(Article is below...)

I Hid My Love by John Clare

Analysis

"I Hid My Love" is a poem by John Clare that speaks about how when the speaker was younger, he hid his love from her. In the first stanza, he speaks of how he couldn't even look at her face. He tried to forget her. The second stanza speaks of how he met her and how he fell in love. The third stanza speaks of how hard it was to hide his love, because it was so great.

"I Hid My Love" is three stanzas long with eight lines in each for a total of 26 lines. Each stanza contains the rhyme scheme AABBCCDD.

Poem

I Hid My Love
By 

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 wildflower 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.
Next: Summer