And man, that noble insect, restless man
Whose thoughts scale heaven in its mighty span,
Pours forth his living soul in many a shade
And taste runs riot in her every grade.
While the low herd, mere savages subdued,
With nought of feeling or of taste imbued
Pass over sweetest scenes a careless eye
As blank as midnight in its deepest dye;
From these, and different far in rich degrees,
Minds spring as various as the leaves of trees
And Edens make where deserts spread before.
John Clare
"I Am,"
The Selected Poetry
of John Clare
Jonathan Bate, editor
The Midsummer Cushion
Shadows of Taste [fragment]
circa 1830
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003©
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