Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Clare. 17931864621. Written in Northampton County Asylum
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. | 5 |
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 | 10 |
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, | 15 |
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, | |
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,— | |
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky. |