and dust And prune its horse-shoe circled breast, he continues: The sheep when hunger presses sore May nip the clover round its nest; But soon the thistle wounding sore Relieves it from each brushing guest That leaves a bit of wool behind, The yellow-hammer loves to find. The horse will set his foot and bite Close to the ground lark’s guarded nest And snort to meet the prickly sight; He fans the feathers of her breast-- Yet thistles prick so deep that he Turns back and leaves her dwelling free. We have only to compare the detail of Clare’s work with the sonorous generalisations in, say, Thomson’s _Seasons_--which he admired--to realise the immense gulf that divides Clare from his eighteenth-century predecessors. Clare, indeed, is more like a twentieth-century than an eighteenth-century poet. He is almost more like a twentieth-century than a nineteenth-century poet. He is “neo-Georgian” in his preference for the fact in itself above the image or the phrase. The thing itself is all the image he asks, and Mr. W. H. Davies in his simplest mood might have made the same confession of faith as Clare: I love the verse that mild and bland Breathes of green fields and open sky, I love the muse that in her hand Bears flowers of native poesy; Who walks nor skips the pasture brook In scorn, but by the drinking horse Leans o’er its little brig to look How far the sallows lean across. There is no poet, I fancy, in whose work the phrase, “I love,” recurs oftener. His poetry is largely a list of the things he loves: I love at early morn, from new-mown swath To see the startled frog his route pursue; To mark while, leaping o’er the dripping path, His bright sides scatter dew, The early lark that from its bustle flies To hail his matin new; And watch him to the skies: To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent, The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn, With earnest heed and tremulous intent, Frail brother of the morn, That from the tiny bents and misted leaves Withdraws his timid horn, And fearful visions weaves. As we read Clare we discover that it is almost always the little things that catch his eye: Grasshoppers go in many a thrumming spring, And now to stalks of tasselled sow-grass cling, That shakes and swees awhile, but still keeps straight; While arching ox-eye doubles with his weight. Next on the cat-tail grass with farther bound He springs, that bends until they touch the ground. He is never weary of describing the bees. He praises the ants. Of the birds, he seems to love the small ones best. How beautifully he writes of the hedge-sparrow’s little song!: While in a quiet mood hedge-sparrows try An inward stir of shadowed melody.