First Love - John Clare

First Love - John Clare

1. Second Stanza

   • "blood"
     • links to heart
     • connotation of pain
     • embarrased
   • "eyesight"
     • love made him blind
       • couldn't see nature
       • "midnight"
         • normally love = bright, birds tweeting
           • in reality it is darkness at noonday
     • couldn't metaphorically see anything else
       • so beautiful
   • "burnt"
     • repetition of blood
     • alliteration of b
     • blackness
   • "words"
     • couldn't communicate
       • couldn't express fellings
     • losing his senses

2. First Stanza

   • "struck"
     • Violent, physical impact
     • Play on words with "hour"; clock strikes a time
     • don't associate with love
   • Sibilance
   • "bloomed"
     • youthful
     • embarrasment
     • simile
       • beauty
   • "heart"
     • key symbol of love
     • "stolen"
       • without permission
         • doesn't actually like him back
   • "deadly pale"
     • love is dangerous, deadly
   • "ail"
     • pain
     • when she looked at him he couldn't do anything but feel pain
   • "clay"
     • malleable
     • manipulate clay
       • his life is manipulated by her, now that he's in love

3. Third Stanza

   • "winter"
     • cold time when nature dies
       • flowers die
         • love is natural and can't be controlled
           • flowers have to die in winter
     • rhetorical
       • reflective
   • "snow"
     • love usually associated with warm
     • juxtaposition
       • red flowers
       • white snow
   • "silent voice
     • oxymoron
       • trying so hard to say something but can't
     • "seemed" to hear it
       • false hope
         • she does't love him back
   • "heart"
     • thing that gives him life has left
     • "dwelling-place"
       • where it belongs
       • can't return
         • lost his innocence to before he fell in love
           • changed person
             • No matter how love feels, it leaves a permanent effect
   • tone of sadness
     • dying flowers
     • as he recognises she didn't love him