John Clare is known as the “the quintessential Romantic poet”. He had an admiration for nature, which can be seen in his work; in his poems we are presented with the natural world and rural life, and his love for his wife Patty and for his childhood sweetheart Mary Joyce.

In I Hid my Love, we can see the theme of love through the use of nature. He writes about a secret love he had as a child; he repeats the line “I hid my love”, while using imagery to describe what he saw and how he feels.

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.