I Hid My 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'er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love goodbye.

I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
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 e'en the breeze would knock me down;
The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,
The fly's bass turned to lion's roar;
And even the silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 16, 2023

53 sec read
112

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCAA CXAADDEE FFXXXEXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 835
Words 172
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

John Clare

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

All John Clare poems | John Clare Books

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