Lovely sunny day pic.twitter.com/dyyEl3mU3R
— Herdwick Shepherd (@herdyshepherd1) May 26, 2014
Dish poetry editor Alice Quinn writes:
Last Friday on July 4th, in an Ask Me Anything segment, Andrew responded to a reader’s question as to whether after 30 years here he identified more as American or English. I was struck by his saying, “The impact—when I look at it now—of the English countryside on my psyche was bigger than I ever really anticipated. I find myself drawn constantly to that sort of rural calm.”
We’ve recently posted poems by John Clare (1793-1864), and I can’t seem to stop reading and memorizing his work, particularly the sonnets which are so expressive of his tender devotion to the English countryside. So this week we’ll post a few more and dedicate them to Andrew, to England, and to readers of The Dish who may be moved to learn some poems by heart this summer. We’ll start with one with a dog to up the ante with Mr. Sullivan! In the poem, “nine-peg-morris” refers to a game played on squares cut in turf.
“The Shepherd Boy” by John Clare:
Pleased in his loneliness he often lies
Telling glad stories to his dog—and e’en
His very shadow that the loss supplies
Of living company. Full oft he’ll lean
By pebbled brooks and dream with happy eyes
Upon the fairy pictures spread below,
Thinking the shadowed prospects real skies
And happy heavens where his kindred go.
Oft we may track his haunts where he hath been
To spend the leisure which his toils bestow
By “nine-peg-morris” nicked upon the green
Or flower-stuck gardens never meant to grow
Or figures cut on trees his skill to show
Where he a prisoner from a shower hath been.
(From “I Am”: The Selected Poetry of John Clare, edited by Jonathan Bate © 2003 by Jonathan Bate. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
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