Robert Bloomfield - The Poetry

The Poetry

Bloomfield's poetry invites comparison with that of George Crabbe, who was also a native of Suffolk. Both wrote much in iambic pentameter couplets, both provide descriptions of rural life in its hardest and least inviting forms. Bloomfield, however, is more cheerful in tone and his verse is denser and more vigorous. Here, for instance, is the episode in "The Farmer's Boy" where Giles chops up turnips to feed the livestock in winter:

On GILES, and such as Giles, the labour falls,

To strew the frequent load where hunger calls.

On driving gales sharp hail indignant flies,

And sleet, more irksome still, assails his eyes;

Snow clogs his feet; or if no snow is seen,

The field with all its juicy store to screen,

Deep goes the frost, till every root is found

A rolling mass of ice upon the ground.

No tender ewe can break her nightly fast,

Nor heifer strong begin the cold repast,

Till Giles with pond'rous beetle foremost go,

And scatt'ring splinters fly at every blow;

When pressing round him, eager for the prize,

From their mixt breath warm exhalations rise.

However, such verse is little varied from that of many of Bloomfield's contemporaries, such as James Montgomery and Ebenezer Elliot whose names, like his, were well known in their time but are scarcely remembered now. Besides such formal productions, he told many light-hearted stories in octosyllabics, some of which are interesting for their employment of Suffolk dialect words, particularly in "The Horkey". His work served as an inspiration to John Clare, who began publishing his own rural poetry in 1820 and praised Bloomfield’s highly.

Robert’s brother, Nathaniel, also published a collection of poetry in 1803, An Essay on War, in Blank Verse, and Other Poems. Byron commented on the brothers in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (lines 775-86), linking Robert's name favourably with other poets of humble beginnings such as Burns and Gifford but dismissing Nathaniel's writing as routine and uninspired. Byron returned to the charge in Hints from Horace with the apostrophe

Hark to those lines, narcotically soft,

The cobbler-laureats sing to Capel Lofft! (lines 733-4)

Although a note makes it clear than Nathaniel is his principal target, he also seems to include 'his brother Bobby' in the accusation that Lofft 'has spoiled some excellent shoemakers and been accessory to the poetic undoing of many of the industrious poor'.