John Clare

I had a variety of minds about me and all of them unsettled.

I hid my love in field and town Till een the breeze would knock me down, The bees seemed singing ballads oer, The fly's bass turned a lion's roar; And even silence found a tongue, To haunt me all the summer long; The riddle nature could not prove Was nothing else but secret love.

I am, as far as my politics reaches, 'King and Country' - no 'Innovations in Religion and Government' say I.

And all the charms of face or voice Which I in others see, Are but the recollected choice Of what I feel for thee.

The best way to avoid a bad action is by doing a good one, for there is no difficulty in the world like that of trying to do nothing.

I am gennerally understood tho I do not use that awkward squad of pointings called commas colons semicolons etc.

My fears are agitated to an extreme degree and the dread of death involves me in a stupor of chilling indisposition.

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

Still, I have been no one's enemy but my own. My easy nature, either in drinking or anything else, was always ready to submit to persuasions of profligate companions, who often led me into snares.

I'm John Clare now. I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly.

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.

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