John Clare Voice of the English Countryside

Most people have never heard of John Clare, yet he wrote some of the most vivid nature poetry in English literature. John Clare emerged from rural England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, bringing a voice shaped by farm life, seasonal work, and close observation of the natural world. Born in Helpston in Northamptonshire in 1793, he grew up in a family of agricultural laborers where daily survival depended on field work and local trade. This environment became the foundation of his poetic imagination.

From a young age, Clare showed a strong attraction to language and verse. His formal education lasted only a short period, yet he developed skill through reading borrowed books, listening to songs, and absorbing local oral traditions. His writing reflects careful attention to detail, especially in descriptions of birds, plants, weather patterns, and rural customs.

Clare lived during a time when enclosure of common land reshaped the English countryside. Fields that once belonged to shared use became divided and restricted. He recorded these changes with emotional depth, capturing both the beauty of the land and the sense of loss experienced by rural communities. His poems often preserve the memory of landscapes that were disappearing during his lifetime.

His early publications gained interest among literary supporters in London. These connections helped bring his work into print, although financial security remained out of reach. Over time, his relationship with the literary world grew strained, while his connection to his home landscape remained central to his identity.

In later years, Clare experienced severe mental distress and spent extended periods in medical care at Northampton. Even in those conditions, he continued writing with remarkable clarity. His poetry from this period reveals intense concentration on identity, memory, and the natural world.

Modern readers often value Clare for his precise language and his sensitivity toward environmental change. His work offers a detailed record of rural England and expresses a deep attachment to place shaped by lived experience rather than academic training.

One of Clare's poems:

I Am

I am yet what I am; none cares or knows my name.

I am the self-consumer of my woes.

They rise and vanish in oblivious show,

Like shades in love and death, changeful and low.

And yet I am I, living though I seem,

A shadow thrown upon the world of dream.

A passing thought that wanders to and fro,

And finds no resting place where flowers grow.

This poem of Clares is very long and follows a loose chronological sweep through March, framing the month as a volatile threshold between seasons, a structure common in pastoral almanacs but rendered with close observational detail uncommon in early 19th-century rural poetry. Pay close attention to his dialect. That was what interested me the most.

