I Hid my Love

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 good-bye.

   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 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.

NOTES

Form:

aabbccdd

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.