[Image: David Austin's "John Clare Rose"]
A Garland for John Clare
I
Whether
the cold eye and the failing hand
Of these
defrauded years . . .
Whether
the two-way heart, the laughter
At little
things would please you, John; the waiting
For
louder nightingales, for the first flash and thunder
Of our
awakening would frighten you –
I wonder
sometimes, wishing for your company
This
summer; watching time’s contempt
For such
as you and I, the daily progress
Of
couch-grass on a wall, avid as death.
But you
had courage. Facing the open fields
Of
immortality, you drove your coulter
Strongly
and sang, not marking how the soil
Closed
its cut grin behind you, nor in front
The jealousy
of stones and a low sky.
Perhaps,
then, you’ll accept my awkward homage –
Even this
backyard garland I have made.
II
I’d give
you wild flowers for decking
Your
memory, those few I know;
Far-sighted
catseye that so soon turns blind
And
pallid after picking; the elder’s curdled flowers,
That
wastrel witch-tree; toadflax crouching
Under a
wall; and even the unpersistent
Windflowers
that wilt to rags within an hour . . .
These for
a token. But I’d give you other
More
private presents, as those evenings
When
under lime-trees of an earlier summer
We’d sing
at nine o’clock, small wineglasses
Set out
and glittering; and perhaps my friend
Would
play on a pipe, competing with the crickets --
My lady
Greensleeves, fickle as fine weather
Or the
lighter-boy who loved a merchant’s girl.
Then we
would talk, or perhaps silently
Watch the
night coming.
Those
evenings were yours, John, more than mine.
And I
would give you books you never had;
The
valley of the Loire under its pinewoods;
My friend Tom Staveley; the carved stone bridge
My friend Tom Staveley; the carved stone bridge
At
Yalding; and perhaps a girl’s small face
And
hanging hair that are important also.
I’d even
give you part in my shared fear:
This
personal responsibility
For a
whole world’s disease that is our nightmare --
You who
were never trusted or obeyed
In
anything, and so went mad and died.
We have
too much of what you lacked,
Lastly,
I’d ask a favour of you, John:
The
secret of your singing, of the high
Persons
and lovely voices we have lost.
You knew
them all. Even despised and digging
Your
scant asylum garden, they were with you.
When
London’s talkers left you, still you’d say
You were
the poet, there had only ever been
One poet
– Shakespeare, Milton, Byron
And mad
John Clare, the single timeless poet.
We have
forgotten that. But sometimes I
remember
The time
that I was Clare, and you unborn.
III
Whether
you’d fear the shrillness of my voice,
The
hedgehog-skin of nerves, the blind desire
For power
and safety, that was all my doubt.
It was
unjust. Accept, then, my poor scraps
Of proper
life, my waste growth of achievement.
Even the
cold eye and the failing hand
May be
acceptable to one long dead.
12th-13th
July 1941.
Sidney Keyes died alas before his 21st birthday, but certainly seemed to be well acquainted with Clare's work. He quotes Clare in one of his letters "This morning I went for a walk by the stream; there was a hard frost and bits of ice were hanging on twigs by the water -- "Like fishes' eyes"* as John Clare said. Whilst at Queen's College, Oxford he was part of the Oxford Cadet Force -- officers in training. His lecturer in map-reading was a certain Edmund Blunden, who will need no introduction to readers of this page. Notice too the date "Garland for John Clare" was completed -- Clare's birthday on the 13th and coincidentally(?) almost exactly 100 hundred years since the day that Clare left High Beech, Epping for his long walk up the Great North Road home. A stunning, mature work by one so young.
* "Pearled wi' dew like fishes eyes" (Clock a Clay)
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