Onward into 2017 ...

To bring in the year of 2017 I have gone back two hundred years to John Clare’s time (1793 – 1864) – he was an English poet, the son of a farm labourer …

… who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside, but with his lamentation of its disruption.

The poem provides a calendar of the country year, in which the various tasks performed by the farm labourer take their appropriate place: ploughing in February, lambing in March, and hay-making in June.  This has changed I think ... as we plant winter wheat and frost hardy varieties ... so we plough in the Autumn and in the Spring. 

Helpston sign outside Clare Cottage

The countryman’s year is also punctuated by celebrations and festivals, such as May Day games, sheep-shearing feasts, Harvest Home and Christmas.

Rooted in popular culture, the poem has many vivid descriptions of the flowers, birds, and beasts of the hedgerow and field, in the first half of the 1800s.

John Clare's birthplace: Helpston,
six miles north of Peterborough

As you can see his great poem of the farming year is a fascinating piece of social history … together with endearing descriptions of life at the start of the industrial revolution, before the landscape becomes scoured by the unsentimental hand of economic advancement.

Only known photo (1862) of
John Clare

I set out the first two lines for each month … with an appropriate image – the subject of which appears within the stanzas … it is a long poem, but with some amazing vocabulary and descriptive phrases – well worth dipping in and out … especially if your creativity belle has disappeared for a short rest and needs reinvigorating …

Now this post has got long … but … here be the twelve months …

Feathery Snow Crystals

January

Withering and keen the Winter comes,

While Comfort flies to close-shut rooms,

Waiting for the snow to melt and Spring to come along

February

The snow has left the cottage top;

the thatch-moss grows in brighter green …

Lino cut of horses ploughing
in March

March

March, month of ‘many weathers,’ wildly comes

In hail, and snow, and rain, and threatening hums …

Speckled Thrush - indicative of April

April

Now infant April joins the Spring,

And views the watery sky,

May

Swarthy bees on the grass in May

Come, Queen of Months! In company

With all thy merry minstrelsy:-

Cuckoo in full flight - June

June

Now Summer is in flower, and Nature’s hum

Is never silent round her bounteous bloom;

Old Sarum, Saxon Castle, in July

July

July, the month of Summer’s prime,

Again resumes his busy time;

Wheat, Rye and Barley

August

Harvest approaches with its busy day;

The wheat tans brown, and barley bleaches grey;

Swallowtail - September

September 

Harvest awakes the morning still,

And toil’s rude groups the valleys fill;

Quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley

October

Nature now spreads around, in dreary hue,

A pall to cover all that summer knew;

Stormy November Skies

November 

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn til noon;

And, if the sun looks through, ‘tis with a face

Christmas traditions

December 

Glad Christmas comes, and every hearth

Makes room to give him welcome now,

Here's the link to the John Clare Shepherd's Calendar poem ... 

I've also mentioned him in another post about haymaking ... a typical day at that time ... 

Welcome to us all for 2017 ... I for one need a change up ... so here's to a very happy, blessed, peaceful year full of goodwill ... 




Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories