John Clare’s Poems About Swaddywell

Helpston Parish Council Web Site

Home

Around Helpston Helpston Map Helpston Walks Village History Village Photograph Library Helpston’s Natural Environment Helpston’s Wildlife & Fauna Sounds of Helpston Local Environments & Wildlife Sites Barnack Hills & Holes Castor Hanglands Emmonsails Heath Lolham Bridges – Bainton Pits Royce Wood Swaddywell Pit John Clare’s Poems About Swaddywell The Langley Bush Torpel Manor Field

Helpston Map

Helpston Walks

Village History Village Photograph Library

Village Photograph Library

Helpston’s Natural Environment

Helpston’s Wildlife & Fauna Sounds of Helpston

Sounds of Helpston

Local Environments & Wildlife Sites Barnack Hills & Holes Castor Hanglands Emmonsails Heath Lolham Bridges – Bainton Pits Royce Wood Swaddywell Pit John Clare’s Poems About Swaddywell The Langley Bush Torpel Manor Field

Barnack Hills & Holes

Castor Hanglands

Emmonsails Heath

Lolham Bridges – Bainton Pits

Royce Wood

Swaddywell Pit John Clare’s Poems About Swaddywell

John Clare’s Poems About Swaddywell

The Langley Bush

Torpel Manor Field

St. Botolph’s Church Safeguarding Who was St Botolph? St Botolph’s Parochial Church Council Sunday Club Helpston Church Choir Botolph’s Barn Botolph’s Barn Exhibition Botolph’s Barn Location Map Botolph’s Barn Access Policy Botolph’s Barn Health & Safety Policy Botolph’s Barn Education Policy

Safeguarding

Who was St Botolph?

St Botolph’s Parochial Church Council

Sunday Club

Helpston Church Choir

Botolph’s Barn Botolph’s Barn Exhibition Botolph’s Barn Location Map Botolph’s Barn Access Policy Botolph’s Barn Health & Safety Policy Botolph’s Barn Education Policy

Botolph’s Barn Exhibition

Botolph’s Barn Location Map

Botolph’s Barn Access Policy

Botolph’s Barn Health & Safety Policy

Botolph’s Barn Education Policy

John Clare Primary School Dual Use Playing Field

Dual Use Playing Field

Village Organisations Helpston Scout and Guide Association Helpston Playhouse & Under 5s Helpston Lawn Tennis Club Indoor Bowls Club

Helpston Scout and Guide Association

Helpston Playhouse & Under 5s

Helpston Lawn Tennis Club

Indoor Bowls Club

Community Groups Helpston Village Hall Helpston Lunch Club Helpston Crossing Group

Helpston Village Hall

Helpston Lunch Club

Helpston Crossing Group

John Clare John Clare’s Poems John Clare Society John Clare’s Cottage John Clare Trust

John Clare’s Poems

John Clare Society

John Clare’s Cottage

John Clare Trust

News

John Clare wrote two poems about Swordy Well.

Whilst the first, I love thee Swordy Well, records Clare’s own delight in the flowers he could find there, the second is a lament about the destruction of the site, as Clare saw it, through over exploitation by man, as a direct result of enclosure. Uniquely this poem is written in the first person, as if Swordy Well were a petitioner for alms.

I’ve Loved thee Swordy Well I’ve loved thee Swordy Well and love thee still Long was I with thee tending sheep and cow In boyhood ramping up each steepy hill To play at ‘roly poly’ down – and now A man I trifle o’er thee cares to kill Haunting thy mossy steeps to botanize And hunt the orchis tribes where nature’s skill Doth like my thoughts run into phantasys Spider and Bee all mimicking at will Displaying powers that fools the proudly wise Showing the wonders of great nature’s plan In trifles insignificant and small Puzzling the power of that great trifle man Who finds no reason to be proud at all.

I’ve loved thee Swordy Well and love thee still Long was I with thee tending sheep and cow In boyhood ramping up each steepy hill To play at ‘roly poly’ down – and now A man I trifle o’er thee cares to kill Haunting thy mossy steeps to botanize And hunt the orchis tribes where nature’s skill Doth like my thoughts run into phantasys Spider and Bee all mimicking at will Displaying powers that fools the proudly wise Showing the wonders of great nature’s plan In trifles insignificant and small Puzzling the power of that great trifle man Who finds no reason to be proud at all.

