The poetry of John Clare, originally simple description of the country and countrymen, or ungainly imitation of the poetic tradition as he knew it through Allan Ramsay, Burns, and the popular writers of the eighteenth century, developed into a capacity for exact and complete nature-poetry and for self-expression. Thoroughly awake to all the finest influences in life and in literature, he devoted himself to poetry in every way. Imagination, colour, melody and affection were his by nature; where he lacked was in dramatic impulse and in passion, and sometimes his incredible facility in verse, which enabled him to complete poem after poem without pause or verbal difficulty, was not his best friend. He possesses a technique of his own; his rhymes are based on pronunciation, the Northamptonshire pronunciation to which his ear had been trained, and thus he accurately joins "stoop" and "up," or "horse" and "cross"--while his sonnets are free and often unique in form. In spite of his individual manner, there is no poet who in his nature-poetry so completely subdues self and mood and deals with the topic for its own sake. That he is by no means enslaved to nature-poetry, the variety of the poems in this selection must show. His Asylum Poems are distinct from most of the earlier work. They are often the expressions of his love tragedy, yet strange to say they are not often sad or bitter: imagination conquers, and the tragedy vanishes. They are rhythmically new, the movement having changed from that of quiet reflection to one of lyrical enthusiasm: even nature is now seen in brighter colours and sung in subtler music. Old age bringing ever intenser recollection and childlike vision found Clare writing the light lovely songs which bear no slightest sign of the cruel years. So near in these later poems are sorrow and joy that they awaken deeper feelings and instincts than almost any other lyrics can--emotions such as he shares with us in his "Adieu!": I left the little birds And sweet lowing of the herds, And couldn't find out words, Do you see, To say to them good-bye, Where the yellowcups do lie; So heaving a deep sigh, Took to sea.... In this sort of pathos, so indefinable and intimate, William Blake and only he can be said to resemble him. B. CONTENTS NOTE INTRODUCTION BIOGRAPHICAL EARLY POEMS-- *Ballad *Song Summer Evening What is Life *The Maid of Ocram, or Lord Gregory The Gipsy's Camp Impromptu The Wood-cutter's Night Song Rural Morning Song The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story In Hilly-Wood The Ants *To Anna Three Years Old *From "The Parish: A Satire" Nobody Cometh to Woo *Distant Hills MIDDLE PERIOD, 1824-1836--