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 Lifeand 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 VillageStories and Other Poems. Front by Dewint.12mo., pp. 238.1827
—— The Rural Muse. Front, and EngravedTitle. 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 ChandosClassics, published by Warne & Co., London.
Martin (F.) Life of John Clare. Engraved Title.8vo.1865
[See also Encyclopædia Britannica; and Dictionary of NationalBiography, vol. 10].
CRITICISM, ETC.
The Book of Gems, edited by S. C. Hall. 8vo.1853
(References to Clare, pp. 162-166. Facsimile of Clare?sAutograph 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 muchaltered and revised by another hand).
Dack (Chas.) Catalogue of the Clare CentenaryExhibition at Peterborough.1893
(Full reports of the Centenary Celebrations appear inPeterboro? Standard, July 15, Aug. 26, Sept. 9, 1893,and Stamford Guardian, Sept. 1, 1893).
De Wilde (G. J.) Rambles Roundabout, andPoems. Cr. 8vo. Northampton,N. D.
(Includes much interesting matter about Clare and hisbirthplace).
Four Letters from Rev. W. Allen to Lord Radstockon the Poems of Clare. 12mo.1823
Heath (Richard). The English Peasant: His Pastand Present. Sm. 8vo.1899
(Exhaustive account of Clare occupies large portion ofthe 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 byAlfred 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.