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.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 23, 2023
- 53 sec read
- 74 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCAA CXAADDEE FFDXXEXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 827 |
Words | 174 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
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"Secret Love" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/22274/secret-love>.
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