LOVES

When, in December 1841, Clare was committed to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum by Dr Fenwick Skrimshire and Dr William Page, the certificate of insanity attributed his disorder of mind to heredity. In his poem, ‘First Love’, written at Northampton, Clare himself confesses that when he met Mary Joyce

My face turned pale a deadly pale
My legs refused to walk away
And when she looked what could I ail
My life and all seemed turned to clay

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noon day
I could not see a single thing
Words from my eyes did start
They spoke as chords do from the string
And blood burnt round my heart

The benign arrow of Mary Joyce’s power to excite love found a peculiarly vulnerable target in John Clare, and much of his poetry is an obsessive and pertinacious effort, sustained for forty years, to find a language that was adequate to the power of such a mixed blessing as a love that neither wearied nor degenerated into mere domestic coexistence but also tantalized and haunted him, life long, as what-might-have-been.

Nothing in Clare’s poetry is more remarkable than the sheer output and intensity of his love-poems; and most of them were inspired by one woman, Mary Joyce. He married Martha ‘Patty’ Turner, but his true love — one might even say his only love — was Mary Joyce. The key to the intensity and persistence of this may well lie in the fact that this love was vernal and unfulfilled: the relationship ended around 1816, and she died, unmarried, in 1838, at the age of forty-one.

The consummation of Clare’s love for Mary, then, was entirely vicarious: and its persisting intensity was clearly a source of deep conflict and difficulty. Married to Patty, he wrote hundreds of love poems to Mary: in order to live under the same roof as his wife, he first concealed Mary’s identity by using asterisks. Over the years, she was also transformed into the divine, transcendent source of his own creative power: she became his muse.

VALENTINE TO MARY

This visionary theme is thine
From one who loves thee still
’Tis writ to thee a Valentine
But call it what you will
No more as wont thy beaming eye
To violets I compare*
Nor talk about the lily’s dye
To tell thee thou art fair

 

The time is past when hope’s sweet will
First linked thy name with mine
And the fond muse with simple skill
Chose thee its Valentine
Though some may yet their powers employ
To wreath with flowers thy brow
With me thy love’s a withered joy
With hope thou’rt nothing now

 

The all that youth’s fond spring esteems
Its blossoms pluckt in May
Are gone like flowers in summer dreams
And thoughts of yesterday
The heavenly dreams of early love
Youth’s spell has broken there
And left the aching heart to prove
That earth owns nought so fair

 

Spring flowers were fitting hope’s young songs
To grace love’s earliest vow
But withered ones that autumn wrongs
Are emblems meetest now
Their perished blooms that once were green
Hope’s faded tale can tell
Of shadows where a sun hath been
And suits its memory well

Then why should I on such a day
Address a song to thee
When withered hope hath died away
And love no more can be
When blinded fate that still destroys
Hath rendered all as vain
And parted from the bosom joys
’Twill never meet again

 

The substance of our joys hath been
Their flowers have faded long
But memory keeps the shadow green
And wakes this idle song
Then let esteem a welcome prove
That can’t its place resign
And friendship take the place of love
To send a Valentine

