Why I Read John Clare, Part 1

I read John Clare because I like the sounds, like those of the closing line of this poem from the early-mid-1800s. I also like "the lodging snows..." Fodder is cattle feed; here, brawl means a loud noise or clamor.

Clare, 1820s, image borrowed from the John Clare Society 

The Foddering Boy 

The foddering boy along the crumping snows

With straw-band-belted legs and folded arm

Hastens and on the blast that keenly blows

Oft turns for breath and beats his fingers warm

And shakes the lodging snows from off his clothes,

Buttoning his doublet closer from the storm

And slouching his brown beaver o'er his nose.

Then faces it again -- and seeks the stack

Within its circling fence -- where hungry lows

Expecting cattle making many a track

About the snows -- impatient for the sound

When in huge fork-fulls trailing at his back

He litters the sweet hay about the ground

And brawls to call the staring cattle back.