Timeline
John Clare - The Mores, written 1812 - 1831
In this poem Clare is far from "silent...in life's affairs", and his thinking is political.
It presents idyllically the natural beauty of a landscape before enclosure where "Unbounded freedom" is the product of "this sweet vision of my boyish hours".
But key images and words indicate the maturity of the poet visionary, not silent, but thinking politically: the "hated sign" which says "no road now"; in the paradox of the "lawless laws" of enclosure Clare identifies a new freedom which allows "Each little tyrant with his little sign" to trample "on the grave/Of labours rights", leaving "the poor a slave".
The description of idyll becomes powerful symbolic protest.