John Clare Quotes

56 Sourced Quotes

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

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

John Clare
To-morrow comes, true copy of today,
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
Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude / And flew to the silence of sweet solitude.

John Clare
Lover of swamps
The quagmire overgrown
With hassock tufts of sedge—where fear encamps
Around thy home alone
The trembling grass
Quakes from the human foot
Nor bears the weight of man to let him pass
Where he alone and mute
Sitteth at rest

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

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

John Clare
Superstition lives longer than books, it is engraved on the human mind 'til it becomes a part of its existence.

John Clare
Hopeless hope hopes on and meets no end,
Wastes without springs and homes without a friend.

John Clare
Pale death, the grand physician, cures all pain;
The dead rest well who lived for joys in vain.

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

John Clare
Summers pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away.

John Clare
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
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 vanis in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost:
And yet I am, and live with shadows tost

John Clare
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
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
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
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
The happy white-throat on the swinging bough, Rocked by the impulse of the gadding wind That ushers in the showers of April, now Carols right joyously; and now reclined Crouching, she clings close to her moving seat, To keep her hold.

John Clare
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
Those tiny loiterers on the barleys beard & happy units of a numerous herd Of playfellows the laughing summer brings Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings.

John Clare
Fixed in a white-thorn bush, its summer guest, So low, e'en grass o'er-topped its tallest twig, A sedge-bird built its little benty nest, Close by the meadow pool and wooden brig.

John Clare
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
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
There came the snail from his shell peeping out, As fearful and cautious as thieves on the rout.

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

John Clare
Dear Sir,—I am in a madhouse and quite forget your name or who you are.

John Clare