The John Clare Weblog

One of the wonderful things of maintaining my John Clare Weblog is to see the number and variety of people throughout the world who access the site. We have seen a growing number of ‘hits’ each year, now totalling nearly 200,000 since I created it in July 2004,

The weblog has received the following spread of ‘hits’ over the past years (those with 1% or more of the total):

UK              -        64,286

U.S.A.         -        52,658

Germany     -        11,587

Russia         -          6,471

France         -           5,327

Ukraine       -           4,554

Canada        -           2,088

India            -           2,078

Australia      -          1,388

Poland         -              948

For each visit to the website, I record how many pages each visitor accesses – i.e. Just how many poems are being read?  The answer?  For every 7 visits, I find recorded 10 page ‘hits’.  And the numbers are growing steadily.

How many of these individuals become regular readers of Clare’s work I have little idea, but the weblog certainly forms a useful vehicle for ‘spreading the word’.

An ongoing puzzle

One of the real puzzles at present is the fact that I receive many ‘hits’ from North American searching for Clare’s poem “Love’s Riddle”:

Unriddle this riddle, my own Jenny love,
Unriddle this riddle for me,
And if ye unriddle the riddle aright,
A kiss your prize shall be,
And if ye riddle the riddle all wrong,
Ye're treble the debt to me:

I'll give thee an apple without any core;
I'll give thee a cherry where stones never be;
I'll give thee a palace, without any door,
And thou shalt unlock it without any key;
I'll give thee a fortune that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take from thee."

"How can there be apples without any core?
How can there be cherries where stones never be?
How can there be houses without any door?
Or doors I may open without any key?
How can'st thou give fortunes that kings cannot give,
When thou art no richer than me?"

"My head is the apple without any core;
In cherries in blossom no stones ever be;
My mind is love's palace without any door,
Which thou can'st unlock, love, without any key.
My heart is the wealth, love, that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take it from thee.

So there are love's riddles, my own Jenny love,
Ye cannot unriddle to me,
And for the one kiss you've so easily lost
I'll make ye give seven to me.
To kiss thee is sweet, but 't is sweeter by far
To be kissed, my dear Jenny, by thee.

Come pay me the forfeit, my own Jenny love;
Thy kisses and cheeks are akin,
And for thy three sweet ones I'll give thee a score
On thy cheeks, and thy lips, and thy chin."
She laughed while he gave her, as much as to say,
"T'were better to lose than to win."

What makes it so popular?  I have left messages on the site – anyone may comment on any posting – asking why this might be so, but as yet I have received no indication of what the reason is?

The most popular Clare poem on the site?  ‘The Robin” which I posted on the 18th December 2010.  It has received 5,335 hits alone, whilst ‘Little Trotty Wagtail’ comes second with 3,227 hits.  I am gratified to see that 1,154 have read my ‘Grateful Acknowledgment’ to the work of Professor Eric Robinson.

If you have not yet accessed the site, please do so and comment on the selection of Clare’s work submitted, or indeed, make a suggestion as to future posts via the facebook page.

Roger R.