Penny Dreadful (TV Series)

Above the Vaulted Sky (2015)

Rory Kinnear: John Clare

Photos 

Quotes 

• [John Clare sits with Vanessa] 

  John Clare : Do you like poetry?

  Vanessa Ives : All sad people like poetry. Happy people like songs.

• [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 trod. 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.

• [Mr. Clare talks with Vanessa about what love is between two people] 

  John Clare : [Mr. Clare describes it as]  The kind touch of a hand.

  Vanessa Ives : I saw it earlier. I was having coffee with a friend. He's in love with someone, though I don't know if he knows it. But... she touched his hand. And his face... something I had never seen before. A kind of peace, anyway.

  John Clare : The cruelest kind. It's lethal, that touch... for it leaves your heart at the mercy of another. You're so unprotected.

  Vanessa Ives : We're all awkward in love. Mine has always gone awry. When I have opened myself to it in the past, it's left me... damaged. The consequences are too grave.

  John Clare : And what is our recompense? We who cannot cast out boats on that sea.

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa smiles]  And how are we to navigate the waters when they are so alien?

• [Mr. Clare talks with Vanessa about meeting a girl whom he doesn't know how to act around] 

  John Clare : I've... met a woman recently, in fact. But I don't know how to behave.

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa smiles]  As yourself.

  John Clare : [Mr. Clare scoffs]  Or as anything but. I'm so maladroit Miss Ives. I can speak poetry to the end of days, but... I cannot take her hand in this hand, so... pale and ugly. All the stratagems of the battle are unknown to me. When to laugh... how to laugh. How to stand and sit and bow and dance.

  Vanessa Ives : Ah, there at least, I can help. See this woman in me, Mr. Clare, and follow your heart. It's the curse of my class. I was taught dancing from a very young age.

  John Clare : [Vanessa stands up with her hand out]  Oh, no. Please, I can't.

  Vanessa Ives : Come on.

  John Clare : [Mr. Clare smiles]  No.

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa smiles]  Mr. Clare... the sea is waiting for you. Set sail.

• [Lily and Mr. Clare talk for the first time, as Mr. Clare tells her a story of how they knew each other before] 

  John Clare : I remember, one night, we were walking through the village... and we came across some men outside a tavern, drunken they were. And they saw me with you... and they laughed and pointed and said, how could the likes of her be with the likes of him.

  Lily : And what did you do?

  John Clare : [Lily begins to cry a tear]  It was more what you did. You took my hand... and you held it. And you looked at them. Then you raised my hand to my lips... and you held it there.

  Lily : I don't remember.

  John Clare : And yet it happened.

  Lily : To someone else. I've no wish to cause you pain. Let us start by being friends, Mr. Clare. I can do no other.

  John Clare : [Victor Frankenstein listens, hidden behind the steps]  I understand.