Song of the Day - 15th March

The weather is warming, the daffodils are out, the cherry is blossoming and the trees are budding! It is Spring!!

To celebrate the warming of the seasons, I would like to share today my setting of a poem simply called "Spring" by English poet John Clare (1793 – 1864). The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and his sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th century; he is now often seen as a major 19th-century poet. His biographer Jonathan Bate called Clare "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self."

Like many creative types, his mental health was unstable, possibly initially as a result of his impoverished childhood, and latterly an inability to financially sustain his family: a wife and six children. He turned to alcohol and in 1837 was admitted to a private asylum. Aside from a brief escape in 1841, he remained committed for much of the remainder of his life. 

This did not however reduce his poetical output. His doctor wrote in 1840: "It is most singular that ever since he came... the moment he gets pen or pencil in hand he begins to write most poetical effusions. Yet he has never been able to obtain in conversation, nor even in writing prose, the appearance of sanity for two minutes or two lines together, and yet there is no indication of insanity in any of his poetry."

This song is being beta tested by my friends at Burgess Hill Choral Society.

Spring

By John Clare

What charms does Nature at the spring put on,

When hedges unperceived get stain'd in green;

When even moss, that gathers on the stone,

Crown'd with its little knobs of flowers is seen;

And every road and lane, through field and glen,

Triumphant boasts a garden of its own.

In spite of nipping sheep, and hungry cow,

The little daisy finds a place to blow:

And where old Winter leaves her splashy slough,

The lady-smocks will not disdain to grow;

And dandelions like to suns will bloom,

Aside some bank or hillock creeping low;--

Though each too often meets a hasty doom

From trampling clowns, who heed not where they go.