his weight.

Next on the cat-tail grass with farther bound

He springs, that bends until they touch the ground.

He is never weary of describing the bees. He praises the ants. Of the birds, he seems to love the small ones best. How beautifully he writes of the hedge-sparrow’s little song!:

While in a quiet mood hedge-sparrows tryAn inward stir of shadowed melody.

While in a quiet mood hedge-sparrows try

An inward stir of shadowed melody.

There is the genius of a lover in this description. Here is something finally said. Clare continually labours to make the report of his eye and ear accurate. He even begins one of hisAsylum Poemswith the line:

Sweet chestnuts brown like soling leather turn;

and, in another, pursues realism in describing an April evening to the point of writing:

Sheep ointment seems to daub the dead-hued sky.

His attempt at giving an exact echo of the blue-tit’s song—his very feeble attempt—makes the success of one of his good poems tremble for a moment in the balance:

Dreamers, mark the honey bee;Mark the treeWhere the blue cap “tootle tee”Sings a glee,Sung to Adam and to Eve—Here they be.When floods covered every bough,Noah’s arkHeard that ballad singing now;Hark, hark.“Tootle, tootle, tootle tee”—Can it bePride and fame must shadows be?Come and see—Every season owns her own;Bird and beeSing creation’s music on;Nature’s gleeIs in every mood and toneEternity.

Dreamers, mark the honey bee;

Mark the tree

Where the blue cap “tootle tee”

Sings a glee,

Sung to Adam and to Eve—

Here they be.

When floods covered every bough,

Noah’s ark

Heard that ballad singing now;

Hark, hark.

“Tootle, tootle, tootle tee”—Can it bePride and fame must shadows be?Come and see—Every season owns her own;Bird and beeSing creation’s music on;Nature’s gleeIs in every mood and toneEternity.

“Tootle, tootle, tootle tee”—

Can it be

Pride and fame must shadows be?

Come and see—

Every season owns her own;

Bird and bee

Sing creation’s music on;

Nature’s glee

Is in every mood and tone

Eternity.

Clare comes nearer an imaginative vision of life in this than in most of his poems. But, where Shelley would have given us an image, Clare is content to set down “Tootle, tootle, tootle tee.”

His poems of human life are of less account than his poems of bird and insect life; but one of the most beautiful of all his poems, “The Dying Child,” introduces a human figure among the bees and flowers. How moving are the first three verses!:

He could not die when trees were green,For he loved the time too well.His little hands, when flowers were seen,Were held for the bluebell,As he was carried o’er the green.His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee,He knew those children of the spring:When he was well and on the lea,He held one in his hands to sing,Which filled his heart with glee.Infants, the children of the spring!How can an infant dieWhen butterflies are on the wing,Green grass, and such a sky?How can they die at spring?

He could not die when trees were green,For he loved the time too well.His little hands, when flowers were seen,Were held for the bluebell,As he was carried o’er the green.

He could not die when trees were green,

For he loved the time too well.

His little hands, when flowers were seen,

Were held for the bluebell,

As he was carried o’er the green.

His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee,He knew those children of the spring:When he was well and on the lea,He held one in his hands to sing,Which filled his heart with glee.

His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee,

He knew those children of the spring:

When he was well and on the lea,

He held one in his hands to sing,

Which filled his heart with glee.

Infants, the children of the spring!How can an infant dieWhen butterflies are on the wing,Green grass, and such a sky?How can they die at spring?

Infants, the children of the spring!

How can an infant die

When butterflies are on the wing,

Green grass, and such a sky?

How can they die at spring?

The writer of these lines was a poet worth rediscovering, and Messrs. Blunden and Porter have given us a book in which we can wander at will, peering into hedges and at the traffic of the grass, as in few even of the great poets. Mr. Blunden has also written an admirable, thoughneedlessly pugnacious account of the life of The Green Man, as Clare was called in Lamb’s circle because of his clothes. It is a story of struggle, poverty, drink, a moment’s fame without money to correspond, a long family, and the madness of a man who, escaping from the asylum, ate “the grass on the roadside which seemed to taste something like bread.” Knowing the events of his life, we read Clare’s poetry with all the more intense curiosity. And, if we do not expect to find a Blake or a Wordsworth, we shall not be disappointed. Certainly this is a book that must go on the shelf near the works of Mr. Hudson.

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