The Lament of Swardy Well

John Clare

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 than those who go to church

Are e'er the better saints

I had not 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 profits 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 Swardy 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 bonds I well may wail

Reduced to every shrift

Pity may grieve at trouble's tale

But cunning shares the gift

Harvests with plenty on his brow

Leaves tosses' taunts with me

Yet gain comes yearly with the plough

And will not let me be

Alas dependance 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 the 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

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 an humble place

That gentry may be known

Let pedigrees their honors trace

And toil enjoy its own

The silver springs grown naked dykes

Scarce own a bunch of rushes

When gain 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 but yesterday

But ere I fell to town affairs

I were as proud as they

I kept my horses, cows, and sheep

And build 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 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 blossoms 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

Om 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 then greedy mind

Levels into a russet land

Nor leaves a bent* behind          *grass stalk

In summers gone I bloomed in pride

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 and keep it low--

I shan't possess a single flye

Or get a weed to grow

I shan't possess a yard 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 then the poor mun 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*          *chatter

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 by bit of ground

Made freemen of the slave

The ass no pindar'd* dare to pound*          *one who collects and impounds stray animals

When I his supper gave

The gipsey's camp was not affraid

I made his dwelling free

Till vile enclosure* came and made*          *the appropriation of commons land by individuals

A parish slave of me

The gipseys further on sojourn

Nor parish bounds they like

No sticks I own and would earth burn

I shouldn't own a dike

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 mongerel men

And as spring found 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 Swardy Well