I Hid my Love
I Hid my Love
Original Text
Frederick Martin, The Life of John Clare (London: Macmillan, 1865). PR 4453 C628 MICR mfc
2Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
3I hid my love to my despite
4Till I could not bear to look at light:
5I dare not gaze upon her face
6But left her memory in each place;
7Where'er I saw a wild flower lie
8I kissed and bade my love good-bye.
9I met her in the greenest dells,
10Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
11The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
12The bee kissed and went singing by,
13A sunbeam found a passage there,
14A gold chain round her neck so fair;
15As secret as the wild bee's song
16She lay there all the summer long.
17I hid my love in field and town
18Till e'en the breeze would knock me down;
19The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,
20The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
21And even silence found a tongue,
22To haunt me all the summer long;
23The riddle nature could not prove
24Was nothing else but secret love.
Notes
1] This belongs to the group of poems written while Clare was confined in the Northampton County Asylum from 1842 until his death in 1864. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1865
RPO poem Editors
O. H. T. Rudzik
RPO Edition
3RP 2.618.
Rhyme