John Clare Quotes - Page 1

• John Clare / Poet

Wildness is my suiting scene.

• John Clare / Poet

I am the self-consumer of my woes.

• John Clare / Poet

I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly.

• John Clare / Poet

And what is Life? - An hour-glass on the run

• John Clare / Poet

I found the poems in the fields And only wrote them down

• John Clare / Poet

I'm John Clare now. I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly.

• John Clare / Poet

Ah, words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away.

• John Clare / Poet

I had a variety of minds about me and all of them unsettled.

• John Clare / Poet

If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs.

• John Clare / Poet

When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?No, rather smile away despair

• John Clare / Poet

Love lives with Nature, not with lust. Go find her in the flowers.

• John Clare / Poet

He could not die when trees were green, for he loved the time too well.

• John Clare / Poet

He could not die when the trees were green, For he loved the time too well.

• John Clare / Poet

How oft a summer shower has started me; to seek the shelter of a hollow tree

• John Clare / Poet

The present is the funeral of the past, And man the living sepulchre of life.

• John Clare / Poet

I long for scenes where man has never trod;... There to abide with my Creator, God.

• John Clare / Poet

Tasteful illumination of the night, Bright scattered, twinkling star of spangled earth.

• John Clare / Poet

Throw not my words away, as many do;They're gold in value, though they're cheap to you.

• John Clare / Poet

Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.

• John Clare / Poet

Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude / And flew to the silence of sweet solitude.

• John Clare / Poet

Language has not the power to speak what love indites: The soul lies buried in the ink that writes.

• John Clare / Poet

I am, as far as my politics reaches, 'King and Country' - no 'Innovations in Religion and Government' say I.

• John Clare / Poet

I am gennerally understood tho I do not use that awkward squad of pointings called commas colons semicolons etc.

• John Clare / Poet

And all the charms of face or voice Which I in others see, Are but the recollected choice Of what I feel for thee.

• John Clare / Poet

I never saw so sweet a face. As that I stood before. My heart has left it dwelling place ... and can return no more.

• John Clare / Poet

My fears are agitated to an extreme degree and the dread of death involves me in a stupor of chilling indisposition.

• John Clare / Poet

I lost the love of heaven above I spurned the lust of earth below I felt the sweets of fancied love And hell itself my only foe.

• John Clare / Poet

The best way to avoid a bad action is by doing a good one, for there is no difficulty in the world like that of trying to do nothing.

• John Clare / Poet

I ne'er was struck before that hour with love so sudden and so sweet. Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower and stole my heart away complete

• John Clare / Poet

To-morrow comes, true copy of to-day,And empty shadow of what is to be;Yet cheated Hope on future still depends,And ends but only when our being ends.

• John Clare / Poet

For Nature is love, and finds haunts for true love, Where nothing can hear or intrude; It hides from the eagle and joins with the dove, In beautiful green solitude.

• John Clare / Poet

So dull and dark are the November days. The lazy mist high up the evening curled, And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze; The place we occupy seems all the world.

• John Clare / Poet

Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn Her death-bed steeps in tears; to hail the May New blooming blossoms neath the sun are born, And all poor April's charms are swept away.

• John Clare / Poet

This world has suns, but they are overcast;This world has sweets, but they're of ling'ring bloom;Life still expects, and empty falls at last;Warm Hope on tiptoe drops into the tomb.

• John Clare / Poet

In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be; Where all the noises, that on peace intrude, Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee, Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.

• John Clare / Poet

Yet simple souls, their faith it knows no stint: Things least to be believed are most preferred. All counterfeits, as from truth's sacred mint, Are readily believed if once put down in print

• John Clare / Poet

Still, I have been no one's enemy but my own. My easy nature, either in drinking or anything else, was always ready to submit to persuasions of profligate companions, who often led me into snares.

• John Clare / Poet

Old noted oak! I saw thee in a mood Of vague indifference; and yet with me Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea Of grass that waves around thee!

• John Clare / Poet

Loud is the summer's busy song The smallest breeze can find a tongue, While insects of each tiny size Grow teasing with their melodies, Till noon burns with its blistering breath Around, and day lies still as death.

• John Clare / Poet

I long for scenes where man has never trod; A place where woman never smil'd or wept; There to abide with my creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept: Untroubling and untroubled where I lie; The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

• John Clare / Poet

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am, and live with shadows tost.

• John Clare / Poet

And fairy month of waking mirth From whom our joys ensue Thou early gladder of the earth Thrice welcome here anew With thee the bud unfolds to leaves The grass greens on the lea And flowers their tender boon receives To bloom and smile with thee.

• John Clare / Poet

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; And e'en the dearest--that I love the best-- Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

• John Clare / Poet

Forgive me if, in friendship’s way, I offer thee a wreath of May.... [N]ourished by the dews of heaven.... So I have Ivy placed between, To prove that worth is ever green. The little blue Forget-me-not... Spring’s messenger in every spot, Smiling on all—"Remember me!

• John Clare / Poet

I hid my love when young till I Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly; I hid my life to my despite Till I could not bear to look at light: I dare not gaze upon her face But left her memory in each place; Where'er I saw a wild flower lie I kissed and bade my love good-bye.

• John Clare / Poet

The wild swan hurries hight and noises loud With white neck peering to the evening clowd. The weary rooks to distant woods are gone. With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow While small birds nestle in the edge below.

• John Clare / Poet

The thorn tree just began to bud And greening stained the sheltering hedge, An many a violet beside the wood Peeped blue between the withered sedge; The sun gleamed warm the bank beside, 'Twas pleasant wandering out a while Neath nestling bush to lonely hide, Or bend a musings o'er a stile.

• John Clare / Poet

While snow the window-panes bedim, The fire curls up a sunny charm, Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim, The flowering ale is set to warm; Mirth, full of joy as summer bees, Sits there, its pleasures to impart, And children, 'tween their parent's knees, Sing scraps of carols o'er by heart.

• John Clare / Poet

Now musing o'er the changing scene Farmers behind the tavern screen Collect; with elbows idly press'd On hob, reclines the corner's guest, Reading the news to mark again The bankrupt lists or price of grain. Puffing the while his red-tipt pipe He dreams o'er troubles nearly ripe, Yet, winter's leisure to regale, Hopes better times, and sips his ale.

• John Clare / Poet

I live here among the ignorant like a lost man in fact like one whom the rest seems careless of having anything to do with — they hardly dare talk in my company for fear I shoud mention them in my writings & I find more pleasure in wandering the fields then in mixing among my silent neighbours who are insensible of everything but toiling & talking of it & that to no purpose.