John Clare Poetry Quotes & Sayings

O take me from the busy crowd,
I cannot bear the noise!
For Nature's voice is never loud;
I seek for quiet joys.
The book I love is everywhere,
And not in idle words;
The book I love is known to all,
And better lore affords. — John Clare

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

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 shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live - like vapours tossed

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;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange - nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled 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

My illness was love, though I knew not the smart,
But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart. — John Clare

Solitude
There is a charm in Solitude that cheers
A feeling that the world knows nothing of
A green delight the wounded mind endears
After the hustling world is broken off
Whose whole delight was crime at good to scoff
Green solitude his prison pleasure yields
The bitch fox heeds him not
birds seem to laugh
He lives the Crusoe of his lonely fields
Which dark green oaks his noontide leisure shields — John Clare

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

Language has not the power to speak what love indites
The soul lies buried in the Ink that writes — John Clare

I hate the very noise of troublous man
Who did and does me all the harm he can.
Free from the world I would a prisoner be
And my own shadow all my company. — John Clare

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

In crime and enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death. — John Clare

O lead me onward to the loneliest shade,
The darkest place that quiet ever made,
Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold
And shut up green and open into gold. — John Clare

O I never thought that joys would run away from boys,
Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys;
But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys — John Clare

Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there. — John Clare

I wish I was what I have been
And what I was could be
As when I roved in shadows green
And loved my willow tree
To gaze upon the starry sky
And higher fancies build
And make in solitary joy
Loves temple in the field — John Clare

A maidenhead, the virgin's trouble
Is well-compare-d to a bubble
on a navigable river
Soon 'tis touched t'is gone forever — John Clare

I sleep with thee, and wake with thee,
And yet thou are not there;
I fill my arms with thoughts of thee,
And press the common air. — John Clare

How frail the bloom, how short the stay
That terminates us all!
Today we flourish green and gay,
Like leaves tomorrow fall. — John Clare

O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away — John Clare

There is a charm in Solitude that cheers
A feeling that the world knows nothing of
A green delight the wounded mind endears
After the hustling world is broken off — John Clare

Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude. — John Clare