John Clare

Major Works

Simile as syntax

Clare opens with 'like a sudden thought'—the comparison isn't decorative. The duck's startling movement *is* how sudden thoughts arrive in the mind. He's using simile to describe consciousness itself, not just the bird.

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,
And heron slow as if it might be caught.
The flopping crows on weary wings go by
And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.
The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,

Collective nouns matter

'Starnels' (starlings), 'rooks,' 'jackdaws'—Clare specifies species and their group behavior. This isn't generic 'birds.' He's cataloging the actual evening flight patterns of a particular landscape at a particular time.

And darken like a clod the evening sky.

Dialect and accuracy

'Suthy' is Clare's dialectal form (Northamptonshire). He's not using standard English to describe these birds—he's using the language of the place where he observed them. This isn't poetic elevation; it's fidelity to lived experience.

The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,
Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.
The wild swan hurries hight and noises loud
With white neck peering to the evening clowd.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.
With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on

Verb precision

'Winnows' is the technical term for grain-sifting. Applied to the magpie's tail-motion, it suggests the bird is moving through air the way a farmer moves grain through air—precise, deliberate, separating one thing from another.

To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow
While small birds nestle in the edge below.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Clare's ornithological inventory

This poem is a catalog of evening flight—not a meditation on birds, but a systematic record of what leaves the fields at dusk. Clare names ten distinct species (duck, heron, crows, jackdaws, starlings, larks, swan, rooks, magpie, small birds) and describes their specific behaviors: the heron's slowness, the larks' thunderous rise, the rooks' distant departure. [CONTEXT: Clare was a laborer-poet from Northamptonshire who knew the actual ecology of his region intimately.] He's not inventing symbolic meanings; he's observing.

The structure mirrors the observation itself—each line adds another bird or group to the inventory, moving through the evening landscape methodically. There's no emotional arc, no moral lesson. The poem *is* the act of noticing.

Language as witness

Clare uses dialect words ('suthy,' 'clowd' for cloud) and technical terms ('winnows,' 'starnels') in the same poem, mixing peasant speech with precise vocabulary. This isn't inconsistency—it's fidelity. He's writing in the language available to him, which includes both the dialect of his place and the technical knowledge of someone who worked the land.

Notice also that verbs do the work here, not adjectives. Birds don't just exist; they 'whizz,' 'hurry,' 'nestle,' 'winnow.' The action is the point. This is how observation actually works—you see movement first, then identify the creature making it.