The Shepherds Calendar - March

March month of 'many weathers' wildly comes

In hail and snow and rain and threatening hums

And floods: while often at his cottage door

The shepherd stands to hear the distant roar

Loosd from the rushing mills and river locks

Wi thundering sound and overpowering shocks

And headlong hurry thro the meadow brigs

Brushing the leaning sallows fingering twigs

In feathery foam and eddy hissing chase

Rolling a storm oertaken travellers pace

From bank to bank along the meadow leas

Spreading and shining like to little seas

While in the pale sunlight a watery brood

Of swopping white birds flock about the flood

Yet winter seems half weary of its toil

And round the ploughman on the elting soil

Will thread a minutes sunshine wild and warm

Thro the raggd places of the swimming storm

And oft the shepherd in his path will spye

The little daisey in the wet grass lye

That to the peeping sun enlivens gay

Like Labour smiling on an holiday

And where the stunt bank fronts the southern sky

By lanes or brooks where sunbeams love to lye

A cowslip peep will open faintly coy

Soon seen and gatherd by a wandering boy

A tale of spring around the distant haze

Seems muttering pleasures wi the lengthening days

Morn wakens mottld oft wi may day stains

And shower drops hang the grassy sprouting plains

And on the naked thorns of brassy hue

Drip glistning like a summer dream of dew

While from the hill side freshing forest drops

As one might walk upon their thickening tops

And buds wi young hopes promise seemly swells

Where woodman that in wild seclusion dwells

Wi chopping toil the coming spring decieves

Of many dancing shadows flowers and leaves

And in his pathway down the mossy wood

Crushes wi hasty feet full many a bud

Of early primrose yet if timely spied

Shelterd some old half rotten stump beside

The sight will cheer his solitery hour

And urge his feet to stride and save the flower

Muffld in baffles leathern coat and gloves

The hedger toils oft scaring rustling doves

From out the hedgrows who in hunger browze

The chockolate berrys on the ivy boughs

And flocking field fares speckld like the thrush

Picking the red awe from the sweeing bush

That come and go on winters chilling wing

And seem to share no sympathy wi spring

The stooping ditcher in the water stands

Letting the furrowd lakes from off the lands

Or splashing cleans the pasture brooks of mud

Where many a wild weed freshens into bud

And sprouting from the bottom purply green

The water cresses neath the wave is seen

Which the old woman gladly drags to land

Wi reaching long rake in her tottering hand

The ploughman mawls along the doughy sloughs

And often stop their songs to clean their ploughs

From teazing twitch that in the spongy soil

Clings round the colter terryfying toil

The sower striding oer his dirty way

Sinks anckle deep in pudgy sloughs and clay

And oer his heavy hopper stoutly leans

Strewing wi swinging arms the pattering beans

Which soon as aprils milder weather gleams

Will shoot up green between the furroed seams

The driving boy glad when his steps can trace

The swelling edding as a resting place

Slings from his clotted shoes the dirt around

And feign woud rest him on the solid ground

And sings when he can meet the parting green

Of rushy balks that bend the lands between

While close behind em struts the nauntling crow

And daws whose heads seem powderd oer wi snow

To seek the worms-and rooks a noisey guest

That on the wind rockd elms prepares her nest

On the fresh furrow often drops to pull

The twitching roots and gathering sticks and wool

Neath trees whose dead twigs litter to the wind

And gaps where stray sheep left their coats behind

While ground larks on a sweeing clump of rushes

Or on the top twigs of the oddling bushes

Chirp their 'cree creeing' note that sounds of spring

And sky larks meet the sun wi flittering wing

Soon as the morning opes its brightning eye

Large clouds of sturnels blacken thro the sky

From oizer holts about the rushy fen

And reedshaw borders by the river Nen

And wild geese regiments now agen repair

To the wet bosom of broad marshes there

In marching coloms and attention all

Listning and following their ringleaders call

The shepherd boy that hastens now and then

From hail and snow beneath his sheltering den

Of flags or file leavd sedges tyd in sheaves

Or stubble shocks oft as his eye percieves

Sun threads struck out wi momentery smiles

Wi fancy thoughts his lonliness beguiles

Thinking the struggling winter hourly bye

As down the edges of the distant sky

The hailstorm sweeps-and while he stops to strip

The stooping hedgbriar of its lingering hip

He hears the wild geese gabble oer his head

And pleasd wi fancys in his musings bred

He marks the figurd forms in which they flye

And pausing follows wi a wandering eye

Likening their curious march in curves or rows

To every letter which his memory knows

While far above the solitary crane

Swings lonly to unfrozen dykes again

Cranking a jarring mellancholy cry

Thro the wild journey of the cheerless sky

Full oft at early seasons mild and fair

March bids farewell wi garlands in her hair

Of hazzel tassles woodbines hairy sprout

And sloe and wild plumb blossoms peeping out

In thickset knotts of flowers preparing gay

For aprils reign a mockery of may

That soon will glisten on the earnest eye

Like snow white cloaths hung in the sun to drye

The old dame often stills her burring wheel