DEDICATION TO MARY*

O Mary thou that once made all
What youthful dreams coud pleasure call
That once did love to walk with me
And own thy taste for scenery
That sat for hours by wood and brook
And stopt thy curious flowers to look
Where all that met thy artless gaze
Enjoyd thy smiles and won thy praise
O thou that did sincerely love
The cuckoo’s note and cooing dove
And stood in raptures oft to hear
The blackbird’s music wild and clear
That chasd sleep from thy lovely eyes
To see the morning lark arise
And made thy evening rambles long
To list’ the cricket’s chittering song
Thou that on sabbath noons sought bowers
To read away the sultry hours
Where roseys hung the cool to share
With thee a blossom full as fair
Oft withering from noon’s scorching look
And fluttering dropping on thy book
Whispering morals as they fell
What thou ere this hath provd too well
Picturing stories sad and true
Beneath thy bright eyes beaming blue
How youth and beauty fades and dyes
The sweetest has the least to prize
How blissfull pleasures fade away
That have the shortest time to stay
As suns that blest thy eyes and mine
Are but alowd a day to shine
And fairest days without a cloud
A gloomy evening waits to shroud
So spoke the fading dropping flowers
That perishd in thy musing hours
I know not whether thou descryd
But I coud hear them by thy side
But thy warm heart tho’ easy wrung
Woud not be mellancholy long:
If such was felt, the cheering day
Woud quickly chase their glooms away
For thou sought fancys sweet to look
In every hour and every nook
To thee earth swarmd with lovely things
The butterflye with spangld wings
And dragonflye and humble bee
Hummd dreams of Paradise to thee
And o thou fairest dearest still
If nature’s wild mysterious skill
Beams that same rapture in thine eye
And left a love that cannot dye
If that fond taste was born to last
Nor vanishd with the summers past
If seasons as they usd to be
Still meet a favourd smile with thee
Then thou accept for memory’s sake
All I can give or thou canst take
A parted record known to thee
Of what has been, no more to be
The pleasant past, the future sorrow
The blest today and sad tomorrow —
Descriptions wild of summer walks
By hedges lanes and trackless balks
And many an old familiar scene
Where thou has oft my partner been
Where thou, enrapt in wild delight,
Hast lingerd morning noon and night
And where to fancy’s rapturd thrill
Thy lovely memory lingers still
Thy flowers still bloom and look the while
As tho’ they witnessd Mary’s smile
The birds still sing thy favourd lays
As tho’ they sung for Mary’s praise
And bees hum glad and fearless by
As tho’ their tender friend was nigh
O if with thee those raptures live
Accept the trifle which I give
Tho’ lost to pleasures witnessd then
Tho’ parted ne‘er to meet agen
My aching heart is surely free
To dedicate its thoughts to thee
Then thou accept and if a smile
Lights on the page thou reads the while
If aught bespeaks those banishd hours
Of beauty in thy favourd flowers
Or scenes recall of happy days
That claims as wont thy ready praise
Tho’ I so long have lost the claim
To joys which wear thy gentle name
Tho’ thy sweet face so long unseen
Seems types of charms that ne’er hath been
Thy voice so long in silence bound
To me that I forget the sound
And tho’ thy presence warms my theme
Like beauty floating in a dream
Yet I will think that such may be
Tho’ buried secrets all to me
And if it be as hopes portray
Then will thy smiles like dews of heaven
Cheer my lone walks my toils repay
And all I ask be given

FIRST LOVE’S RECOLLECTIONS

First love will with the heart remain
When all its hopes are bye
As frail rose blossoms still retain
Their fragrance till they die
And joy’s first dreams will haunt the mind
With shades from whence they sprung
As summer leaves the stems behind
On which spring’s blossoms hung

 

Mary I dare not call thee dear
I’ve lost that right so long
Yet once again I vex thine ear
With memory’s idle song
Had time and change not blotted out
The love of former days
Thou wert the last that I should doubt
Of pleasing with my praise

When honied tokens from each tongue
Told with what truth we loved
How rapturous to thy lips I clung
Whilst nought but smiles reproved
But now methinks if one kind word
Were whispered in thine ear
Thou’dst startle like an untamed bird
And blush with wilder fear

 

How loath to part how fond to meet
Had we two used to be
At sunset with what eager feet
I hastened on to thee
Scarce nine days passed us ere we met^*
In spring nay wintry weather
Now nine years’ suns^* have risen and set
Nor found us once together

 

Thy face was so familiar grown
Thyself so often bye
A moment’s memory when alone
Would bring thee to mine eye
But now my very dreams forget
That witching look to trace.
Though there thy beauty lingers yet
It wears a stranger face

 

I felt a pride to name thy name
But now that pride hath flown
My words e’en seem to blush for shame
That own I love thee on
I felt I then thy heart did share
Nor urged a binding vow
But much I doubt if thou couldst spare
One word of kindness now

And what is now my name to thee
Though once nought seemed so dear
Perhaps a jest in hours of glee
To please some idle ear
And yet like counterfeits with me
Impressions linger on
Though all the gilded finery
That passed for truth is gone

 

Ere the world smiled upon my lays
A sweeter meed was mine
Thy blushing look of ready praise
Was raised at every line
But now methinks thy fervent love
Is changed to scorn severe
And songs that other hearts approve
Seem discord to thine ear

 

When last thy gentle cheek I prest
And heard thee feign adieu
I little thought that seeming jest
Would prove a word so true
A fate like this hath oft befell
E‘en loftier hopes than ours
Spring bids full many buds to swell
That ne’er can grow to flowers

BALLAD^*

Where is the heart thou once hast won
Can cease to care about thee?
Where is the eye thou’st smiled upon
Can look for joy without thee?
Lorn is the lot one heart hath met
That’s lost to thy caressing
Cold is the hope that loves thee yet
Now thou art past possessing
Fare thee well

