After the gales and rain,------ and more lament for the enclosures. 30th Nov 2009

After the gales and rain,------ and more lament for the enclosures.

It never ceases to amaze, how after the wind and deluge of recent days, the animals and birds emerge as if nothing untoward had occured.

On the bright, clear morning that so often follows such storms, the cattle and and horses emerge from their sheltering hedges calm and normal, and seemingly unperturbed.  The little birds, too,arrive at their table to re-fuel on the seeds and corn put out for them, flitting and bobbing in apparent nonchalance; and best of all a little Wren, absent since the snow and ice of last January, reappears in the log pile that is their domain.

And before the 200th anniversary of the Act of Enclosure passes, some more lines penned by the Peasant Poet, John Clare, who minded so much, and wrote so poignantly of the loss to the countrydwellers and the animals they tended.  These words are titled The Moors, appropriately enough for us on Dartmoor:-

                                           Far spread the moory ground a level scene,

                                           Bespread with rush and one eternal green,

                                           That never felt the rage of blundering plough

                                           Though centuries wreathed Spring's blossom on its brow,

                                           Still meeting plains that stretched them far away

                                           In unchecked shadows of green, brown and grey.

                                           Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene

                                           Nor fence of ownership crept in between

                                           To hide the prospect of the following eye;

                                           Its only bondage was the circling sky.

                                           One mighty flat undwarfed by bush and tree

                                           Spread its faint shadow of immensity

                                           And lost itself, which seemed to eke its bounds

                                           In the blue mist the horizon's edge surrounds.

                                           Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours,

                                           Free as Spring clouds and wild as Summer flowers,

                                           Is faded all -- a hope that blossomed free

                                           And hath been once no more shall ever be.

                                           Enclosure came and trampled on the grave

                                           Of labour's rights and left the poor a slave;

                                           And memory's pride, ere want to wealth did bow,

                                           Is both the shadow and the substance now.

                                           The sheep and cows were free to range as then

                                           Where change might prompt, nor felt the bonds of men.

                                           Cows went and came with evening, morn and night

                                           To the wild pasture as their common right

                                           And sheep, unfolded with the rising sun,

                                           Heard the swains shout and felt their freedom won,

                                           Tracked the red fallow, field and heath and plain,

                                           Then met the brook and drank and roamed again --

                                           The brook that dribbled on as clear as glass

                                           Beneath the roots they hid amoung the grass --

                                           While the glad shepherd traced their tracks along,

                                           Free as the lark and happy as her song.

                                           But now all's fled and flats of many a dye

                                            That seemed to lengthen with the following eye,

                                           Moors losing from the sight, far, smooth and blea,

                                           Where swept the plover in its pleasure free,

                                           Are vanished now with commons wild and gay

                                           As poets' visions of life's early day.

                                           Mulberry bushes where the boy would run

                                           To fill his hands with fruit are grubbed and done,

                                           And hedgerow briars -- flower lovers overjoyed

                                           Came and got flower pots -- these are all destroyed,

                                           And sky-bound moors in mangled garb are left

                                           Like mighty giants of their limbs bereft.

                                           Fence now meets fence in owners' little bounds

                                           Of field and meadow, large as garden grounds,

                                           In little parcels little minds to please

                                           With men and flocks imprisoned, ill at ease.

                                           Each little path that led its pleasant way

                                           As sweet as morning leading night astray

                                           Where little flowers bloomed round, a varied host,

                                           That travel felt delighted to be lost

                                           Nor grudged the steps that he had ta'en as vain

                                           When right roads traced his journey's end again;

                                           Nay on a broken tree he'd sit awhile

                                           To see the moors and fields and meadows smile,

                                           Sometimes with cowslips smothered -- then all white

                                           With daisies -- then the Summer's splendid sight

                                           Of corn fields crimson o'er the "headache" bloomed

                                           Like splendid armies for the battle plumed;

                                           He gazed upon them with wild fancy's eye

                                           As fallen landscapes from an evening sky;

                                           These paths are stopped -- the rude philistine's thrall

                                           Is laid upon them and destroyed them all.

                                           Each little tyrant with his little sign

                                           Shows, where man claims, earth glows no more divine.

                                           On paths, to freedom and to childhood dear

                                           A board sticks up to notice"no road here"

                                           And on the tree with ivy overhung

                                           The hated sign by vulgar taste is hung

                                           As though the very birds shuold learn to know

                                           Where they go there they must no further go.

                                           Thus, with the poor, scared freedom bade good bye

                                           And much they feel it in the smothered sigh,

                                           And birds and trees and flowers without a name

                                           All sighed when lawless law's enclosure came;

                                           And dreams of plunder in such rebel schemes

                                           Have found too truly that they were but dreams.