allusions to mental limitation as
really not a coyness seeking comp-
liments? I do. His finer days are
everyone's; so fine, Clare would
have been frustrated. Then a spir-
it bonds with his when he passes
the palette to the reader, whom
he reinforces in his earnestness,
to be empowered and released. He
was often thought to be reckless,
in this generosity. What name can
one give to that success in Clare,
which expects one to succeed it -
to pass, in effect, through it?
The rich brown-umber hue the oaks unfold
When spring's young sunshine bathes their trunks in gold,
So rich, so beautiful, so past the power
Of words to paint - my heart aches for the dower
The pencil gives to soften and infuse
This brown luxuriance of unfolding hues,
This living luscious tinting woodlands give
Into a landscape that might breathe and live,
And this old gate that claps against the tree
The entrance of spring's paradise should be -
Yet paint itself with living nature fails:
The sunshine threading through these broken rails
In mellow shades no pencil e'er conveys,
And mind alone feels fancies and portrays.
John Clare
"I am"
The Selected Poetry of
John Clare
Wood Pictures in Spring
1832
Jonathan Bate
editor
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005©
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