JOHN CLARE 1793-1864

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SONG

Soft falls the sweet evening

Bright shines the one star

The night clouds they're leaning

On mountains afar

The moon in dim brightness

The fern in its lightness

Tinge the valley with whiteness

Both near and afar

O soft falls the evening

Around those sweet glens

The hill's shadows leaning

Half over the glen

There meet me my deary

I'm lonely and weary

And nothing can cheer me

So meet me agen

The gate it clap'd slightly

The noise it was small

The footstep fell lightly

And she pass'd the stone wall

And is it my deary

I'm no longer weary

But happy and cheery

For in thee I meet all

According to the poet's biographer Jonathan Bate, Clare was "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."