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• Synopsis
• Reviews
• Product details
• Table of contents

• Biography

Synopsis

‘All nature has a feeling: wood, brooks, fields
Are life eternal – and in silence they
Speak happiness’

John Clare produced some of English poetry’s most poignant and glorious lyrics. Writing not as an observer of nature, but out of an intimate knowledge of the wheatfields, hedgerows and ditches of his village in Northamptonshire, he described animals, insects, trees, rivers, sunlight and clouds with sublime sensitivity. But as enclosures and ‘improvements’ came in the early nineteenth century, dismembering the rural landscape, his later poems became infused with a sense of disorientation and loss, and scattered through with threads of madness. Clare’s genius has been rediscovered by fellow poets in every generation since his death, from Dylan Thomas to Ted Hughes.

This landmark edition, based on John Clare’s original manuscripts, is organized by theme, with an introduction discussing Clare’s work in the context of his tragic life. The volume also includes notes and a glossary.

Reviews

Critic Review:

‘This country’s greatest nature poet … It is time we praised John Clare to the skies’ 
Tom Paulin

‘[He] lived near the abyss but resolved extreme experience into something gentle’ 
Seamus Heaney

Table of contents

Days And Seasons
Early Images
The Morning Wind
The Wheat Ripening
A Morning Walk
The Heat of Noon
Summer Evening
Mist in the Meadows
Winter Evening
Evening Pastime
Happiness of Evening
Sunset
Cottage Fears
Night Wind
First Sight of Spring
A Spring Morning
Poesy a-Maying
Crows in Spring
Sport in the Meadows
Wood Pictures in Spring
Home Pictures in May
Summer Happiness
Haymaking
Wood Pictures in Summer
The Hail Storm in June 1831
The Summer Shower
Beans in Blossom
Summer Moods
Summer Images
The Summer Gone
Autumn Morning
Nutters
Nutting
Signs of Winter
Wood Pictures in Winter
Emmonsails Heath in Winter
The Flood
Snow Storm
Winter

Landscapes With Figures
Pleasant Places
Pleasant Spots
The Hollow Tree
The Crab Tree
Swordy Well
Stray Walks
Emmonsales Heath
Wood Rides
Stepping-Stones
Winter Fields
Snow Storm
Evening Schoolboys
The Foddering Boy
The Shepherd Boy
The Village Boy
The Woodman
The Shepherd's Fire
The Shepherd's Hut
A Sunday with Shepherds and Herdboys

Birds And Beasts
Birds' Nests
Sand Martin
The Fern Owl's Nest
The Wryneck's Nest
Hedge-Sparrow
The Woodpigeon's Nest
The Raven's Nest
The Sky Lark
The Yellowhammer's Nest
The Wren
The Pewit's Nest
The Pettichap's Nest
The Nightingale's Nest
To the Snipe
Wild Bees
Insects
Field-Cricket
Summer Evening
Hares at Play
The Martin
The Hedgehog
The Fox
The Badger

Loves
Valentine to Mary
Dedication to Mary
First Love's Recollections
Ballad: Where is the heart . . .
The Milking Hour
I've ran the furlongs to thy door . . .
The Enthusiast: A Daydream in Summer
Ballad: Fair Maiden . . .
Ballad: O sigh no more, love . . .
Ballad: The spring returns . . .

Changes And Contradictions
An Idle Hour
Midsummer
The Shepherd's Tree
The Meadow Grass
The Robin's Nest
The Moorhen's Nest
The Eternity of Nature
Song's Eternity
Pastoral Poesy
The Fallen Elm
The Mores
The Lament of Swordy Well
Decay
Obscurity
Nothingness of Life
Childhood
The Old Man's Song
Remembrances
The Flitting
Decay

'Madhouses, Prisons, Whoreshops . . .'
Maid of Walkherd, meet again . . .
The Frightened Ploughman
The Gipsy Camp
Nigh Leopard's Hill stand All-n's hells . . .
Ballad—Fragment: O Lord God Almighty . . .
Part of the Sale of Old Wigs and Sundries, or Don Juan
Prison Amusements, or Child Harold
Lord hear my prayer when trouble glooms
'Tis Martinmass from rig to rig . . .

'The English Bastille'
Graves of Infants
Love: Love is a secret . . .
Song: O wert thou in the storm
Evening: 'Tis evening, the black snail has got on his track . . .
A Vision
Mary: It is the evening hour . . .
To Mary: I sleep with thee and wake with thee . . .
Stanzas: Black absence hides upon the past . . .
Sonnet: Poets love nature . . .
Song: I seek her in the shady grove . . .
Sonnet: The flag-top quivers in the breeze . . .
Morning
The Dying Child
The Invitation
Part of Prison Amusements, or Child Harold, continued
Stanzas: Would'st thou but know . . .
I Am
Sonnet: I feel I am . . .
Left in the world alone . . .
Song: Love lives beyond . . .
Hesperus
The Autumn Wind
To a Lark singing in Winter
Stanzas: The spring is come forth . . .
The Round oak
Twilight
Wood-Anemonie
I love thee nature with a boundless love . . .
Flowers shall hang upon the palls . . .
How hot the sun rushes . . .
Mary: A Ballad: The skylark mounts up . . .
Song: How silent comes this gentle wind . . .
Autumn: I love the fitfull gusts . . .
Song: Where the ash-tree weaves . . .
The Wind
The Shepherd Boy
O could I be as I have been . . .
An Invite to Eternity
Childhood: O dear to us ever the scenes of our childhood . . .
Song: The girl I love is flesh and blood . . .
The Humble Bee
The evening is for love . . .
Her Love is All to Me . . .
The daisy-button tipp'd wi dew . . .
Now is Past
Little Trotty Wagtail
Clock-a-Clay
The Sweetest Woman There
Autumn: The thistledown's flying . . .
And Must We Part?
The Crow Sat on the Willow
The Peasant Poet
Song: The wind waves o'er the meadows green . . .
O' Come to My Arms
Remember dear Mary
Song: I wish I was where I would be . . .
Song: She tied up her few things . . .
Song: I hid my love when young . . .
Song: I peeled bits o' straws . . .
The Rawk o' the Autumn
Woman Had We Never Met
Written in Prison
Song: My old lover left me . . .
Song: I'll come to thee at eventide . . .
The Winter's Come
Spring comes and it is May . . .
And only o'er the heaths to ramble . . .
I look on the past and I dread the tomorrow . . .
To John Clare

Notes
Glossary
Index of First Lines
Index of Titles

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