John Clare’s speaker begins by savoring the sweetness of solitary hours in a shady wood, where butterflies and smiling flowers seem to melt even a stony heart. It’s a quiet, joyful scene—bees with dark faces sipping from tiny star-like blossoms. But the wind suddenly calls out, a hum that grows into a loud squall, and a thunderstorm breaks; the peace is shattered by lightning and rolling thunder. When the rain stops, an April evening closes in, the sky turning dim and mackerel-patterned, then leaden and lifeless, draining colour from every flower and bush. Night falls like the eye of a corpse. Surprisingly, the poem shifts to May: dandelions still blaze like golden guineas in the grass, as if fallen stars. Yet they close at dusk and eventually turn into seed-down, blown away on rough winds. Clare moves from idyllic solitude through storm and desolation to a fleeting, golden loveliness that can’t last—a tender, bittersweet mood.
From "A Rhapsody" — Summary
Sweet solitude, what joy to be alone-- In wild, wood-shady dell to stay for hours. Twould soften hearts if they were hard as stone To see glad butterflies and smiling flowers. Tis pleasant in these quiet lonely places, Where not the voice of man our pleasure mars, To see the little bees with coal black faces Gathering sweets from little flowers like stars.
The wind seems calling, though not understood. A voice is speaking; hark, it louder calls. It echoes in the far-outstretching wood. First twas a hum, but now it loudly squalls; And then the pattering rain begins to fall, And it is hushed--the fern leaves scarcely shake, The tottergrass it scarcely stirs at all. And then the rolling thunder gets awake, And from black clouds the lightning flashes break.
The sunshine's gone, and now an April evening Commences with a dim and mackerel sky. Gold light and woolpacks in the west are leaving, And leaden streaks their splendid place supply. Sheep ointment seems to daub the dead-hued sky, And night shuts up the lightsomeness of day, All dark and absent as a corpse's eye. Flower, tree, and bush, like all the shadows grey, In leaden hues of desolation fade away.
Tis May; and yet the March flower Dandelion Is still in bloom among the emerald grass, Shining like guineas with the sun's warm eye on-- We almost think they are gold as we pass, Or fallen stars in a green sea of grass. They shine in fields, or waste grounds near the town. They closed like painter's brush when even was. At length they turn to nothing else but down, While the rude winds blow off each shadowy crown.