Chapter I: Love Thee, Sweet Mary (3)

While the "Rural Muse" was in the press, Mr. How, one of the very few of Clare's earlier friends who are still living, suggested to him the advisableness of his applying to the committee of the Literary Fund for a grant, and promising to exert himself to the utmost to secure the success of the application. Clare applied for L50, and obtained it, whereupon Mrs. Emmerson, to whose heart there was no readier way than that of showing kindness to poor Clare, writes:--

"In my last, I told you I had written to Mr. How on the subject of the Literary Fund, &c. Yesterday morning the good little man came to communicate to me the favourable result of the application. The committee have nobly presented you with fifty pounds. Blessings on them! for giving you the means to do honour to every engagement, and leave you, I hope, a surplus to fly to when needed. Mr. How is just the sort of man for my own nature. He is willing to do his best for Clare. He has shown himself in the recent event as one of the few who perform what they promise. God bless him for his kindly exertions to emancipate you from your thraldom!"

"The Rural Muse" was published in July, and was cordially received by the "Athenaeum," "Blackwood's Magazine," the "Literary Gazette," and other leading periodicals. It was well printed and embellished with engravings of Northborough Church and the poet's cottage. It has been already intimated that the poems included within this volume, while retaining all the freshness and simplicity of Clare's earlier works, exhibit traces of the mental cultivation to which for years so large a portion of his time had been devoted. The circle of subjects is greatly expanded, the passages to which exception may be taken on the score of carelessness or obscurity are few, and the diction is often refined and elevated to a degree of which the poet had not before shown himself capable. The following extracts are made almost at random:--

AUTUMN

Syren of sullen moods and fading hues,
Yet haply not incapable of joy,
Sweet Autumn! I thee hail
With welcome all unfeigned;

And oft as morning from her lattice peeps
To beckon up the sun, I seek with thee
To drink the dewy breath
Of fields left fragrant then,

In solitudes, where no frequented paths
But what thine own foot makes betray thine home,
Stealing obtrusive there
To meditate thy end;

By overshadowed ponds, in woody nooks,
With ramping sallows lined, and crowding sedge,
Which woo the winds to play,
And with them dance for joy;

And meadow pools, torn wide by lawless floods,
Where waterlilies spread their oily leaves,
On which, as wont, the fly
Oft battens in the sun;

Where leans the mossy willow half way o'er,
On which the shepherd crawls astride to throw
His angle, clear of weeds
That crown the water's brim;

Or crispy hills and hollows scant of sward,
Where step by step the patient, lonely boy,
Hath cut rude flights of stairs
To climb their steepy sides;

* * * * *

Now filtering winds thin winnow through the woods
With tremulous noise, that bids, at every breath,
Some sickly cankered leaf
Let go its hold and die.

And now the bickering storm, with sudden start,
In flirting fits of anger carps aloud,
Thee urging to thine end,
Sore wept by troubled skies.

And yet, sublime in grief, thy thoughts delight
To show me visions of most gorgeous dyes,
Haply forgetting now
They but prepare thy shroud;

Thy pencil dashing its excess of shades,
Improvident of wealth, till every bough
Burns with thy mellow touch
Disorderly divine.

Soon must I view thee as a pleasant dream
Droop faintly, and so reckon for thine end,
As sad the winds sink low
In dirges for their queen;

While in the moment of their weary pause,
To cheer thy bankrupt pomp, the willing lark
Starts from his shielding clod,
Snatching sweet scraps of song.

Thy life is waning now, and Silence tries
To mourn, but meets no sympathy in sounds,
As stooping low she bends,
Forming with leaves thy grave;

To sleep inglorious there mid tangled woods,
Till parch-lipped Summer pines in drought away;
Then from thine ivied trance
Awake to glories new.

MAY

Now comes the bonny May, dancing and skipping
Across the stepping-stones of meadow streams,
Bearing no kin to April showers a-weeping,
But constant Sunshine as her servant seems.
Her heart is up--her sweetness, all a-maying,
Streams in her face, like gems on Beauty's breast;
The swains are sighing all, and well-a-daying,
Lovesick and gazing on their lovely guest.
The Sunday paths, to pleasant places leading,
Are graced by couples linking arm in arm,
Sweet smiles enjoying or some book a-reading,
Where Love and Beauty are the constant charm;
For while the bonny May is dancing by,
Beauty delights the ear, and Beauty fills the eye.

Birds sing and build, and Nature scorns alone
On May's young festival to be a widow;
The children, too, have pleasures all their own,
In gathering lady-smocks along the meadow.
The little brook sings loud among the pebbles,
So very loud, that water-flowers, which lie
Where many a silver curdle boils and dribbles,
Dance too with joy as it goes singing by.
Among the pasture mole-hills maidens stoop
To pluck the luscious marjoram for their bosoms;
The greensward's littered o'er with buttercups,
And whitethorns, they are breaking down with blossoms.
'T is Nature's livery for the bonny May,
Who keeps her court, and all have holiday.

Princess of Months (so Nature's choice ordains,)
And Lady of the Summer still she reigns.
In spite of April's youth, who charms in tears,
And rosy June, who wins with blushing face;
July, sweet shepherdess, who wreathes the shears
Of shepherds with her flowers of winning grace;
And sun-tanned August, with her swarthy charms,
The beautiful and rich; and pastoral, gay
September, with her pomp of fields and farms;
And wild November's sybilline array;--
In spite of Beauty's calendar, the Year
Garlands with Beauty's prize the bonny May.
Where'er she goes, fair Nature hath no peer,
And months do love their queen when she's away.

MEMORY

I would not that my memory all should die,
And pass away with every common lot:
I would not that my humble dust should lie
In quite a strange and unfrequented spot,
By all unheeded and by all forgot,
With nothing save the heedless winds to sigh,
And nothing but the dewy morn to weep
About my grave, far hid from the world's eye:
I fain would have some friend to wander nigh
And find a path to where my ashes sleep--
Not the cold heart that merely passes by,
To read who lies beneath, but such as keep
Past memories warm with deeds of other years,
And pay to friendship some few friendly tears.

"The Rural Muse" sold tolerably well for some months, and Mr. Whittaker told Mr. Emmerson that "he thought they would get off" the first edition. But the time was rapidly approaching when literary fame or failure, the constancy or fickleness of friends, the pangs of poverty or the joys of competence were to be alike matters of indifference to John Clare. He began to write in a piteous strain to Mrs. Emmerson, Mr. Taylor, and Dr. Darling, all of whom assured him of their deep sympathy, and promised assistance. Mrs. Emmerson, although completely prostrated by repeated and serious attacks of illness, sent him cheering letters so long as she could hold her pen, while Mr. Taylor wrote:--

"If you think that you can now come here for the advice of Dr. Darling I shall be very happy to see you, and any one who may attend you." The attacks of melancholy from which he had suffered occasionally for many years became more frequent and more intense, his language grew wild and incoherent, and at length he failed to recognize his own wife and children and became the subject of all kinds of hallucinations. There were times when he was perfectly rational, and he returned to work in his garden or in his little study with a zest which filled his family and neighbours with eager anticipations of his recovery, but every succeeding attack of his mental malady was more severe than that which preceded it. Of all that followed little need be said, for it is too painful to be dwelt upon, and the story of Clare's life hurries therefore to its close. His lunacy having been duly certified, Mr. Taylor and other of Clare's old friends in London charged themselves with the responsibility of removing him to the private asylum of Dr. Allen at High Beech, in Epping Forest. Mr. Taylor sending a trustworthy person to Northborough to accompany him to London and take care of him on the road. This was in June or July, 1837, and Clare remained under Mr. Allen's care for four years. Allan Cunningham, Mr. S. C. Hall, and others of Clare's literary friends energetically appealed to the public on behalf of the unhappy bard. Mr. Hall in the "Book of Gems" for 1838 wrote:--

"It is not yet too late: although he has given indications of a brain breaking up, a very envied celebrity may be obtained by some wealthy and good Samaritan who would rescue him from the Cave of Despair," adding, "Strawberry Hill might be gladly sacrificed for the fame of having saved Chatterton."

This appeal brought Mr. Hall a letter from the Marquis of Northampton, whose name is now for the first time associated with that of the poet. The Marquis informed Mr. Hall that he was not one of Clare's exceeding admirers, but he was struck and shocked by what that gentleman had said about "our county poet," and thought it would be "a disgrace to the county," to which Clare was "a credit," if he were left in a state of poverty. The county was neither very wealthy nor very literary, but his lordship thought that a collection of Clare's poems might be published by subscription, and if that suggestion were adopted he would take ten or twenty copies, or he would give a donation of money, if direct assistance of that kind were preferred. Mr. Hall says in his "Memories,":--

"The plan was not carried out, and if the Marquis gave any aid of any kind to the peasant-poet the world, and I verily believe the poet himself, remained in ignorance of the amount."

