Poems :: I AM! YET WHAT I AM

I AM! YET WHAT I AM

I AM! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss’d

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that’s dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod,
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept;
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above the vaulted sky.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOHN CLARE
By C. Ernest Smith

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS
Clare (John). Poems, Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery. 12mo., pp. 222.	1820
(Contains passages suppressed in later editions).
—— The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems. Portrait and Sketch of Clare?s Cottage. 2 vols., 12mo., pp. 216 and 211.	1821
—— The Shepherd?s Calendar, with Village Stories and Other Poems. Front by Dewint. 12mo., pp. 238.	1827
—— The Rural Muse. Front, and Engraved Title. 12mo., pp. 175.	1835
BIOGRAPHY
Cherry (J. L.) Life and Remains of John Clare. Illustrations by Birket Foster. Cr. 8vo.	1873
This volume was afterwards included in the Chandos Classics, published by Warne & Co., London.
Martin (F.) Life of John Clare. Engraved Title. 8vo.	1865
[See also EncyclopÆdia Britannica; and Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 10].
CRITICISM, ETC.
The Book of Gems, edited by S. C. Hall. 8vo.	1853
(References to Clare, pp. 162-166. Facsimile of Clare?s Autograph at end of volume).
Casket of Gems, edited by Chas. Gibbon. 4 vols., Royal 8vo.	N. D.
(Contains a Poem of Clare?s which has been very much altered and revised by another hand).
Dack (Chas.) Catalogue of the Clare Centenary Exhibition at Peterborough.	1893
(Full reports of the Centenary Celebrations appear in Peterboro? Standard, July 15, Aug. 26, Sept. 9, 1893, and Stamford Guardian, Sept. 1, 1893).
De Wilde (G. J.) Rambles Roundabout, and Poems. Cr. 8vo. Northampton,	N. D.
(Includes much interesting matter about Clare and his birthplace).
Four Letters from Rev. W. Allen to Lord Radstock on the Poems of Clare. 12mo.	1823
Heath (Richard). The English Peasant: His Past and Present. Sm. 8vo.	1899
(Exhaustive account of Clare occupies large portion of the book).
Holland (J.), and J. Everett. James Montgomery. 7 vols., 8vo.	1854-6
(References to Clare, vol. iv., pp. 96-175).
Hood (E. Paxton). The Peerage of Poverty. Cr. 8vo.	N. D.
(An account of Clare occupies some fifty pages.)
Poets and the Poetry of the Century, edited by Alfred H. Miles. Keats to Lytton. 12mo.	N. D.
(Clare, by Hon. Roden Noel, pp. 79-106).
Redding (Cyrus). Fifty Years? Recollections. 3 vols., p. 8vo.	1858
(Vol. III., pp. 216, references to Clare).
Stoddard (R. H.) Under the Evening Lamp. Cr. 8vo.	1893
(Essay on Clare, pp. 120-134).
Wilson (Professor). Clare?s Rural Muse. 16 pp. Blackwood?s Magazine, August, 1835.

MAGAZINE ARTICLES, ETC.

Anti-Jacobin Review. June, 1820.

Baldwin’s London Magazine. March, 1820.

Blackwood’s Magazine. August, 1835.

Eclectic Review. April, 1820.

Gentleman’s Magazine. February, 1820.

Literary World. August and September, 1893.

London Magazine. I., 5-11—323-29. IV., 540-8.

New Monthly Magazine. March, 1820.

Notes and Queries. Ist S., vi., 196; IInd S., v., 186; IVth S., xi., 127; Vth S., ii., 302; VIIth S., x., 187.

Peterborough Standard. July 15, August 26, and September 2 and 9, 1893.

Quarterly Review. May, 1820, pp. 166-75.

Stamford and Rutland Guardian. Aug. and Sept., 1890; May and June, 1891; Sept., Oct., and December, 1893.

THE RUGBY PRESS