 

We met, we loved, we’ve met the last
The farewell word is spoken
O Mary canst thou feel the past
And keep thy heart unbroken
To think how warm we loved and how
Those hopes should blossom never
To think how we are parted now
And parted oh for ever
Fare thee well

 

Thou wert the first my heart to win
Thou art the last to wear it
And though another claims akin
Thou must be one to share it
Oh had we known when hopes were sweet
That hopes would once be thwarted
That we should part no more to meet
How sadly we had parted
Fare thee well

THE MILKING HOUR

The sun had grown on lessening day
A table large and round
And in the distant vapours grey
Seemed leaning on the ground
When Mary like a lingering flower
Did tenderly agree
To stay beyond her milking hour
And talk awhile with me

We wandered till the distant town
Had silenced nearly dumb
And lessened on the quiet ear
Small as a beetle’s hum
She turned her buckets upside-down
And made us each a seat
And there we talked the evening brown
Beneath the rustling wheat

 

And while she milked her breathing cows
I sat beside the streams
In musing o‘er our evening joys
Like one in pleasant dreams
The bats and owls to meet the night
From hollow trees had gone
And e’en the flowers had shut for sleep
And still she lingered on

 

We mused in rapture side by side
Our wishes seemed as one
We talked of time’s retreating tide
And sighed to find it gone
And we had sighed more deeply still
O’er all our pleasures past
If we had known what now we know
That we had met the last

I’ve ran the furlongs to thy door
And thought the way as miles
With doubts that I should see thee not
And scarcely staid for stiles
Lest thou should think me past the time
And change thy mind to go
Some other where to pass the time
The quickest speed was slow

But when thy cottage came in sight
And showed thee at the gate
The very scene was one delight
And though we parted late
Joy scarcely seemed a minute long
When hours their flight had ta‘en
And parting welcomed from thy tongue
‘Be sure and come again’

 

For thou wert young and beautiful
A flower but seldom found
That many hands were fain to pull
Who wouldn’t care to wound
But there was no delight to meet
Where crowds and folly be
The fields found thee companion meet
And kept love’s heart for me

 

To folly’s ear ’twas little known
A secret in a crowd
And only in the fields alone
I spoke thy name aloud
And if to cheer my walk along
A pleasant book was mine
Then beauty’s name in every song
Seemed nobody’s but thine

 

Far far from all the world I found
Thy pleasant home and thee
Heaths woods a stretching circle round
Hid thee from all but me
And o so green those ways when I
On Sundays used to seek
Thy company they gave me joy
That cheered me all the week

And when we parted with the pledge
Right quickly to return
How lone the wind sighed through the hedge
Birds singing seemed to mourn
My old home was a stranger place
If told the story plain
My home was in thy happy face
That saw me soon again

THE ENTHUSIAST: A DAYDREAM IN SUMMER*

‘Daydreams ofsummersgone’

White*

 

