April

April by John Clare (1793-1864)

The infant april joins the spring

And views its watery skye

As youngling linnet trys its wing

And fears at first to flye

With timid step she ventures on

And hardly dares to smile

The blossoms open one by one

And sunny hours beguile

But finer days approacheth yet

With scenes more sweet to charm

And suns arrive that rise and set

Bright strangers to a storm

And as the birds with louder song

Each mornings glory cheers

With bolder step she speeds along

And looses all her fears

In wanton gambols like a child

She tends her early toils

And seeks the buds along the wild

That blossom while she smiles

And laughing on with nought to chide

She races with the hours

Or sports by natures lovley side

And fills her lap with flowers

March

March by John Clare (1793-1864)

March month of 'many weathers' wildly comes
In hail and snow and rain and threatning hums
And floods: while often at his cottage door
The shepherd stands to hear the distant roar
Loosd from the rushing mills and river locks
Wi thundering sound and over powering shocks
And headlong hurry thro the meadow brigs
Brushing the leaning sallows fingering twigs
In feathery foam and eddy hissing chase
Rolling a storm oertaken travellers pace
From bank to bank along the meadow leas
Spreading and shining like to little seas
While in the pale sunlight a watery brood
Of swopping white birds flock about the flood

February

 

February by John Clare (1793-1864)

The snow has left the cottage top;
The thatch moss grows in brighter green;
And eaves in quick succession drop,
Where grinning icicles have been,
Pit-patting with a pleasant noise
In tubs set by the cottage-door;
While ducks and geese, with happy joys,
Plunge in the yard-pond brimming o'er.
The sun peeps through the window-pane;
Which children mark with laughing eye,
And in the wet street steal again
To tell each other spring is nigh:
Then, as young hope the past recalls,
In playing groups they often draw,
To build beside the sunny walls
Their spring-time huts of sticks or straw.

January

 

New Year's Day  The Feast of the Circumcision

January by John Clare (1793-1864)

Withering and keen the winter comes
While comfort flyes to close shut rooms
And sees the snow in feathers pass
Winnowing by the window glass
And unfelt tempests howl and beat
Above his head in corner seat
And musing oer the changing scene
Farmers behind the tavern screen
Sit-or wi elbow idly prest
On hob reclines the corners guest
Reading the news to mark again
The bankrupt lists or price of grain
Or old moores anual prophecys
That many a theme for talk supplys
Whose almanacks thumbd pages swarm
Wi frost and snow and many a storm
And wisdom gossipd from the stars
Of polities and bloody wars
He shakes his head and still proceeds

Christmas

St Stephen, the Protomartyr

Christmas by John Clare (1793-1864)

Christmas is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
E'en want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi' a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winters sky
O'er snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi' her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi' evergreens
The snow is beesomd from the door
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi' its thorny pricks
And yew and box wi' berrys small
These deck the unus'd candlesticks
And pictures hanging by the wall

December

 

December by John Clare (1793-1864)

While snow the window-panes bedim,

The fire curls up a sunny charm,

Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim,

The flowering ale is set to warm;

Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,

Sits there, its pleasures to impart,

And children, 'tween their parent's knees,

Sing scraps of carols o'er by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,

Climb up the window-seat with glee,

Likening the snow to falling feathers,

In fancy infant ecstasy;

Laughing, with superstitious love,

O'er visions wild that youth supplies,

Of people pulling geese above,

And keeping Christmas in the skies.

As tho' the homestead trees were drest,

In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves,

As tho' the sun-dried martin's nest,

Instead of ickles, hung the eaves,

The children hail the happy day -

As if the snow were April's grass,

And pleas'd, as 'neath the warmth of May,

Sport o'er the water froze as glass.

November

 

November by John Clare (1793-1864)

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain;
Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain.

October

 

October by John Clare (1793-1854)

Nature now spreads around, in dreary hue,
A pall to cover all that summer knew;
Yet, in the poet's solitary way,
Some pleasing objects for his praise delay;
Something that makes him pause and turn again,
As every trifle will his eye detain: —
The free horse rustling through the stubble field;
And cows at lair in rushes, half conceal'd;
With groups of restless sheep who feed their fill,
O'er clear'd fields rambling wheresoe'er they will;

The hedger stopping gaps, amid the leaves,
Which time, o'er-head, in every colour weaves;
The milkmaid pausing with a timid look,
From stone to stone, across the brimming brook;
The cotter journeying with his noisy swine,
Along the wood-side where the brambles twine,
Shaking from mossy oaks the acorns brown,
Or from the hedges red haws dashing down;
The nutters, rustling in the yellow woods,
Who teaze the wild things in their solitudes;

September

September by John Clare (1793-1864)

Harvest awakes the morning still,
And toil's rude groups the valleys fill;
Deserted is each cottage hearth
To all life, save the cricket's mirth;
Each burring wheel its sabbath meets,
Nor walks a gossip in the streets;
The bench beneath the eldern bough,
Lined o'er with grass, is empty now,
Where blackbirds, caged from out the sun,
Would whistle while their mistress spun:
All haunt the thronged fields, to share
The harvest's lingering bounty there.
As yet, no meddling boys resort
About the streets in idle sport;
The butterfly enjoys its hour,
And flirts, unchased, from flower to flower;
The humming bees, which morning calls
From out the low hut's mortar walls,
And passing boy no more controls —
Fly undisturb'd about their holes.