The Lament of Swordy Well Petitioners are full of prayers To fall in pity’s way But if her hand the gift forbears They’ll sooner swear than pray They’re not the worst to want who lurch On plenty with complaints No more then those who go to church Are e’er the better saints I hold no hat to beg a mite Nor pick it up when thrown Nor limping leg I hold in sight But pray to keep my own Where profit gets his clutches in There’s little he will leave Gain stooping for a single pin Will stick it on his sleeve For passers-by I never pin No troubles to my breast Nor carry round some names to win More money from the rest I’m Swordy Well a piece of land That’s fell upon the town Who worked me till I couldn’t stand And crush me now I’m down In parish bounds I well may wail Reduced to every shift Pity may grieve at trouble’s tale But cunning shares the gift Harvest with plenty on his brow Leaves losses’ taunts with me Yet gain comes yearly with the plough And will not let me be Alas dependence thou’rt a brute Want only understands His feelings wither branch and root That falls in parish hands. The muck that clouts the ploughman’s shoe The moss that hides the stone, Now I’m become the parish due, Is more than I can own Though I’m no man yet any wrong Some sort of right may seek And I am glad if e’en a song Gives me room to speak I’ve got among such grubbing geer And such a hungry pack If I brought harvests twice a year They’d bring me nothing back When war their tyrant-prices got I trembled with alarms They fell and saved my little spot Or towns had turned to farms Let profit keep a humble place That gentry may be known Let pedigrees their honours trace And toil enjoy its own The silver springs grown naked dykes Scarce own a bunch of rushes When grain got high the tasteless tykes Grubbed up trees, banks, and bushes And me, they turned me inside out For sand and grit and stones And turned my old green hills about And pickt my very bones These things that claim my own as theirs Were born by yesterday But ere I fell to town affairs I were as proud as they I kept my horses, cows, and sheep And built the town below Ere they had cat or dog to keep And then to use me so Parish allowance gaunt and dread Had it the earth to keep Would even pine the bees to dead To save an extra keep Pride’s workhouse is a place that yields From poverty its gains And mines a workhouse for the fields A-starving the remains The bees flye round in feeble rings And find no blossom bye Then thrum their almost weary wings Upon the moss and die Rabbits that find my hills turned o’er Forsake my poor abode They dread a workhouse like the poor And nibble on the road If with a clover bottle now Spring dares to lift her head The next day brings the hasty plough And makes me misery’s bed The butterflyes may wir and come I cannot keep ’em now Nor can they bear my parish home That withers on my brow No, now not e’en a stone can lie I’m just what e’er they like My hedges like the winter flye And leave me but the dyke My gates are thrown from off the hooks The parish thoroughfare Lord he that’s in the parish books Has little wealth to spare I couldn’t keep a dust of grit Nor scarce a grain of sand But bags and carts claimed every bit And now they’ve got the land I used to bring the summer’s life To many a butterflye But in oppression’s iron strife Dead tussocks bow and sigh I’ve scarce a nook to call my own For things that creep or flye The beetle hiding ‘neath a stone Does well to hurry bye Stock eats my struggles every day As bare as any road He’s sure to be in something’s way If e’er he stirs abroad I am no man to whine and beg But fond of freedom still I hang no lies on pity’s peg To bring a grist to mill On pity’s back I needn’t jump My looks speak loud alone My only tree they’ve left a stump And nought remains my own My mossy hills gain’s greedy hand And more than greedy mind Levels into a russet land Nor leaves a bent behind In summers gone I bloomed inpride Folks came for miles to prize My flowers that bloomed nowhere beside And scarce believed their eyes Yet worried with a greedy pack They rend and delve and tear The very grass from off my back I’ve scarce a rag to wear Gain takes my freedom all away Since its dull suit I wore And yet scorn vows I never pay And hurts me more and more And should the price of grain get high – Lord help and keep it low – I shan’t possess a single flye Or get a weed to grow I shan’t possess a yad of ground To bid a mouse to thrive For gain has put me in a pound I scarce can keep alive I own I’m poor like many more But the the poor num live And many came for miles before For what I had to give But since I fell upon the town They pass me with a sigh I’ve scarce the room to say ‘Sit down’ And so they wander bye Though now I seem so full of clack Yet when ye’re riding bye The very birds upon my back Are not more fain to flye I feel so lorn in this disgrace God send the grain to fall I am the oldest in the place And the worst-served of all Lord bless ye I was kind to all And poverty in me Could always find a humble stall A rest and lodging free Poor bodys with an hungry ass I welcomed many a day And gave him tether-room and grass And never said him nay There was a time my bit of ground Made freemen of the slave The ass no pindar’d dare to pound When I his supper gave The gipsey’s camp was not affraid I made his dwelling free Till vile enclosure came and made A parish slave of me The gipseys further on sojourn No parish bounds they like No sticks I own and would earth burn I shouldn’t own a dyke I am no friend to lawless work Nor would a rebel be And why I call a Christian turk Is they are turks to me And if I could but find a friend With no deceit to sham Who’d send me some few sheep to tend And leave me as I am To keep my hills from cart and plough And strife of mongrel men And as a spring found me find me now I should look up agen And save his Lordship’s woods, that past The day of danger dwell Of all the fields I am the last That my own face can tell Yet what with stone pits’ delving holes And strife to buy and sell My name will quickly be the whole That’s left of Swordy Well

Petitioners are full of prayers To fall in pity’s way But if her hand the gift forbears They’ll sooner swear than pray They’re not the worst to want who lurch On plenty with complaints No more then those who go to church Are e’er the better saints

I hold no hat to beg a mite Nor pick it up when thrown Nor limping leg I hold in sight But pray to keep my own Where profit gets his clutches in There’s little he will leave Gain stooping for a single pin Will stick it on his sleeve

