Song #3

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



I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too
From the grey peeling willow as idlers do,
And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone.
My illness was love, though I knew not the smart,
But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart.
Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids--
The hermit bees find them but once and away.
There I'll bury alive and in silence decay.

I looked on the eyes of fair woman too long,
Till silence and shame stole the use of my tongue:
When I tried to speak to her I'd nothing to say,
So I turned myself round and she wandered away.
When she got too far off, why, I'd something to tell,
So I sent sighs behind her and walked to my cell.
Willow switches I broke and peeled bits of straws,
Ever lonely in crowds, in Nature's own laws--
My ball room the pasture, my music the bees,
My drink was the fountain, my church the tall trees.
Who ever would love or be tied to a wife
When it makes a man mad all the days of his life?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:11 min read
68

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCDDEEFF XXFFGGHHIIJJ
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,155
Words 234
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 12, 12

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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