August

 

August by John Clare (1793-1864)

Harvest approaches with its busy day;
The wheat tans brown, and barley bleaches grey;
In yellow garb the oatland intervenes,
And tawny glooms the valley throng'd with beans.
Silent the village grows, — wood-wandering dreams
Seem not so lonely as its quiet seems;
Doors are shut up as on a winter's day,
And not a child about them lies at play;
The dust that winnows 'neath the breeze's feet
Is all that stirs about the silent street:
Fancy might think that desert-spreading Fear
Had whisper'd terrors into Quiet's ear,
Or plundering armies past the place had come
And drove the lost inhabitants from home.
The fields now claim them, where a motley crew
Of old and young their daily tasks pursue.
The reapers leave their rest before the sun,
And gleaners follow in the toils begun
To pick the litter'd ear the reaper leaves,
And glean in open fields among the sheaves.

July

 

July by John Clare (1793-1864)

July the month of summers prime
Again resumes her busy time
Scythes tinkle in each grassy dell
Where solitude was wont to dwell
And meadows they are mad with noise
Of laughing maids and shouting boys
Making up the withering hay
With merry hearts as light as play
The very insects on the ground
So nimbly bustle all around
Among the grass or dusty soil
They seem partakers in the toil
The very landscape reels with life
While mid the busy stir and strife
Of industry the shepherd still
Enjoys his summer dreams at will
Bent oer his hook or listless laid
Beneath the pastures willow shade
Whose foliage shines so cool and grey
Amid the sultry hues of day

June

June by John Clare (1793-1864)

Now summer is in flower, and Nature's hum
Is never silent round her bounteous bloom;
Insects, as small as dust, have never done
With glitt'ring dance, and reeling in the sun;
And green wood-fly, and blossom-haunting bee,
Are never weary of their melody.
Round field and hedge, flowers in full glory twine,
Large bind-weed bells, wild hop, and streak'd woodbine,
That lift athirst their slender-throated flowers,
Agape for dew-falls, and for honey showers;
These o'er each bush in sweet disorder run,
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun.
The mottled spider, at eve's leisure, weaves
His webs of silken lace on twigs and leaves,
Which ev'ry morning meet the poet's eye,
Like fairies' dew-wet dresses hung to dry.
The wheat swells into ear, and hides below
The May-month wild flowers and their gaudy show.

Aberglasney in the snow

      Woke up this morning to find it had snowed in the night! Not much really but enough, for all my mature years, to get a little excited. Here are a few photographs I took of the gardens at Aberglasney when I arrived at what is the final day of my current exhibition.  It is quite remarkable how even a light dusting of snow completely alters one's perception of a space or landscape.

I Love the snow, the crumpling snow,

That hangs on everything,

It covers everything below

Like white dove's brooding wing,

A landscape to the aching sight,

A vast expanse of dazzling light.

It is the foliage of the woods

That winters bring - the dress,

White Easter of the year in bud,

That makes the winter spring.

St Benedict, Glinton

     I spent a week back in Lincolnshire in the beginning of December catching up with people and things.  I took the opportunity to pop over to Glinton and have a look at the parish church of St Benedict, a building that has connections with the poet John Clare (1793-1864). It was here that Clare went to the village school, which was then located in the N. chancel chapel and here too that the love of his life, Mary Joyce, lived.  The day of my visit damp, cold and thoroughly miserable.  It seems a long way off as I type theses words in a spring-like Swansea. Like Helpston and Northborough, Glinton suffers from proximity to Peterborough and the slow defeat of 'village' by 'suburbia'.  All three are stone-belt villages that sit on the wide flood plain of the Welland. To the east beyond Northborough and Glinton (which is, I think, on some sort of gravel peninsular) lie the fens. Places then that one wouldn't necessarily associate with charming stone-built cottages.

     Be that as it may, St Benedict's and its large graveyard sit midway along the straggling High St. The spire is quite something - tall and quite out of proportion with the squat tower below, it changes angle about two thirds of the way up.  Quite a landmark and unique, I would guess. Dramatic too. The church less so, small, with a noticeably tall Perp clerestory. In the porch are a couple of large, much worn effigies, male and female, removed from inside.  They probably took up too much floor space - the interior is on the small side, but that tall clerestory does add a much need sense of drama and verticality.  (Note the large corbels high between the windows - evidence of an earlier, perhaps more interesting nave roof) All that said the interior is, quite frankly, dull; a victim of conventional Anglican taste. The font is possibly the best thing - square, Norman and carved with abstract patterns.  One wants, however, a little mystery.

St Botolph, Helpston

     

     The bf stayed with me for a week just before I moved.  In fact the final full day of his stay was dominated by the house sale.  However earlier in the week, when things were a little less hectic, I took him to the village of Helpston in the Soke of Peterborough and John Clare Cottage.  It was my second visit and his first. For those who don't know the cottage in question was the birthplace and sometime residence of the 'peasant poet' John Clare (1793-1846) It is a delight; there is the cottage itself (an atmospheric museum), charming garden and contemporary, but being built like a barn in no way intrusive, visitor centre.  It really is worth a visit.

     On the other side of the village High St, and near the John Clare memorial designed by Michael Drury of Lincoln, is the small parish church dedicated to St Botolph, with, in the graveyard, the burial place of the John Clare.  I love the archway into the graveyard! The most distinctive part of the church is the octagonal west tower and spire.  The interior is, to be honest, a little dull.  However its setting is all very picturesque: the former vicarage to the south and a number of beautiful houses clustered around all built of the local oolitic limestone.  In all a rather lovely village on the edge of the Limestone Belt, spoilt alas by the all too intrusive 20th century.  Apologies for the low number of photos - more will follow - but we're kinda chaotic here for the time being!