John Clare

There is a charm in Solitude that cheers
A feeling that the world knows nothing of
A green delight the wounded mind endears
After the hustling world is broken off

I Am!

I am — yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes — They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live — like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange — nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below — above the vaulted sky.

A maidenhead, the virgin's trouble
Is well-compare-d to a bubble
on a navigable river
Soon 'tis touched t'is gone forever

Evening Primrose

When once the sun sinks in the west,
And dewdrops pearl the evening's breast;
Almost as pale as moonbeams are,
Or its companionable star,
The evening primrose opes anew
Its delicate blossoms to the dew;
And, hermit-like, shunning the light,
Wastes its fair bloom upon the night,
Who, blindfold to its fond caresses,
Knows not the beauty it possesses;
Thus it blooms on while night is by;
When day looks out with open eye,
Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun,
It faints and withers and is gone.

Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.

And what's more wonderful, when big loads foil One ant or two to carry, quickly then A swarm flock round to help their fellow-men.

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost: And yet I am, and live with shadows tost

I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long, thou wert joy of my ever spot
theme of my every song.

I am — yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes — They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live — like vapours tossed

Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids — The hermit bees find them but once and away.
There I'll bury alive and in silence decay.

O take me from the busy crowd,
I cannot bear the noise!
For Nature's voice is never loud;
I seek for quiet joys.
The book I love is everywhere,
And not in idle words;
The book I love is known to all,
And better lore affords.

O how I feel, just as I pluck the flower And stick it to my breast — words can't reveal; But there are souls that in this lovely hour Know all I mean, and feel whate'er I feel.

In politics and politicians' lies The modern farmer waxes wondrous wise; Opinionates with wisdom all compact, And een could tell a nation how to act; Throws light on darkness with excessive skill, Knows who acts well and whose designs are ill, Proves half the members nought but bribery's tools, And calls the past a dull dark age of fools.

I hid my love in field and town Till een the breeze would knock me down, The bees seemed singing ballads oer, The fly's bass turned a lion's roar; And even silence found a tongue, To haunt me all the summer long; The riddle nature could not prove Was nothing else but secret love.

O I never thought that joys would run away from boys,
Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys;
But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys
To petrify first feelings like the fable into stone,
Till I found the pleasure past and a winter come at last,
Then the fields were sudden bare and the sky got overcast
And boyhood’s pleasing haunt like a blossom in the blast
Was shrivelled to a withered weed and trampled down and done,
Till vanished was the morning spring and set the summer sun
And winter fought her battle strife and won.