[Gregory Dowling]

It's rather long but I think it's worth posting here this very fine poem by Anthony Hecht:

COMING HOME
From the journals of John Clare


July 18, 1841

They take away our belts so that we must hold
Our trousers up. The truly mad don't bother
And thus are oddly hobbled. Also our laces
So that our shoes do flop about our feet.
But I'm permitted exercise abroad
And feeling rather down and melancholy
Went for a forest walk. There I met gypsies
And sought their help to make good my escape
From the mad house. I confessed I had no money
But promised I should furnish them fifty pounds.
We fixed on Saturday. But when I returned
They had disappeared in their Egyptian way.
The sun set up its starlight in the trees
Which the breeze made to twinkle. They left behind
An old wide awake hat on which I battened
As it might advantage me some later time.


July 20

Calmly, as though I purposed to converse
With the birds, as I am sometimes known to do,
I walked down the lane gently and was soon
In Enfield Town and then on the great York Road
Where it was all plain sailing, where no enemy
Displayed himself and I was without fear.
I made good progress, and by the dark of night
Skirted a marsh or pond and found a hovel
Floored with thick bales of clover and laid me down
As on the harvest of a summer field,
Companion to imaginary bees.
But I was troubled by uneasy dreams.
I thought my first wife lay in my left arm
And then somebody took her from my side
Which made me wake to hear someone say, “Mary,”
But nobody was by. I was alone.

***

I've made some progress, but being without food,
It is slower now, and I must void my shoes
Of pebbles fairly often, and rest myself.
I lay in a ditch to be out of the wind's way,
Fell into sleep for half an hour or so
And waked to find the left side of me soaked
With a foul scum and a soft mantling green.

***


I travel much at night, and I remember
Walking some miles under a brilliant sky
Almost dove-grey from closely hidden moonlight
Cast on the moisture of the atmosphere
Against which the tall trees on either side
Were unimaginably black and flat
And the puddles of the road flagstones of silver.

***

On the third day, stupid with weariness
And hunger, I assuaged my appetite
With eating grass, which seemed to taste like bread,
And seemed to do me good; and once, indeed,
It satisfied a king of Babylon.
I remember passing through the town of Buckden
And must have passed others as in a trance
For I recall none till I came to Stilton
Where my poor feet gave out. I found a tussock
Where I might rest myself, and as I lay down
I heard the voice of a young woman say,
“Poor creature,” and another, older voice,
“He shams,” but when I rose the latter said,
“0 no he don't,” as I limped quickly off.
I never saw those women, never looked back.


July 23

I was overtaken by a man and woman
Traveling by cart, and found them to be neighbors
From Helpstone where I used to live. They saw
My ragged state and gave me alms of fivepence
By which at the public house beside the bridge
I got some bread and cheese and two half-pints
And so was much refreshed, though scarcely able
To walk, my feet being now exceeding crippled
And I required to halt more frequently,
But greatly cheered at being in home's way.
I recognized the road to Peterborough
And all my hopes were up when there came towards me
A cart with a man, a woman and a boy.
When they were close, the woman leaped to the ground,
Seized both my hands and urged me towards the cart
But I refused and thought her either drunk
Or mad, but when I was told that she was Patty,
My second wife, I suffered myself to climb
Aboard and soon arrived at Northborough.
But Mary was not there. Neither could I discover
Anything of her more than the old story
That she was six years dead, intelligence
Of a doubtful newspaper some twelve years old;
But I would not be taken in by blarney
Having seen her very self with my two eyes
About twelve months ago, alive and young
And fresh and well and beautiful as ever.