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I Am, a poem by John Clare

The poem I Am was written by John Clare and published in 1848, during his stay at the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. The poem explores his isolation alongside his relationship with God.

John Clare

Biography

Born in Helpston, Northampton, England, in 1793, John Clare was a poet who foccussed upon the natural environment he lived in.

I Am

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:

I am the self-consumer of my woes—

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes

And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life or joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;

Even the dearest that I loved the best

Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept

There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky.