#John Clare

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy struggled up to a higher point on the steep hillside, in the hope of obtaining a wider view of the surrounding landscape and the extent of the woodland, but the dense Scotch mist remained as thick as ever, so it was impossible to see anything much at all, except the lush ferns and bracken which surrounded his perch, and a few trees which marked the beginning of the boundless woods.

Resigning himself to patience, although he was keen to continue his quest, Algy decided that he would just have to wait until the weather cleared sufficiently for him to gain some idea of which direction he ought to take, comforted in the meantime by the continuing glow of his magical pumpkin lantern, which even at noon provided extra light and warmth on a day which "seems turn'd to night"…For at present the landscape was indeed asleep in the mist and Algy could not "mark a patch of sky", nor did there seem any chance at all of the sun looking through…

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.

[Algy is quoting the opening of the long poem November from The Shepherd's Calendar by the 19th century English poet John Clare.]

[kerryquotesquotes]

The summer-flower has run to seed,

And yellow is the woodland bough;

And every leaf of bush and weed,

Is tipt with autumn's pencil now...

John Clare, Autumn

[dabiconcordia]

What is Life?

"And what is Life? — An hour-glass on the run, A mist retreating from the morning sun." – John Clare

[derangedrhythms]

John Clare, The New Faber Book of Love Poems; from ‘Song’, ed. James Fenton

TEXT ID: And even silence found a tongue To haunt me all the summer long

[godtrauma]

The Creature - Penny Dreadful S1E8, The Grand Guignol

[julesofnature]

The summer-flower has run to seed, And yellow is the woodland bough; And every leaf of bush and weed Is tipt with autumn's pencil now. And I do love the varied hue, And I do love the browning plain; And I do love each scene to view, That's mark'd with beauties of her reign. The woodbine-trees red berries bear, That clustering hang upon the bower; While, fondly lingering here and there, Peeps out a dwindling sickly flower. The trees' gay leaves are turned brown, By every little wind undress'd; And as they flap and whistle down, We see the birds' deserted nest. No thrush or blackbird meets the eye, Or fills the ear with summer's strain; They but dart out for worm and fly, Then silent seek their rest again. Beside the brook, in misty blue, Bilberries glow on tendrils weak, Where many a bare-foot splashes through, The pulpy, juicy prize to seek: For 'tis the rustic boy's delight, Now autumn's sun so warmly gleams, And these ripe berries tempt his sight, To dabble in the shallow streams. And oft his rambles we may trace, Delv'd in the mud his printing feet, And oft we meet a chubby face All stained with the berries sweet.

Autumn by John Clare

[rey-jake-therapist]

I really want to ship Vanessa and Ethan but except for the height difference, there's not much there for me, not when there's literally Lucifer obsessed with her...

I hoped Vanessa and Ethan would remain platonic tbh, but I got spoiled and duh, so disappointing.

I can't with Frankenstein. Sorry but he's a creep 😭 The way he dolled up "Lily" to make her his perfect woman while pretending that he wants her to have her own life.... Don't get me started with how he's screwing up poor John Clare over.... I really hope it will soon all come back to bite him in the ass !

Dorian Gray's an asshole with every woman but what's new here...

[ombre-originelle]

I've never found myself in a fictional character as much as in this one.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Using the poetry of 'peasant poet' John Clare, Martha Kearney visits Helpston and Fen Edge to understand how the landscape has changed since his day. The sounds Clare would have heard in the early 1800s before the Enclosures Act would have been very different from what we hear today. Aside from the obvious sounds of modern technology, cars and aircraft, Martha learns how the draining of the fens changed species habitats and meant some birds and animals have disappeared from the landscape. The bittern, corncrake and 'whaddon organ' frog have all gone, but in their place other species have made this unique part of the countryside home.

Dr Francesca Mackenny from the Cardiff University Sound of Nature project uses Clare's poetry to help us listen to the landscape. Richard Astle from the Langdyke Trust takes Martha to Swardywell Pit - a piece of land Clare knew well that has been restored from being a landfill site and transformed into a thriving nature reserve, but now populated with different flora and fauna than Clare would have encountered.

Martha then travels further into the fens to meet Rex Sly in Crowland whose family have farmed in the area for more than 500 years. As well as farming, Rex has also written books and poetry about the area in the style of John Clare. His great-grandniece Lucy tells Martha why she felt drawn back to the Fens to help preserve the landscape after leaving to study at university in Edinburgh.

