A favourite poem of mine...

[p_p_man]

JOHN CLARE (1793-1864)

This belongs to the group of poems written while Clare was confined in the Northampton County Asylum from 1842 until his death in 1864.


I AM!

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

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

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.

 

[Rubyfruit]

That is very good! I'm just starting to get into poetry. Thanks for sharing this one.

Ruby

 

[Mensa]

Very good

The poetry was inspired, but I suspect what reallly drew you to him was that you could identify with him. He was a kindred spirit , if you like, and the fact that he ended his existence in a lunatic asylum is a life path you seem destined to follow!

 

[p_p_man]

well gee. Thanks Mensa...

But you're right I can understand his hurt at being abandoned and his defiance in the face of the way life treated him.

By the way he wasn't actually insane. Today we would call it depression...


"Born in 1793, the son of humble and almost illiterate parents, Clare grew up in the Northamptonshire village of Helpston and made the surrounding countryside his world. His formal education, such as it was, ended when he was eleven years old, but this child of the 'unwearying eye' had a thirst for knowledge and became a model example of the self-taught man. As a poet of rural England he has few rivals.

From the moment his first publication - Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery - appeared, it was clear that England had a new and very original poet. Sadly, the public's enthusiasm did not last long and each new volume met with diminishing applause. Ill and in debt, he left Helpston for Northborough from where he was eventually removed to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, where he died in 1864."

 

[Guest]

p_p_man man replied back to Mensa:

But you're right I can understand his hurt at being abandoned and his defiance in the face of the way life treated him. By the way he wasn't actually insane. Today we would call it depression...

p_p_man,

The written words of another, when they come straight from the heart, can always be felt by another who allows their heart to be opened. You were captured by this poem because you could fully undestand how the author felt while he was choosing the words he did. His emotions of feeling unworthy to others and feeling like he didn't belong were written with such truth that you could identify with him. His longing for the things he did not have had that same effect on you also. This is what poetry is all about. It's meant to unlock our imaginations, to allow thoughts into us that cause stirrings and longings, sadness and happiness. Having you feel these things right alongside the author is what his words were inspired to do.

And, yes, about the depression statement.....I happen to believe you are totally correct in that. I would guess that more people were committed to asylums for depression rather than insanity. Isn't it a shame?

 

[p_p_man]

Enchanted...

you are spot on. From the first time I read this poem I could imagine John Clare's absolute despair at his situation and the life he had lost

There are two lines which always stick out from the rest for me:

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

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

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.

The heartfelt cry in both lines says it all for me...