Song

Even near the terminus of college, paper-writing never slows down. I'm writing an essay about the relationship between mood and nature in the works of John Clare. Something of a forgotten Romantic, Clare wrote a lot of bucolic scenes using irregular punctuation and grammar. Because he didn't receive a prestigious formal education, his work was brushed off as "pastoral" and "unsophisticated." Recently, his work has been "rediscovered" by scholars, and so we're learning about him alongside Shelley and Keats and Hemans and all the other writers from that period.

I could talk all day, but there is work to be done, so I'll leave this poem right here.

"Song" by John Clare 

A seaboy on the giddy mast
Sees nought but ocean waves
And hears the wild inconstant blast
Where loud the tempest raves 

My life is like the ocean wave
And like the inconstant sea
In every hope appears a grave
And leaves no hope for me 

My life is like the oceans lot
Bright gleams the morning gave
But storms oerwhelmed the sunny spot
Deep in the ocean wave 

My life hath been the ocean storm
A black and troubled sea
When shall I find my life a calm
A port and harbour free

Written in 1843, first published in 1949