Love

Song

by John Clare 1793–1864

From The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems (1821)

Love

A beautiful flower, that bedeck'd a mean pasture,
In virgin perfection I found;
Its fair bloom stood naked to every disaster,
And deep the storm gather'd around:

The rose in the midst of its brambles is blooming,
Whose weapons intruders alarm,
But sweetest of blossoms, fond, fair, and weak woman
Has nothing to guard her from harm.

Each stranger seem'd struck with a blossom sa lovely,
In such a lone valley that grew;
The clown's admiration was cast on it roughly,
While blushing it shrank from his view:

O sweet was the eve when I found the fair blossom,
Sure never seem'd blossom so fair,
I instant transplanted its charms to my bosom,
And deep has the root gather'd there.

MLA

Clare, John. “Song.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/clare/183/.

Chicago

Clare, John. “Song.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/clare/183/.

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