Who is Robert Bloomfield
Robert Bloomfield (3 December 1766 – 19 August 1823) was an English labouring-class poet, whose work is appreciated in the context of other self-educated writers, such as Stephen Duck, Mary Collier and John Clare.Life
Robert Bloomfield was born into a poor family in the village of Honington, Suffolk. His father was a tailor, who died of smallpox when his son was a year old. It was from his mother Elizabeth, who kept the village school, that he received the rudiments of education.Bloomfield was apprenticed at the age of eleven to his mother's brother-in-law, and worked on a farm that was part of the estate of the Duke of Grafton, his future patron. Four years later, owing to his small and weak stature (in adulthood just five feet tall), he was sent to London to w...
Read Full Biography of Robert Bloomfield
Robert Bloomfield Poems
- Preface To Mayday With The Muses
I am of opinion that Prefaces are very useless things in cases like the present, where the Author must talk of himself, with little amusement to his readers. I have hesitated whether I should say any thing or nothing; but as it is the fashion to say something, I suppose I must comply. I am well aware that many readers will exclaim - "It is not the common practice of English baronets to remit half a year's rent to their tenants for poetry, or for any thing else." This may be very true; but I have found a character in the Rambler, No. 82, who made a very different bargain, and who says, "And as Alfred received the tribute of the Welsh in wolves' heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in butterflies, till I had exhausted the papilionaceous tribe. I then directed them to the pursuit of other animals, and obtained, by this easy method, most of the grubs and insects which land, air, or water can supply.........I have, from my own ground, the longest blade of grass upon record, and once accepted, as a half year's rent for a field of wheat, an ear, containing more grains than had been seen before upon a single stem."
I hope my old Sir Ambrose stands in no need of defence from me or from any one; a man has a right to do what he likes with his own estate. The characters I have introduced as candidates may not come off so easily; a cluster of poets is not likely to be found in one village, and the following lines, written by my good friend T. Park. Esq. of Hampstead, are not only true, but beautifully true, and I cannot omit them.
... - Nancy - A Song
You ask me, dear Nancy, what makes me presume
That you cherish a secret affection for me?
When we see the Flow'rs bud, don't we look for the Bloom?
Then, sweetest, attend, while I answer to thee. ... - Lucy: - A Song
Thy favourite Bird is soaring still:
My Lucy, haste thee o'er the dale;
The Stream's let loose, and from the Mill
All silent comes the balmy gale; ... - Letter X. From The Blue-bottle Fly To The Grasshopper. (the Bird And Insects' Post-office.)
(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.)
... - A Word To Two Young Ladies
WHEN tender Rose-trees first receive
On half-expanded Leaves, the Shower;
Hope's gayest pictures we believe,
And anxious watch each coining flower. ...
