“the hapless soldier’s sigh”
and this along with the cry of the chimney sweeper almost evolve together to compose the “blood down the palace walls” mentioned in the poem.
Many of the poems in the selection show use of nature to reflect people’s moods. Many of the poems are set at night, such as London and So We’ll Go No More A-Roving. This pathetic fallacy gives a sense of mystery to the poem, and the blackness in So We’ll Go No More A-Roving suggests the emptiness the protagonist within the poem is feeling. The blackness in both poems brings in the indistinct, and So We’ll Go No More A-Roving is not about general life, but is eccentric and abnormal. This is enhanced by the fact that it is set at night when the unpredictable and seemingly impossible can happen, and effectively makes people’s minds clouded. This, however, is contrasted by the feel of some of the poem Kubla Khan, which arouses the imagination to picture far off exotic places as opposed to the black streets of London imagined in the poem London. To a sky lark does not use nature to reflect the people within the poems moods, but the use of a familiarised bird like a sky lark makes the poem cater to all audiences as they can picture the bird that is the main feature of the poem and relate to its qualities, and recognise those that it gains within the poem.
Religion is also a common guest amongst the poems, with it being a large feature in To A sky Lark and London. There is a huge religious feeling identified within London, and a suggestion that the writer is communicating with a God. In To a sky lark, the bird is given heavenly qualities that the audience would not expect it to have “That from Heaven, or near it”. The poem is showing the audience that all life forms are technically just bone and flesh, but as they develop and grow throughout their life, they develop certain qualities. These qualities, as suggested in to a sky lark, are God given, and there is a suggestion that God created the miracle of life and that he allows us to flourish as individuals, and develop our own individuality. God is also described as “My Creator” by John Clare in I Am, and it seems that he has a strong belief in God, and life beyond earth, which is strongly enhanced by Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802, “Dear God!”, “Earth has not anything to show more fair”. This portrays the same beliefs and feelings as those that are brought across in all of the poems with a religious base, and brings out the amount religion features in Romantic Poetry.
Loneliness is also a theme running throughout many of the poems in the selection, although the most obvious use of this theme is in “I Am”. John Clare was a poor but gifted poet who lived in isolation, and spent most of his life in an institution after becoming insane as a result of the loneliness he had been condemned to for so many years. The impressive, tough, distinctive force used within I Am such as the line “I am the self consumer of my woes” make the poem depressing and disturbing, although conspicuously well written. The solitude that I Am shows within the writing is a microcosm for the loneliness that many people suffer daily. This loneliness is also shown in So We’ll Go No More A-Roving. The poet has obviously just been separated from a lover, and the poem is about the feelings that he has inside him after the separation. There is immense loneliness and solitude portrayed by the poem, and the fact that the poet is still feeling downcast by the separation is particularly shown by the line “Though the heart still be as loving”, which shows that it was probably not the poet that initiated the split, and as a result he is feeling lost and alone.
There are a number of themes running throughout romantic poetry, some underlying yet some particularly obvious throughout the whole selection. The anti – Industrialism used relates more to the era of romantic poetry, whereas the common themes of loneliness, solitude, mystery and fantasy are more to do with what romantic poetry’s basis is, and the fact that these are themes which make romantic poetry similar. Although there are some subtle differences running through the selection, fundamentally the similarities outweigh the differences.
