I found the poems in the fields
And only wrote them down
– John Clare
Two walks frame the life of the poet John Clare (1793-1864).
One, when he was just a young boy: On a summer’s day he set off attempting to walk to ‘the world’s end.’ Missing from his home for over a day, his parents and indeed the entire village went out in search of him. Only for Clare to return ‘wonder-struck’ having lain in the grass for hours looking up at the sky.
The second, sadder walk was as an adult: Slipping out, one July morning, from the insane asylum to which his depression and bouts of madness had confined him. In broken-down shoes he makes his way back home, over eighty miles in four days, again lying down in the grass “with my head towards the north to show myself the steering point in the morning.”
He was to spend the next 23 years back in the Asylum.
Although geographically these walks took opposite directions, in the map of the heart both were directing Clare to the expansive freedom of nature that he has detailed with greater clarity and precision than almost any other poet.
Reading his intimate nature poems, it is as if the reader is walking along by his side, as Clare points out the beautiful details we would otherwise have missed.
I leave you with two reflections on John Clare. First the touching poem by Wendy Cope – a delicate balance between sadness and delight. The last is all delight, a surprising reminder that Clare was also a musician, playing the fiddle and collecting many folk tunes (such as these performed here) in his notebooks.
John Clare by Wendy Cope
John Clare, I cried last night
For you – your grass-green coat,
Your oddness, others’ spite,
Your fame, enjoyed and lost,
Your gift, and what it cost.
Awake in the early hours,
I heard you with my eyes,
Carolling woods and showers.
As if a songbird’s throat
Could utter words, you wrote.
I listened late and long –
Each clear, true, loving note
Placed justly in its song.
Sometimes for sheer delight,
John Clare, I cried last night.
