The wild journey
The book I love
A photo I took in the archive in November 2012... and this of another unpublished Clare manuscript. It is an honour to be able to go and study these texts -- and seek to decipher Clare's handwriting!
The book I love is everywhere,
And every place the same;
God bade me make my dwelling there,
And look for better fame.
I never feared the critic's pen,
To live by my renown;
I found the poems in the fields,
And only wrote them down.
(from "Sighing for Retirement)
(lines 9 to 16)
Smoothing green
On that side view the meads their smoothing green
Edg'd with the peeping hamlets checkering brown
Here the steep hill as dripping headlong down
While glides the stream a silver streak between
As glides the shaded clouds along the sky
Brightning & deep'ning loosing as they're seen
Thus their broad shadow—runs the river bye
With tree & bush repleat a wilderd scene
& mossd & Ivyd sparkling on my eye—
O thus wild musing am I doubly blest
My woes unheeding—& my heart at rest
The winding footpath
Wereover many a stile neeth willows grey
The winding footpath leaves the public way
Free from the dusty din & ceasless chime
Of bustling waggons in the summer time
Crossing a brook—were braving storms in vain
Corn field & clover closes leading down
In peacful windings to the neighbouring town
The droning bee
The Early Daisy
With all the pleasant things
That come with spring
What time the mavis builds & sings
& care not where they dwell
Beside the garden pales
Their silver bloom prevails
& glads the childrens tales
While sitting there at play
In the grass they come & crowd
Wherever weeds allowed
A footing they are proud
In glad springs early day
Sallows that by the little pond recline
& sweetly shine
In tasselled gold seem not so sweet as thine
Low blooming at their foot
Ive thought so when a boy
In plays employ
Racing the lambs in joy
& resting at its root
The blackthorns like a sheet
& faintly sweet
Pale March in hedges meet
Like snows in bloom
But daisies came before
On green and moor
& ere snowstorms were oer
I saw them come
The mind will dream and cling
To pleasant things
That come again with spring
As when health used to go
Down little paths & spy
Cowslips so nigh
That as we wandered by
Would pat agen the shoe