For passers-by I never pin No troubles to my breast Nor carry round some names to win More money from the rest I’m Swordy Well a piece of land That’s fell upon the town Who worked me till I couldn’t stand And crush me now I’m down

In parish bounds I well may wail Reduced to every shift Pity may grieve at trouble’s tale But cunning shares the gift Harvest with plenty on his brow Leaves losses’ taunts with me Yet gain comes yearly with the plough And will not let me be

Alas dependence thou’rt a brute Want only understands His feelings wither branch and root That falls in parish hands. The muck that clouts the ploughman’s shoe The moss that hides the stone, Now I’m become the parish due, Is more than I can own

Though I’m no man yet any wrong Some sort of right may seek And I am glad if e’en a song Gives me room to speak I’ve got among such grubbing geer And such a hungry pack If I brought harvests twice a year

They’d bring me nothing back When war their tyrant-prices got I trembled with alarms They fell and saved my little spot Or towns had turned to farms Let profit keep a humble place That gentry may be known Let pedigrees their honours trace And toil enjoy its own

The silver springs grown naked dykes Scarce own a bunch of rushes When grain got high the tasteless tykes Grubbed up trees, banks, and bushes And me, they turned me inside out For sand and grit and stones And turned my old green hills about And pickt my very bones

These things that claim my own as theirs Were born by yesterday But ere I fell to town affairs I were as proud as they I kept my horses, cows, and sheep And built the town below Ere they had cat or dog to keep And then to use me so

Parish allowance gaunt and dread Had it the earth to keep Would even pine the bees to dead To save an extra keep Pride’s workhouse is a place that yields From poverty its gains And mines a workhouse for the fields A-starving the remains

The bees flye round in feeble rings And find no blossom bye Then thrum their almost weary wings Upon the moss and die Rabbits that find my hills turned o’er Forsake my poor abode They dread a workhouse like the poor And nibble on the road

If with a clover bottle now Spring dares to lift her head The next day brings the hasty plough And makes me misery’s bed The butterflyes may wir and come I cannot keep ’em now Nor can they bear my parish home That withers on my brow

No, now not e’en a stone can lie I’m just what e’er they like My hedges like the winter flye And leave me but the dyke My gates are thrown from off the hooks The parish thoroughfare Lord he that’s in the parish books Has little wealth to spare

I couldn’t keep a dust of grit Nor scarce a grain of sand But bags and carts claimed every bit And now they’ve got the land I used to bring the summer’s life To many a butterflye But in oppression’s iron strife

Dead tussocks bow and sigh I’ve scarce a nook to call my own For things that creep or flye The beetle hiding ‘neath a stone Does well to hurry bye Stock eats my struggles every day As bare as any road He’s sure to be in something’s way If e’er he stirs abroad

I am no man to whine and beg But fond of freedom still I hang no lies on pity’s peg To bring a grist to mill On pity’s back I needn’t jump My looks speak loud alone My only tree they’ve left a stump And nought remains my own

My mossy hills gain’s greedy hand And more than greedy mind Levels into a russet land Nor leaves a bent behind In summers gone I bloomed inpride Folks came for miles to prize My flowers that bloomed nowhere beside And scarce believed their eyes

Yet worried with a greedy pack They rend and delve and tear The very grass from off my back I’ve scarce a rag to wear Gain takes my freedom all away Since its dull suit I wore And yet scorn vows I never pay And hurts me more and more

And should the price of grain get high – Lord help and keep it low – I shan’t possess a single flye Or get a weed to grow I shan’t possess a yad of ground To bid a mouse to thrive For gain has put me in a pound I scarce can keep alive

I own I’m poor like many more But the the poor num live And many came for miles before For what I had to give But since I fell upon the town They pass me with a sigh I’ve scarce the room to say ‘Sit down’ And so they wander bye

Though now I seem so full of clack Yet when ye’re riding bye The very birds upon my back Are not more fain to flye I feel so lorn in this disgrace God send the grain to fall I am the oldest in the place And the worst-served of all

Lord bless ye I was kind to all And poverty in me Could always find a humble stall A rest and lodging free Poor bodys with an hungry ass I welcomed many a day And gave him tether-room and grass And never said him nay

There was a time my bit of ground Made freemen of the slave The ass no pindar’d dare to pound When I his supper gave The gipsey’s camp was not affraid I made his dwelling free Till vile enclosure came and made A parish slave of me

The gipseys further on sojourn No parish bounds they like No sticks I own and would earth burn I shouldn’t own a dyke I am no friend to lawless work Nor would a rebel be And why I call a Christian turk Is they are turks to me

And if I could but find a friend With no deceit to sham Who’d send me some few sheep to tend And leave me as I am To keep my hills from cart and plough And strife of mongrel men And as a spring found me find me now I should look up agen

And save his Lordship’s woods, that past The day of danger dwell Of all the fields I am the last That my own face can tell Yet what with stone pits’ delving holes And strife to buy and sell My name will quickly be the whole That’s left of Swordy Well

{ 0 comments… add one now }