Ye still had been loved as an Eden by me.

And long, my dear valleys, long, long may ye flourish,
Though rush-beds and thistles make most of your pride!
May showers never fail the green's daisies to nourish,
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side!
Your skies may be gloomy, and misty your mornings,
Your flat swampy valleys unwholesome may be,
Still, refuse of Nature, without her adornings
Ye are dear as this heart in my bosom to me.

That the poet's attachment to his native place was deeprooted and
unaffected was proved by the difficulty which he found in tearing
himself from it in after years, and it is more than probable that the
violence which, for the sake of others, he then did to his sensitive
nature aggravated his constitutional melancholy and contributed to
the ultimate overthrow of his reason.




GRANNY BAINS

Clare's opportunities for learning the elements of knowledge were in
keeping with his humble station. Parker Clare, out of his miserable
and fluctuating earnings as a day labourer, paid for his child's
schooling until he was seven years of age, when he was set to watch
sheep and geese on the village heath. Here he made the acquaintance
of "Granny Bains," of whom Mr. Martin, quoting, doubtless, from
Clare's manuscript autobiography, says:--