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

Triumph of Death

Why should man's high aspiring mind Burn in him with so proud a breath, When all his haughty views can find In this world yields to death? The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise, The rich, the poor, the great, and small, Are each but worm's anatomies To strew his quiet hall.

Power may make many earthly gods, Where gold and bribery's guilt prevails, But death's unwelcome, honest odds Kick o'er the unequal scales. The flattered great may clamours raise Of power, and their own weakness hide, But death shall find unlooked-for ways To end the farce of pride.

An arrow hurtled eer so high, From een a giant's sinewy strength, In Time's untraced eternity Goes but a pigmy length; Nay, whirring from the tortured string, With all its pomp of hurried flight, Tis by the skylark's little wing Outmeasured in its height.

Just so man's boasted strength and power Shall fade before death's lightest stroke, Laid lower than the meanest flower, Whose pride oer-topt the oak; And he who, like a blighting blast, Dispeopled worlds with war's alarms Shall be himself destroyed at last By poor despised worms.

Tyrants in vain their powers secure, And awe slaves' murmurs with a frown, For unawed death at last is sure To sap the babels down. A stone thrown upward to the sky Will quickly meet the ground agen; So men-gods of earth's vanity Shall drop at last to men;

And Power and Pomp their all resign, Blood-purchased thrones and banquet halls. Fate waits to sack Ambition's shrine As bare as prison walls, Where the poor suffering wretch bows down To laws a lawless power hath passed; And pride, and power, and king, and clown Shall be Death's slaves at last.

Time, the prime minister of Death! There's nought can bribe his honest will. He stops the richest tyrant's breath And lays his mischief still. Each wicked scheme for power all stops, With grandeurs false and mock display, As eve's shades from high mountain tops Fade with the rest away.

Death levels all things in his march,  Nought can resist his mighty strength; The palace proud, triumphal arch, Shall mete its shadow's length. The rich, the poor, one common bed Shall find in the unhonoured grave, Where weeds shall crown alike the head Of tyrant and of slave. 

- John Clare

[alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry]

I am by John Clare

[adventuresofalgy]

Then, all of a sudden, light and colour returned to the world, and when Algy woke up the next morning he found that it had been completely transformed once again.

Algy realised that in his long sleep he must have missed much of the gradual changing of the seasons, for the sun was now surprisingly low in the sky, imparting a distinctive autumnal hue to the overgrown grasses and drying leaves, and the shadows were deep and long. But there was still some warmth to be found in a sheltered spot, providing one kept close to the ground and away from the chilly north-east wind, which kept trying to blow Algy's hair and feathers into his eyes in a most annoying manner.

As he looked around he could see that even the bell heather was fading now, but there were still a few bright flowers peeping out from the untamed mass of grasses and seedheads, and as Algy leaned back among the crazy tangle of the late summer meadow, he did indeed feel happily "beguiled by the last lingering of the flowery kind":

And down the hay-fields, wading ‘bove the knees Through seas of waving grass, what days I’ve gone, Cheating the hopes of many labouring bees By cropping blossoms they were perch’d upon; As thyme along the hills, and lambtoe knots, And the wild stalking Canterbury bell, By hedge-row side or bushy bordering spots, That loves in shade and solitude to dwell. And when the summer’s swarms, half-nameless, fled, And autumn’s landscape faded bleak and wild, When leaves ‘gan fall and show their berries red, Still with the season would I be beguil’d Lone spots to seek, home leaving far behind,– Where wildness rears her lings and teazle-burs, And where, last lingering of the flowery kind, Blue heath-bells tremble ‘neath the shelt’ring furze.

[Algy is quoting two verses from the poem The Wildflower Nosegay by the early 19th century English Romantic poet John Clare.]

[shinehalley]

The way in which Vanessa and John Clare's relationship is built along the lines of the relationship between the old blind man and the original creature, using as a parallel the subplot of the girl who is physically blind to say how compassion is not really the result of blindness, but about seeing beauty with the eyes of the soul and that's exactly what Vanessa does even though she's not physically blind is very special to me.

[dabiconcordia]

Summer

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest, And love is burning diamonds in my true lover's breast; She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair, And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair; I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest, And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of July, The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day, And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover's breast; I'll lean upon her breast and I'll whisper in her ear That I cannot get a wink o'sleep for thinking of my dear; I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day. by John Clare

[litandlifequotes]

I am the self-consumer of my woes―

"I Am!" by John Clare

[majestativa]

We’re wed to [...] eternity.

— John Clare, My Gothic Heart, (2023)