Fame lives not in the breath of words, In public praises’ hue and cry; The music of these summer birds Is silent in a winter sky, When thine shall live and flourish on, O’er wrecks where crowds of fames are gone. The ivy shuns the city wall, When busy-clamorous crowds intrude, And climbs the desolated hall In silent solitude; The time-worn arch, the fallen dome, Are roots for its eternal home. The bard his glory ne’er receives Where summer’s common flowers are seen, But winter finds it when she leaves The laurel only green; And time, from that eternal tree, Shall weave a wreath to honour thee. Nought but thy ashes shall expire; Thy genius, at thy obsequies, Shall kindle up its living fire And light the Muse’s skies; Ay, it shall rise, and shine, and be A sun in song’s posterity. I AM! YET WHAT I AM 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. * * * * * BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOHN CLARE BY C. ERNEST SMITH CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS Clare (John). Poems, Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery. 12mo., pp. 222. 1820 (Contains passages suppressed in later editions). ---- The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems. _Portrait and Sketch of Clare’s Cottage._ 2 vols., 12mo., pp. 216 and 211. 1821 ---- The Shepherd’s Calendar, with Village Stories and Other Poems. _Front by Dewint._ 12mo., pp. 238. 1827 ---- The Rural Muse. _Front, and Engraved Title._ 12mo., pp. 175. 1835 BIOGRAPHY Cherry (J. L.) Life and Remains of John Clare. _Illustrations by Birket Foster._ Cr. 8vo. 1873 This volume was afterwards included in the _Chandos Classics,_ published by Warne & Co., London. Martin (F.) Life of John Clare. _Engraved Title._ 8vo. 1865 [See also _Encyclopædia Britannica_; and _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. 10].