Analysis of Secret Love

John Clare 1793 (Helpston) – 1864 (St Andrew's Hospital)



I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where eer I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good bye.

I met her in the greenest dells
Where dewdrops pearl the wood blue bells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till een the breeze would knock me down,
The bees seemed singing ballads oer,
The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.


Scheme AABBCCAA CXAADDEE FFDXXEXX
Poetic Form
Metre 11111111 101010101 11111101 111111111 11110101 110100011 111101101 11011111 11000101 1110111 01110111 01101101 0110101 01110111 11010111 11110101 11110101 11011111 01110101 01110101 01010101 11110101 01010111 11011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 827
Words 174
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 217
Words per stanza (avg) 57
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 23, 2023

53 sec read
74

John Clare

John Clare was an English poet in his time he was commonly known as the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet more…

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