There is the genius of a lover in this description. Here is something finally said. Clare continually labours to make the report of his eye and ear accurate. He even begins one of his Asylum Poems with the line:
Sweet chestnuts brown like soling leather turn;
and, in another, pursues realism in describing an April evening to the point of writing:
Sheep ointment seems to daub the dead-hued sky.
His attempt at giving an exact echo of the blue-tit’s song—his very feeble attempt—makes the success of one of his good poems tremble for a moment in the balance:
Dreamers, mark the honey bee;
Mark the tree
Where the blue cap “tootle tee”
Sings a glee,
Sung to Adam and to Eve—