When the bright sun will thro the window steal

And gleam upon her face and dancing fall

In diamond shadows on the picturd wall

While the white butterflye as in amaze

Will settle on the glossy glass to gaze

And oddling bee oft patting passing bye

As if they care to tell her spring was nigh

And smiling glad to see such things once more

Up she will get and potter to the door

And look upon the trees beneath the eves

Sweet briar and ladslove swelling into leaves

And damsin trees thick notting into bloom

And goosberry blossoms on the bushes come

And stooping down oft views her garden beds

To see the spring flowers pricking out their heads

And from her apron strings she'll often pull

Her sissars out an early bunch to cull

For flower pots on the window board to stand

Where the old hour glass spins its thread of sand

And maids will often mark wi laughing eye

In elder where they hang their cloaths to drye

The sharp eyd robin hop from grain to grain

Singing its little summer notes again

As a sweet pledge of Spring the little lambs

Bleat in the varied weather round their dams

Or hugh molehill or roman mound behind

Like spots of snow lye shelterd from the wind

While the old yoes bold wi paternal cares

Looses their fears and every danger dares

Who if the shepherds dog but turns his eye

And stops behind a moment passing bye

Will stamp draw back and then their threats repeat

Urging defiance wi their stamping feet

And stung wi cares hopes cannot recconsile

They stamp and follow till he leaps a stile

Or skulking from their threats betakes to flight

And wi the master lessens out of sight

Clowns mark the threatning rage of march pass bye

And clouds wear thin and ragged in the sky

While wi less sudden and more lasting smiles

The growing sun their hopes of spring beguiles

Who often at its end remark wi pride

Days lengthen in their visits a 'cocks stride'

Dames clean their candlesticks and set them bye

Glad of the makeshift light that eves supply

The boy returning home at night from toil

Down lane and close oer footbrig gate and style1

Oft trembles into fear and stands to hark

The waking fox renew his short gruff bark

While badgers eccho their dread evening shrieks

And to his thrilling thoughts in terror speaks

And shepherds that wi in their hulks remain

Night after night upon the chilly plain

To watch the dropping lambs that at all hours

Come in the quaking blast like early flowers

Demanding all the shepherds care who find

Warm hedge side spots and take them from the wind

And round their necks in wary caution tyes

Long shreds of rags in red or purple dyes

Thats meant in danger as a safty spell

Like the old yoe that wears a tinkling bell

The sneaking foxes from his thefts to fright

That often seizes the young lambs at night

These when they in their nightly watchings hear

The badgers shrieks can hardly stifle fear

They list the noise from woodlands dark recess

Like helpless shrieking woman in distress

And oft as such fears fancying mystery

Believes the dismal yelling sounds to be

For superstition hath its thousand tales

To people all his midnight woods and vales

And the dread spot from whence the dismal noise

Mars the night musings of their dark employs

Owns its sad tale to realize their fear

At which their hearts in boyhood achd to hear

A maid at night by treacherous love decoyd

Was in that shrieking wood years past destroyd

She went twas said to meet the waiting swain

And home and friends ne'er saw her face again

Mid brakes and thorns that crowded round the dell

And matting weeds that had no tongues to tell

He murderd her alone at dead midnight

While the pale moon threw round her sickly light

And loud shrieks left the thickets slumbers deep

That only scard the little birds from sleep

When the pale murderers terror frowning eye

Told its dread errand that the maid shoud dye

Mid thick black thorns her secret grave was made

And there ere night the murderd girl was laid

When no one saw the deed but god and he

And moonlight sparkling thro the sleeping tree

Around-the red breast might at morning steel

There for the worm to meet his morning meal

In fresh turnd moulds that first beheld the sun

Nor knew the deed that dismal night had done

Such is the tale that superstition gives

And in her midnight memory ever lives

That makes the boy run by wi wild affright

And shepherds startle on their rounds at night

Now love teazd maidens from their droning wheel

At the red hour of sunset sliving steals

From scolding dames to meet their swains agen

Tho water checks their visits oer the plain

They slive where no one sees some wall behind

Or orchard apple trees that stops the wind

To talk about springs pleasures hoveing nigh

And happy rambles when the roads get dry

The insect world now sunbeams higher climb

Oft dream of spring and wake before their time

Blue flyes from straw stacks crawling scarce alive

And bees peep out on slabs before the hive

Stroaking their little legs across their wings

And venturing short flight where the snow drop hings

Its silver bell-and winter aconite

Wi buttercup like flowers that shut at night

And green leaf frilling round their cups of gold

Like tender maiden muffld from the cold

They sip and find their honey dreams are vain

And feebly hasten to their hives again

And butterflys by eager hopes undone

Glad as a child come out to greet the sun

Lost neath the shadow of a sudden shower

Nor left to see tomorrows april flower .