lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

LYRICAL POETRYAway, away from men and towns,To the wild wood and the downs—To the silent wildernessWhere the soul need not repressIts music lest it should not findAn echo in another mind.Clare's Address to Plenty is composed in the samemeasure as Shelley's Lines Written among the EuganeanHills, and both poems are the expression of a poet'ssorrow, his longing for the rare moment of happiness:Many a green isle needs must beIn the deep wide sea of Misery,Or the mariner worn and wanNever thus could voyage on,or, in Clare's lines:O thou Bliss to riches known,Stranger to the poor alone ;Giving most where none's requir'd,Leaving none where most's desir'd.But Clare knows, as Shelley did not, what would givehim happiness—release from poverty:Oh, sad sons of PovertyVictims doom'd to misery ;Who can paint what pain prevailsO'er that heart which Want assails ?Modest shame the pain conceals :No one knows but he who feels.The poem ends in a blissful contemplation of the joyof relief from care:Oh, how blest amid those charmsI should bask in Fortune's arms,Who defying every frownHugs me on her downy breast,Bids my head lie easy down,And on winter's ruins rest.60