JOHN KEBLE

One look, and we have seen our last of thee, Till we too sleep and our long sleep be o'er.

O cleanse us, ere we view

That countenance pure again,

Thou, who canst change the heart, and raise the dead!

As Thou art by to soothe our parting hour, Be ready when we meet, With Thy dear pardoning words.

JOHN CLARE

621. Written in Northampton County Asylum

T AM! yet what I am who cares, or knows?

• My friends forsake me like a memory lost.

I am the self-consumer of my woes ;

They rise and vanish, an oblivious host, Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost. And yet I am I live though I am toss'd

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dream,

Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys, But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem

And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best

Are strange nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod

For scenes where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie, The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

�� �