- The Lifetime Published Poetry
The Shepherd’s Calendar
During the
editing and printing several errors were made in the reading of the manuscript,
but these have been retained in the e-text*. Corrections which have been made are as
follows:
116 – line 273 Muttering o’er
doubts they would not urge aloud,
A period
is printed at the end of this line rather than a comma.
176 – line 208 Your urged returns, for mine’s already won;
The
apostrophe is omitted.
– line 210 I cannot give you what is not my own:’
The text
has a full quotation mark at the end of the line.
199 – line 15 Thou’rt but a flower, with other flowers
The text
has “Thou r’t but…”
206 – line 127 I’ve watch’d them, and am warn’d to pay
The text has “Iv’e…”
224 – line 72 And feel as
happy in the cheat as they.
The final full stop
is omitted.
* For
Clare’s original manuscripts, changes made to them, and errors in reading them,
the reader is referred to John Clare, Poems of the Middle Period 1822-1837
(Vol I), ed. E Robinson, D Powell and PMS Dawson : Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1996. For a comprehensive comparison of
Clare’s manuscript version of The Shepherd’s Calendar and the published
version, see John Clare: The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. T Chilcott :
Manchester : Carcanet, 2006.