Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

For the present volume over two thousand poems by Clare have been considered and compared; of which over two-thirds have not been published. Of those here given ninety are now f...

Before his marriage, probably, Clare was desired to spend a few days with his publisher Taylor in London. In smock and gaiters he felt most uncertain of himself and borrowed a l...

In short, illness reduced Clare almost to skin-and-bone. Farming not only added nothing but made encroachment on his small stipend. In despair he flung himself into field labour...

I have not written to you a long while, but here I am in the land of Sodom where all the people's brains are turned the wrong way. I was glad to see John yesterday, and should l...

My sister, she will weep in vain, My brother ride and run, My mother, she will break her heart; And ere the rising sun My father will be looking out-- But find me they will none...

But now she's gone:--girls, shun deceitful men, The worst of stumbles ye can fall agen; Be deaf to them, and then, as twere, ye'll see Your pleasures safe as under lock and key....

Dear brother robin this comes from us all With our kind love and could Gip write and all Though but a dog he'd have his love to spare For still he knows and by your corner chair...

Dost think that pride exalts Thyself in other's eyes, And hides thy folly's faults, Which reason will despise? Dost strut, and turn, and stride, Like walking weathercocks? The s...

The pranking bat its nighty circlet makes; The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew Oer meadows dew-besprent; and beetle wakes Enquiries ever new, Teazing each passing ear with mur...

Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one, And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on. I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are gone Far away...

The frog croaks loud, and maidens dare not pass But fear the noisome toad and shun the grass; And on the sunny banks they dare not go Where hissing snakes run to the flood below...

Meet me by the sweet briar, By the mole hill swelling there; When the West glows like a fire God's crimson bed is there. Meet me in the green glen.

On the nineteenth of October, by eleven of the clock, The sky turned black as midnight and a sudden storm came on-- Awful and sudden--and the cables felt the shock; Our anchors...