AT HIGH BEECH ASYLUM

All that was possible was done for Clare at the house of Dr. Allen, one of the early reformers of the treatment of lunatics. He was kept pretty constantly employed in the garden, and soon grew stout and robust. After a time he was allowed to stroll beyond the grounds of the asylum and to ramble about the forest. He was perfectly harmless, and would sometimes carry on a conversation in a rational manner, always, however, losing himself in the end in absolute nonsense. In March, 1841, he wrote a long and intelligible letter to Mrs. Clare, almost the only peculiarity in which is that every word is begun with a capital letter. There is no doubt that at this time he was possessed with the idea that he had two wives--Patty, whom he called his second wife, and his life-long ideal, Mary Joyce. In the letter just referred to he begins "My dear wife Patty," and in a postscript says, "Give my love to the dear boy who wrote to me, and to her who is never forgotten." He wrote verses which he told Dr. Allen were for his wife Mary, and that he intended to take them to her. He made several unsuccessful attempts to escape in the early part of 1841, but in July of that year he contrived to evade both watchers and pursuers, and reached Peterborough after being four days and three nights on the road in a penniless condition, and being so near to dying of starvation that he was compelled to eat grass like the beasts of the field. The day after his return to Northborough he wrote what he called an account of his journey, prefacing the narrative by this remark, "Returned home out of Essex and found no Mary." Mr. Martin gives this extraordinary document in his "Life of Clare." It is a weird, pathetic and pitiful story, "a tragedy all too deep for tears." Having finished the journal of his escape he addressed it with a letter to "Mary Clare, Glinton." In this letter he says:--

"I am not so lonely as I was in Essex, for here I can see Glinton Church, and feeling that my Mary is safe, if not happy I am gratified. Though my home is no home to me, my hopes are not entirely hopeless while even the memory of Mary lives so near to me. God bless you, my dear Mary! Give my love to our dear beautiful family and to your mother, and believe me, as ever I have been and ever shall be, my dearest Mary, your affectionate husband, John Clare." Truly,

"Love's not Time's fool: though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come, Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom."

AT NORTHAMPTON

Clare remained for a short time at Northborough, and was then removed under medical advice to the County Lunatic Asylum at Northampton, of which establishment he continued an inmate until his death in 1864. During the whole of that time the charge made by the authorities of the Asylum for his maintenance was paid either by Earl Fitzwilliam or by his son, the Hon. G. W. Fitzwilliam. It is to the credit of the managers of the institution that although the amount paid on his behalf was that usually charged for patients of the humbler classes, Clare was always treated in every respect as a "gentleman patient." He had his favourite window corner in the common sitting room, commanding a view of Northampton and the valley of the Nen, and books and writing materials were provided for him. Unless the Editor's memory is at fault, he was always addressed deferentially as "Mr. Clare," both by the officers of the Asylum and the townspeople; and when Her Majesty passed through Northampton, in 1844, in her progress to Burleigh, a seat was specially reserved for the poet near one of the triumphal arches. There was something very nearly akin to tenderness in the kindly sympathy which was shown for him, and his most whimsical utterances were listened to with gravity, lest he should feel hurt or annoyed. He was classified in the Asylum books among the "harmless," and for several years was allowed to walk in the fields or go into the town at his own pleasure. His favourite resting place at Northampton was a niche under the roof of the spacious portico of All Saints' Church, and here he would sometimes sit for hours, musing, watching the children at play, or jotting down passing thoughts in his pocket note-book.

THE APPROACHING END

In course of time it was found expedient not to allow him to wander beyond the Asylum grounds. He wrote occasionally to his son Charles, but appears never to have been visited by either relatives or friends. The neglect of his wife and children is inexplicable. It was no doubt while smarting under this treatment that he penned the lines given below, of which an eloquent critic has said that "in their sublime sadness and incoherence they sum up, with marvellous effect, the one great misfortune of the poet's life--his mental isolation-- his inability to make his deepest character and thoughts intelligible to others. They read like the wail of a nature cut off from all access to other minds, concentrated at its own centre, and conscious of the impassable gulf which separates it from universal humanity:"--

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me, like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am--I live--though I am toss'd

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise.
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange--nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod--
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept--
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

Clare's physical powers slowly declined, and at length he had to be wheeled about the Asylum grounds in a Bath chair. As he felt his end approaching he would frequently say "I have lived too long," or "I want to go home." Until within three days of his death he managed to reach his favourite seat in the window, but was then seized with paralysis, and on the afternoon of the 20th of May, 1864, without a struggle or a sigh his spirit passed away. He was taken home.

In accordance with Clare's own wish, his remains were interred in the churchyard at Helpstone, by the side of those of his father and mother, under the shade of a sycamore tree. The expenses of the funeral were paid by the Hon. G. W. Fitzwilliam. Two or three years afterwards a coped monument of Ketton stone was erected over Clare's remains. It bears this inscription:--

"Sacred to the Memory of John Clare, the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet. Born July 13, 1793. Died May 20th, 1864. A Poet is born, not made."

In 1869, another memorial was erected in the principal street of Helpstone. The style is Early English, and it bears suitable inscriptions from Clare's Works.