305 O for one real . . . blessing: in this stanza and those that follow, Clare explores the various types of women that had aroused his feelings and desires; starting with the paradox of ‘real imaginary’ and ‘Ideal real’, he lays bare his own erotic susceptibility. As on p. 258, the thought of milkmaids - pastoralized innocence or a tumble in the hay - is associated with the converse type, the queen, via gypsy wench and beggar girls.

p. 306 Sweet as Queen’s portraits: these would have appeared in all the shop-windows of Northampton, in November 1844, when Queen Victoria made a progress through the town on her way to Burghley House. Triumphal arches were erected, and Clare was allocated a seat near one.

With bonny bosom: this stanza vividly demonstrates the peculiar vulnerability of Clare’s unedited texts. Without punctuation, it seems to be incoherent nonsense; but when we recognize that toward the end of the second line Clare turns away from the milkmaid, to apostrophize the Queen, as if addressing her from his seat in the stands, his lines begin to make good rhetorical sense. What, then, does he tell the Queen? That the jewels’ of nature’s dew and showers are to be preferred to the lavish worldly jewels of courtly display: ‘from nature’s glory’ = from comparison with . . . The last line of the stanza can be construed as addressed to the Queen, or as Clare’s return to the milkmaid, or even as both.

p. 310 The first-loved face is met: the transcript reads: ‘The first love face . . .’

 

p. 311none cares or knows: it seems that no member of his family ever visited him in Northampton.

p. 313 And where is the voice: the transcript reads: ‘& where is voice’.

p. 314 Hesperus: cf. Byron, Don Juan, Canto 4, stanza CVII.

p. 316 warm and erie: i.e. eerie in its first meaning, of fearful or timid.

p. 320 The objects seen: the MS reads ‘seem’, but the syntax and sense require ‘seen’.

p. 330 round the cote: the MS reads ‘coat’.

p. 334 Through this sad non-identity: identity is a recurring subject of Clare’s reflections. Here he recognizes that a secure sense of one’s own identity rests on being recognized by others, and that the breakdown of relationships can render one’s own sense of identity insecure. Cf. Mrs Gaskell: ‘A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.’

p. 337 I’ll gaze upon thy bosom’s swell: the transcript offers ‘thy blossom’s well’; the feebleness of the image and of the adverb can serve to alert us to an act of bowdlerizing. I have taken the liberty of offering a conjectural restoration of Clare’s most probable words.

p.