what I am none cares or knows

Such famous words, "I am", uttered by divinity and now by John Clare, yet unlike the bold declaration of self, a sense of dread and resignation hangs upon Clare's "I am". It seems that Clare laments finding himself trapped within the classical philosopher's box, where self exists but he cannot find that anything else quite convincingly exists. He is cut off and unable to establish connections to those images and dreams that he sees around him everyday. He sees the ghosts floating around, but cannot make them out to be real existing objects, and feels forever separated from knowing and being known, as he says, "I am: yet what I am none cares or knows". Thus Clare's "I am" is not a triumphant declaration of himself but a melancholy acknowledgement of his realization that he exists, that he IS, but he cannot quite discover whether anyone else IS.