After NH, you know, I went out for a cone

    ..

    Nought seemed too hard for us to do

    But the sums upon our slates;

    Nought seemed too hard for us to win

    But the master's chair of state.

    The "Town of Troy" we tried and made

    When our sums we could not try,

    While we envied e'en the sparrow's wings

    From our prison house to fly.

    When twelve o'clock was counted out

    The joy and strife began,

    The shut of books, the hearty shout

    As out of doors we ran.

    Sunshine and showers who could withstand,

    Our food and rapture they;

    We took our dinner in our hands

    To lose no time to play ..

No one would promise me that our poor Newt would be OK if he didn't win, and that the persecution of the Christians would not go on, as he warns it does. No one would prom-ise me that our darling Mitt would not have to suffer grievously for growing up exempt from guilt, only now to be exhibited for banditry.

Oh, and I know what you're thinking: that this must be some dismal political comment (can you stand it), corrupting the sweet-ness of an honest cone of forget-fulness in Clare with a swoon of his depression. But no, my dears; for are we not, now again, in the midst of that Party of Anguish's umbrage toward the senses we were born with? Is not the highwayman now back, tuh-lot, tuh-lot, to teach us tender truths of his temerity toward our ever being free of pillage, paranoia, and prophets misconstrued? Yes, I went out for a cone, and yes, I lapt it with elation for recess of obliga-tion to their tears.

John Clare

  Childhood

  1831

"I Am," The Selected Poetry

  of John Clare

Jonathan Bate, editor

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003©