John Clare (1793 – 1864) was an English poet, in his time commonly known as "the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet", born the son of a farm labourer at Helpston near Peterborough.
His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be one of the most important 19th-century poets.
His education did not extend much beyond basic reading and writing, and he had to start work herding animals at the age of seven. This was not a promising start for a future writer, but in his early teens he discovered The Seasons by James Thomson and began writing poems himself.
His first love, Mary Joyce, was the daughter of a wealthy farmer; their separation caused Clare great pain, and it contributed to the sense of loss which pervades much of his poetry
In 1820 he married Martha Turner and published his first book of poems. He was described as 'John Clare, a Northampton Peasant' on the title-page, and the current fashion for 'rural poetry' brought him some celebrity in London. He made friends with Charles Lamb and other literary figures, and was granted the sum of £45 a year by wealthy patrons.
The vogue for rustic poets did not last long however, and his popularity faded during the 1830s. The situation was made worse by his publishers, who insisted on 'correcting' Clare's individual style and use of dialect, to make his verse fit contemporary notions of poetic convention. Clare's attempts to write like other poets of his day, as well as his financial worries, put tremendous strain on his mind, and in 1837 he was admitted to a mental asylum in High Beach, Epping.
He escaped from the asylum in 1841, and walked home to Northamptonshire, under the delusion that he would be reunited with Mary Joyce there.
A few months later he entered Northamptonshire General Asylum, where he lived for the rest of his life, still writing poems when his mental health permitted.
The following poem was written there.
I AM
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
John Clare
Think not of the faults of others, of what they have done or not done. Think rather of your own sins, of the things you have done or not done.
