In his home village the young John was seen as odd <br />Poor Parker's son was of a lesser god <br />But his fame outlived the fame of the landed gentry and squire <br />And all of his contemporaries in the Northampton Shire. <br /> <br />He worked for a local farmer as a boy by day <br />From the neighbours fields he kept their flock away <br />And other chores some hard for a young boy <br />And an easy childhood he did not enjoy. <br /> <br />He commenced writing poetry when he was quite young <br />And his verses were in the dialect of the local tongue <br />And his first book of verse brought him notice and fame <br />And his had become a great literary name. <br /> <br />But fame did not last long for honest John Clare <br />And worse for him his health was in need of repair <br />After a mental break down he was deemed to be insane <br />And with his wife and his children he could not remain. <br /> <br />He was committed to the Northampton asylum where he lived till he died <br />And till the end he pined for his country side <br />Yet his poems written in madness considered as great <br />Though the recognition he deserved to him came too late. <br /> <br />His mental disorder confused him in life <br />He thought that Mary Joyce and not Patty Turner was his real wife <br />Still his poems on Nature and love with the best can compare <br />But the price of fame did seem high for honest John Clare. <br /> <br />The story of his tragic life becoming well known <br />And his poems on wild life in a class of their own <br />And of the workings of Nature so much he did know <br />And his stature as a poet in time grow and grow. <br /> <br />He was not a stranger to heartache and tears <br />And he died in the Northampton asylum where he had lived for years <br />But the poems of the herd boy from Helpston are still living today <br />And such things of great beauty in time won't decay.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/honest-john-clare/
