Something To Love

It's a day late, but still worth thinking about the opening of John Clare's November in his inimitable The Shepherd's Calendar: The village sleeps in mist from morn till noon /And if the sun wades thro tis wi a face / Beamless and pale and round as if the moon / When done the journey of its nightly race / Had found him sleeping and supplyed his place...

And why worth thinking about? Because Clare, poor mad Clare, is a writer not to like, but to love. This is England. The real England, of the mind. Of Blake. Of Vaughan Williams. Of Dickens. My England. Gone.