Wearied with his lonely walk
Hermit-like with none to talk
And cloyed with often seen delight
His spirits sickened at the sight
Of life’s realitys, and things
That spread around his wanderings
Of wood and heath in brambles clad
That seemed like him in silence sad
The lone enthusiast weary worn
Sought shelter from the heats of morn
And in a cool nook by the stream
Beside the bridge-wall dreamed a dream
And instant from his half-closed eye
Reality seemed fading bye
Dull fields and woods that round him lay
Like curtains to his dreaming play
All slided by and on his sight
New scenes appeared in fairy light
The skys lit up a fairer sun
The birds a cheery song begun
And flowers bloomed fair and wildly round
As ever grew on dreaming ground
And mid the sweet enchanting view
Created every minute new
He swooned at once from care and strife
Into the poesy of life
A stranger to the thoughts of men
He felt his boyish limbs again
Revelling in all the glee
Of life’s first fairy infancy
Chasing by the rippling spring
Dragonflyes of purple wing
Or setting mushroom-tops afloat
Mimmicing the sailing boat
Or vainly trying by supprise
To catch the settling butterflyes
And oft with rapture driving on
Where many partner-boys had gone
Wading through the rustling wheat
Red and purple flowers to meet
To weave and trim a wild cockade
And play the soldier’s gay parade
Then searched the ivy-haunted dell
To seek the pooty’s painted shell
And scaled the trees with burning breast
Mid scolding crows to rob their nest
Heart bursting with unshackled joys
The only heritage of boys
That from the haunts of manhood flye
Like songbirds from a winter sky
And now tore through the clinging thorns
Seeking kecks for bugle horns
Thus with the schoolboy’s heart again
He chased and halooed o‘er the plain
Till the old church clock counted one
And told us freedom’s hour was gone.
In its dull humming drowsy way
It called us from our sports and play
How different did the sound appear
To that which brought the evening near
That lovely humming happy strain
That brought them liberty again
— The desk the books were all the same
Marked with each well-known little name
And many a cover blotched and blurred
With shapeless forms of beast and bird
And the old master white with years
Sat there to waken boyish fears
While the tough scepter of his sway
That awed to silence all the day
The peeled wand acting to his will
Hung o’er the smoak-stained chimney still
- The church yard still its trees possest
And jackdaws sought their ancient nest
In whose old trunks they did acquire
Homes safe as in the mossy spire
The school they shadowed as before
With its white dial o‘er the door
And bees hummed round in summer’s pride
In its time-crevised walls to hide
The gravestones childhood eager reads
Peeped o’er the rudely clambering weeds
Where cherubs gilt that represent
The slumbers of the innoscent
Smiled glittering to the slanting sun
As if death’s peace with heaven was won
All, all was blest, and peace and plays
Brought back the enthusiast’s fairy days
And leaving childhood unpercieved
Scenes sweeter still his dream relieved
Life’s calmest spot that lingers green
Manhood and infancy between
When youth’s warm feelings have their birth
Creating angels upon earth
And fancying woman born for joy
With nought to wither and destroy
That picture of past youth’s delight
Was swimming now before his sight
And love’s soft thrills of pleasant pain
Was whispering its deciets again
And Mary, pride of pleasures gone,
Was at his side to lead him on
And on they went through field and lane
Haunts of their loves to trace again
Clung to his arm she skipt along
With the same music on her tongue
The self-same voice as soft and dear
As that which met his youthful ear
The sunny look the witching grace
Still blushed upon her angel face
As though one moment’s harmless stay
Had never stole a charm away
That self-same bloom and in her eye
That blue of thirteen summers bye^*
She took his hand to climb the stiles
And looked as wont her winning smiles
And as he met her looks divine
More tender did their blushes shine
Her small hand peeped within his own
Thrilled pleasures life hath never known
His heart beat as it once had done
And felt as love had just begun
As they’d ne‘er told their minds before
Or parted long to meet no more
The pleasant spots where they had met
All shone as nought had faded yet
The sun was setting o’er the hill
The thorn bush it was blooming still
As it was blooming on the day
When last he reached her boughs of may
And pleased he clumb the thorny grain
To crop its firstling buds again
And claimed in eager extacys
Love’s favours as he reached the prize
Marking her heart’s uneasy rest
The while he placed them on her breast
And felt warm love’s o‘erbounding thrill
That it could beat so tender still
And all her artless winning ways
Were with her as of other days
Her fears such fondness to reveal
Her wishes struggling to consceal
Her cheeks love’s same warm blushes burned
And smiled when he its warmth returned
O he did feel as he had done
When Mary’s bosom first was won
And gazed upon her eyes of blue
And blest her tenderly and true
As she sat by his side to rest
Feeling as then that he was blest
The talk, the whisper, met his ears
The same sweet tales of other years
That as they sat or mused along
Melted like music from her tongue
Objects of summer all the same
Were nigh her gentle praise to claim
The lark was rising from his nest
To sing the setting sun to rest
And her fair hand was o’er her eyes
To see her favourite in the skies
And oft his look was turned to see
If love still felt that melody
And blooming flowers were at her feet
Her bending lovely looks to meet
The blooms of spring and summer days
Lingering as to wait her praise
And though she showed him weeds the while
He praised and loved them for a smile
The cuckoo sung in soft delight
Its ditty to departing light
And murmuring childern far away
Mockt the music in their play
And in the ivied tree the dove
Breathed its soothing song to love
And as her praise she did renew
He smiled and hoped her heart as true
She blushed away in maiden pride
Then nestled closer to his side
He loved to watch her wistful look
Following white moths down the brook
And thrilled to mark her beaming eyes
Brightening in pleasure and supprise
To meet the wild mysterious things
That evening’s soothing presence brings
And stepping on with gentle feet
She strove to shun the lark’s retreat
And as he near the bushes prest
And scared the linnet from its nest
Fond chidings from her bosom fell
Then blessed the bird and wished it well
His heart was into rapture stirred
His very soul was with the bird
He felt that blessing by her side
As only to himself applied
‘Tis woman’s love makes earth divine
And life its rudest cares resign
And in his rapture’s gushing whim
He told her it was meant for him
She ne’er denied but looked the will
To own as though she blest him still
Yet he had fearful thoughts in view
Joy seemed too happy to be true
He doubted if‘twas Mary by
Yet could not feel the reason why
He loitered by her as in pain
And longed to hear her voice again
And called her by her witching name
She answered — ’twas the very same
And looked as if she knew his fears
Smiling to cheer him through her tears
And whispering in a tender sigh
“Tis youth and Mary standing by’
His heart revived yet in its mirth
Felt fears that they were not of earth
That all were shadows of the mind
Picturing the joys it wished to find
Yet he did feel as like a child
And sighed in fondness till she smiled
Vowing they ne‘er would part no more
And act so foolish as before
She nestled closer by his side
And vowed ‘We never will’ and sighed
He grasped her hand, it seemed to thrill,
And whispered ‘No, we never will’
And thought in rapture’s mad extream
To hold her though it proved a dream
And instant as that thought begun
Her presence seemed his love to shun
And deaf to all he had to say
Quick turned her tender face away
When her small waist he strove to clasp
She shrunk like water from his grasp.
He woke - all lonely as before
He sat beside the rilling streams
And felt that aching joy once more
Akin to thought and pleasant dreams

