Introduction
Today, I wrote an analysis of ‘Young Lambs’ by John Clare.
Poem
The spring is coming by many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two – till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead – and lets me go
Close by and never stirs, but beaking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.
Analysis
‘Young Lambs’ by John Clare has a similar structure to an English/Shakespearean sonnet. This type of sonnet is split up into three quatrains, four line stanzas, and a couplet. In contrast, ‘Young Lambs’ has two four-line sentences and one six line. However, this poem is in one stanza. Like all sonnets, ‘Young Lambs’ has fourteen lines. The poet also uses the rhyming scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet: a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, g, g. Each line also has iambic pentameter, five sets of two syllables.
The theme of this sonnet is the coming of spring. The first quatrain talks about how the fence was beaten up and the hay turned brown over autumn and winter. Meanwhile, the second quatrain discusses the buttercups flowering. Finally, the sestet focuses on two lambs: one is playing and the other is resting.
One of the techniques used by the poet is repetition. In this case, ‘the’ and ‘and’ are repeated to make the poem seem like a list. As well as making the sonnet flow, alliteration is used to emphasize words like ‘spring’ and ‘signs’. Figurative language is also used. The personification, ‘the suns peep’, suggests that the sun is only just making an appearance. While a metaphor is used to compare the buttercups to stars, a simile is used to help the reader imagine the lamb being sprawled out.
John Clare talks in a relaxed way as someone walking through the countryside past a haystack, buttercups and two lambs.