The early poems of John Clare :: :: University of Virginia Library

And when the sollemn bell with chilling toll
Speaks the departure of a self-like soul
Their exit to be seen on earth no more
The feeling heart will naturally deplore
But when to these the ever active thought
Adds a good action which they once have wraught
On him who sighs.—ah then the bosom bleeds
And fond regret in sympathy suceeds
Tis thus for her whom now but few regard
Sleeping unconsious in the cold-church-yard
My soul for past good-deeds does now design
To tell its warmth which nothing can confine
For in my earliest-days I us'd to be
Left in her care to con my A,B,C,
And in her well-known yard 'mong play-mates gay
I've often loiter'd with a fond delay

Beneath her ruling rod tho' not severe
I rellish'd learning and I lov'd to hear
Those pleasing tales which she would often tell
How Johnny Armstrong fought and how he fell
How the fair Rosamond by poison dy'd
And Jane shore suffer'd for unlawful pride
These where her tales and these so powerful where
So mildly pleasing to the infant ear
That every day we long'd to have them told
And oft-repeating never made 'em old
We always lov'd them and she would comply
Then should this goodness so familiar die
Because 'twas only employ'd to rear
The simple child entrusted to her care?
Whose learned all—not studiously bent
Extended only to the testament!
Is memory useless when it leaves to fame
No other record than a virtuous name?
Should theirs be lost who willingly would shew
To them that needed any thing they knew?

Who gave instructions where they whould recieve
As far as lay with in their power to give?

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—No surely not—the first impressions made
On the young plant its tender shoot to aid
Must give the promise of a statley tree
And the first cause of its perfections be
In the same sence of her it may be said
Who's guiding hand my infant foot-steps led
To learning path—that her impressing plan
First laid the basis of the future man
And by imbibing what she simply taught
My taste for reading there was surely caught
However if it was or not fullfil'd
(In philosophic arguments not skill'd)
Its naught to me—her memory can impart
Familiar fondness to a feeling heart
And when the neighbours shook their heads to sigh
‘Poor Mrs B[ul]l[imor]e will surely die’
My youthful breast with sighing wishes swell'd
I hop'd—I shudder'd—at the truth they tell'd
But when the passing bell began to knoll
All hopes where lost it chill'd my very soul
The truth to[o] true it mournful seem'd to say
‘Her flitting soul has left its house of clay’

Then farwell tutor of the infant mind
Now thou art gone and left thy flock behind
Free from all trouble callumney and scorn
‘Slow through the church-yard-path I saw thee born’
I saw thy grave remembering with a sigh
That I my self in such a one must lie
And often since I've stood to view thy stone
By kindred gave to make thy memory known
Whose uncooth ryhmes imperfectly apply'd
Without the aid of sculptures gaudy pride
From neighbourings friends and kindred passing by
Near fails to raise the heart-affecting sigh