BALLAD

Fair maiden when my love began
Ere thou thy beauty knew
I fearless owned my passion then
Nor met reproof from you

 

But now perfection wakes thy charms
And strangers turn to praise
Thy pride my faint-grown heart alarms
And I scarce dare to gaze

 

Those lips to which mine own did grow
In love’s glad infancy
With ruby ripeness now doth glow
As gems too rich for me

 

The full-blown rose thy cheeks doth wear
Those lilys on thy brow
Forget whose kiss their buds did wear
And bloom above me now

 

Those eyes whose first sweet timid light
Did my young hopes inspire
Like midday suns in splendour bright
Now burn me with their fire

 

Nor can I weep what I bemoan
As great as are my fears
Too burning is my passion grown
To e’er be quenched by tears

BALLAD

O sigh no more, love, sigh no more
Nor pine for earthly treasure
Who fears a shipwreck on the shore
Or meets despair with pleasure

 

Let not our wants our troubles prove
Although ’tis winter weather
Nor singly strive with what our love
Can better brave together

 

Thy love is proved thy worth is such
It cannot fail to bless me
If I loose thee I can’t be rich
Nor poor if I possess thee

BALLAD*

The spring returns, the pewet screams
Loud welcomes to the dawning
Though harsh and ill as now it seems
’Twas music last May morning
The grass so green — the daisy gay
Wakes no joy in my bosom
Although the garland last Mayday
Wore not a finer blossom

For by this bridge my Mary sat
And praised the screaming plover
As first to hail the day — when I
Confessed myself her lover
And at that moment stooping down
I pluckt a daisy blossom
Which smilingly she called her own
May-garland for her bosom

 

And in her heart she hid it there
As true love’s happy omen
Gold had not claimed a safer care
I thought love’s name was woman
I claimed a kiss, she laughed away
I sweetly sold the blossom
I thought myself a king that day
My throne was beauty’s bosom

 

And little thought an evil hour
Was bringing clouds around me
And least of all that little flower
Would turn a thorn to wound me —
She showed me after many days
Though withered - how she prized it
And then she leaned to wealthy praise
And my poor love - despised it

 

Aloud the whirring pewet screams
The daisy blooms as gaily
But where is Mary? Absence seems
To ask that question daily
Nowhere on earth where joy can be
To glad me with her pleasure
Another name she owns - to me
She is as stolen treasure

When lovers part — the longest mile
Leaves hope of some returning
Though mine’s close bye - no hope the while
Within my heart is burning
One hour would bring me to her door
Yet sad and lonely-hearted
If seas between us both should roar
We were not further parted

 

Though I could reach her with my hand
Ere sun* the earth goes under,
Her heart from mine — the sea and land
Are not more far asunder
The wind and clouds, now here, now there,
Hold not such strange dominion
As woman’s cold perverted will
And soon-estranged opinion