John Clare was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. His poetry underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th century: he is now often seen as a major 19th-century poet. His biographer Jonathan Bate called Clare "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self."
Wikipedia
“I found the poems in the fields,
And only wrote them down.”
Source: The Later Poems, 1837-1864: Volumes I and II
“Throw not my words away, as many do;
They're gold in value, though they're cheap to you.”
"The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
"The Ants"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
“And don't despise your betters cause they're old.”
"The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
"Secret Love"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
Emmonsail's Heath in Winter
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
“The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.”
"Secret Love"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
Context: 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.
An hour-glass on the run,
"What is Life?"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
Popularity of Authorship (1824)
"Hope"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
“In politics and politicians' lies
The modern farmer waxes wondrous wise;”
"The Parish: A Satire"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
“When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;”
"The Stranger"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
The Shepherd's Calendar: "July" (second version) http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/clare/july2.html
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
“Arts may ply fantastic anatomy but nature is always herself in her wildest moods of extravagence.”
'Essay on Landscape'
Other
