OLD YEAR

THE OLD YEAR by John Clare (1793-1864)

The Old Year's gone away to nothingness and night

We cannot find him all the day, nor hear him in the night.

He left no footstep, mark or place in either shade or sun

The last year he'd a neighbour's face, in this he's known by none.

All nothing everywhere

Mists we on mornings see

Have more of form than he. He was a friend by every fire..

In every cot and hall, a guest to every heart's desire

And now he's naught at all

Old papers thrown away

Old garments cast aside

The talk of yesterday.....

Are things identified

But time once torn away

No voices can recall, the eve of New Year's Day

Left the Old Year lost to all......

Photographs 2023
 John Clare was an English rural poet, who was known as the Peasant Poet. He was once a gardener at Burghley House and  made about 45 pounds a year, had a wife and seven children. He suffered from alcoholism and depression  and had the delusion he was a prize fighter. He also started to tell people he was Lord Byron, rewriting poems and sonnets by Byron . Eventually , Clare was admitted to an insane asylum ,  where he wrote  till the day he died of a stroke . He was buried at Helpston.