I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too <br />From the grey peeling willow as idlers do, <br />And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone <br />Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone. <br />My illness was love, though I knew not the smart, <br />But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart. <br />Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude <br />And fled to the silence of sweet solitude. <br />Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades, <br />Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids-- <br />The hermit bees find them but once and away. <br />There I'll bury alive and in silence decay. <br /> <br />I looked on the eyes of fair woman too long, <br />Till silence and shame stole the use of my tongue: <br />When I tried to speak to her I'd nothing to say, <br />So I turned myself round and she wandered away. <br />When she got too far off, why, I'd something to tell, <br />So I sent sighs behind her and walked to my cell. <br />Willow switches I broke and peeled bits of straws, <br />Ever lonely in crowds, in Nature's own laws-- <br />My ball room the pasture, my music the bees, <br />My drink was the fountain, my church the tall trees. <br />Who ever would love or be tied to a wife <br />When it makes a man mad all the days of his life?<br /><br />John Clare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-3-3/
