John Clare: ‘its only bondage was the circling sky...’

A little difficult to find a moment to post something! But as we will soon be looking at Romantic poetry in class, John Clare came to mind this evening. He is a truly great poet in the Romantic tradition, lesser known unfortunately. A man of little formal education, and humble peasant origins, he lived in the time of England’s brutal Enclosures, a ‘land grab’ by the wealthy, confiscating the open Common Land of the people of England, and leaving it in the hands of exploitative private owners. This was a traumatic experience for hundreds of thousands of country folk at the end of the eighteenth century, as they were thrown off their ancestral land, or forced to pay extortionate rents. And one which John Clare, with his poetic hypersensitivity, never got over. It had a deep and terrible effect on this man, who as a boy enjoyed roaming the free open spaces around his village which were now enclosed by fences and hedges. We all surely have an innate sense that this Earth is for us all to share; we look up at the wide open sky, and take in the magnificent views of our countrysides, and the heart leaps in freedom and the knowledge that this is no-one's and everyone's: ‘its only bondage was the circling sky...’. 

 

A couple of years ago I drove to his village, Helpston, in Northamptonshire, to see how it was, and visit his grave. It is indeed still a beautiful corner of the country which has managed to retain something of its spirit, in spite of modern development. 

A photo taken during the visit to Helpston; a beautiful stone inscription of Clare's verse

A typical thatched house in Helpston village, from the time of John Clare

 A more recent addition, standing at the head of Clare's grave

"A poet is born not made"

"Sacred to the Memory of John Clare, the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet"

Here is a extract from his poem The Mores, in which he talks of this experience:

Far spread the moorey ground a level scene
Bespread with rush and one eternal green
That never felt the rage of blundering plough
Though centurys wreathed spring's blossoms on its brow
Still meeting plains that stretched them far away
In uncheckt shadows of green brown, and grey
Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene
Nor fence of ownership crept in between
To hide the prospect of the following eye
Its only bondage was the circling sky
One mighty flat undwarfed by bush and tree
Spread its faint shadow of immensity
And lost itself, which seemed to eke its bounds
In the blue mist the horizon's edge surrounds
Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours
Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers
Is faded all - a hope that blossomed free,
And hath been once, no more shall ever be
Inclosure came and trampled on the grave
Of labour's rights and left the poor a slave
And memory's pride ere want to wealth did bow
Is both the shadow and the substance now
The sheep and cows were free to range as then
Where change might prompt nor felt the bonds of men
Cows went and came, with evening morn and night,
To the wild pasture as their common right
And sheep, unfolded with the rising sun
Heard the swains shout and felt their freedom won
Tracked the red fallow field and heath and plain
Then met the brook and drank and roamed again
The brook that dribbled on as clear as glass
Beneath the roots they hid among the grass
While the glad shepherd traced their tracks along
Free as the lark and happy as her song
But now all's fled and flats of many a dye
That seemed to lengthen with the following eye
Moors, loosing from the sight, far, smooth, and blea
Where swopt the plover in its pleasure free
Are vanished now with commons wild and gay
As poet's visions of life's early day
Mulberry-bushes where the boy would run
To fill his hands with fruit are grubbed and done
And hedgrow-briars - flower-lovers overjoyed
Came and got flower-pots - these are all destroyed
And sky-bound mores in mangled garbs are left
Like mighty giants of their limbs bereft
Fence now meets fence in owners' little bounds
Of field and meadow large as garden grounds
In little parcels little minds to please
With men and flocks imprisoned ill at ease
Each little path that led its pleasant way
As sweet as morning leading night astray
Where little flowers bloomed round a varied host
That travel felt delighted to be lost
Nor grudged the steps that he had ta-en as vain
When right roads traced his journeys and again -
Nay, on a broken tree he'd sit awhile
To see the mores and fields and meadows smile
Sometimes with cowslaps smothered - then all white
With daiseys - then the summer's splendid sight
Of cornfields crimson o'er the headache bloomd
Like splendid armys for the battle plumed
He gazed upon them with wild fancy's eye
As fallen landscapes from an evening sky
These paths are stopt - the rude philistine's thrall
Is laid upon them and destroyed them all...