6 July 2025

There is such freshness in John Clare’s poetry. Writing about an early morning ramble, he says, ‘Morn’s flushing face peeps out her first fond smile,/ Crimsoning the east in many tinted hue’. (A Ramble)

Describing the signs of new life springing up in the wintry landscape, he focuses on the appearance of primroses ‘Behind the wood’s old roots where ivy shields/ Their crimpled curdled leaves will shine and hide’. (Open Winter)

These two words say it all, don’t they? What a brilliant way to describe the first appearance of the primrose for it does shine in the sunlight but it also hides behind the wood’s old roots sheltering from bitter wintry weather!

With this freshness of language, there is also an element of surprise. The poet is often astonished by what he sees. In ‘Stepping Stones’, it is the boys who fly away from the geese and not the geese from the boys!

In ‘A Walk in the Forest’, he sees the woodman and his dog who ‘runs eager where the rabbit’s gone/ He eats the grass, then kicks and hurries on, / Then scrapes for hoarded bone and tries to play/ And barks at larger dogs and runs away’.

In another, he describes himself as ‘homeless at home’ and observes that ‘True love lives in absence,/ Like angels we meet her’. And immediately, we’re taken aback. Isn’t love all about presence and being present to another? But in our absence, there is memory which purifies and delights.