For years in Northampton mental asylum he battled his ghosts of despair <br />His Nation's finest poet of Nature the marvellous wordsmith John Clare <br />So many of his poems are relevant today <br />The one who loved Nature with words had a way. <br /> <br />The Helpston he grew up in not a cultural place <br />And though in that old Village his was a known face <br />They little realized the fame to them he'd bring <br />That poetry lovers World wide his praises would sing. <br /> <br />Without him less people of Helpston would know <br />The great poet of Nature of centuries ago <br />He died in Northampton mental asylum in dire poverty <br />Yet is there one greater Nature poet than he? <br /> <br />His flora and fauna poems have passed scrutiny's test <br />And as a Nature poet he was surely the best <br />Into the soul of Nature it seemed he could see <br />And his verses have outlived his mortality. <br /> <br />He never did enjoy his literary renown <br />And he died in the asylum in Northampton Town <br />But he was a true poet and his type are so rare <br />And old Helpston lives on in the poems of John Clare.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-poems-of-john-clare/
