Sunday, May 27, 2012

Why I Read John Clare, Part 1

I read John Clare because I like the sounds, like those of the closing line of this poem from the early-mid-1800s. I also like "the lodging snows..." Fodder is cattle feed; here, brawlmeans a loud noise or clamor.

Clare, 1820s, image borrowed from the John Clare Society 


The Foddering Boy 
The foddering boy along the crumping snows
With straw-band-belted legs and folded arm
Hastens and on the blast that keenly blows
Oft turns for breath and beats his fingers warm
And shakes the lodging snows from off his clothes,
Buttoning his doublet closer from the storm
And slouching his brown beaver o'er his nose.
Then faces it again -- and seeks the stack
Within its circling fence -- where hungry lows
Expecting cattle making many a track
About the snows -- impatient for the sound
When in huge fork-fulls trailing at his back
He litters the sweet hay about the ground
And brawls to call the staring cattle back.

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