Penny Dreadful2014

[Mr. Clare talks with Vanessa about sharing his name with the dead poet John Clare]

John Clare:
I've always been moved by John Clare's story. By all accounts he was only five feet tall, so... considered freakish. Perhaps due to this, he felt a singular affinity with... the outcasts and the unloved... the ugly animals... the broken things.

John Clare:
[Mr. Clare begins quoting a John Clare poem, 'I Am'] I am yet what I am none care or knows. My friends forsake me like a memory lost. I am a self-consumer of my woes. They rise and vanish in oblivious host, like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes. And yet I am, and live...

John Clare:
[Mr. Clare continues as Vanessa joins in] Like vapors tossed...

Vanessa Ives:
[Vanessa continues quoting the poem] I long for scenes where man hath never trout. A place where woman has never smiled or wept. There to abide with my creator, God. And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept. Untroubling and untroubled where I lie.

Vanessa Ives:
[Vanessa continues as Mr. Clare joins in] The grass below, above the vaulted sky.