The stanza seems to have a lost air, a feeling of being forgotten and unwanted, “My friends forsake me like a memory lost”. Love is mentioned, but it is the throes of love, so John Clare does not still seem to be in love, but in the shadows of love. The use of the phrase ‘self-consumer of my woes’ is a very interesting one, as means that the pain that the writer is inflicted with is brought upon by himself, and being a consumer, ha knows what he is doing. But yet he does not seem happy, he is forgotten by his friends, uncared for, but still alive, and still willing to carry on for something. There seems to be something deeper that is lying under the surface that has not been explained yet, that he possibly doesn’t want to discuss yet.
In the second stanza, the imagery that started in the previous stanza is carried on. We move from “ vapours tossed”, to “living sea”, and “shipwreck”. These are all very forlorn and distressed images, which is the feeling of the poem. It is the “shipwreck of my life’s esteems” that is the most interesting phrase in this stanza; it perfectly sums up the writers feelings towards himself, the complete absence of any self-value. The repetition of strange “Aye strange – nay, rather stranger than the rest” is contemplative, as though the writer is working out for himself, slowly that even the things that he loves turn out to be unreliable.
There are very interesting opposites in this stanza that are brought about by the rhyming couples. The words “noise” and “joys” are juxtaposed together, which seems a suitable union, except that the poem is talking about the “nothingness” of noise and the loss of joy, so the coupling is not as pleasant or as appropriate as it should be. The same is true of “dreams” and “esteems”, for it is a shipwreck of him esteems and a turmoil of his dreams.
The use of “even” and “best” to describe what he has lost, increases the sense of despondency and anguish, for it must be something he will find it hard to live without. He is in this limbo, this “nothingness” where he is without hope, love, self-esteem or joys, but it just alive.
The last stanza seems at peace, it is full of longing and dreams. Anything can be possible in the future, it doesn’t mater what you wish for. There is a want for something that is not an extreme, neither one nor the other, to be “Untroubling, and untroubled”, “where woman never smiled or wept”. This longing for something impossible in its simplicity is underlined by the want to sleep as a child and to abide with God, to just want grass below and sky above. Although the poem is extremely dejected, there is a sense of hope in it. Despite everything, there is always hope, a dream to wait for, weather it is God or a return to childhood.
