John Clare, Poems Chiefly From Manuscript Quotes
In crime and enmity they lie Who sin and tell us love can die, Who say to us in slander's breath That love belongs to sin and death.
Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rudeAnd fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
O lead me onward to the loneliest shade, The darkest place that quiet ever made, Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold And shut up green and open into gold.
I hate the very noise of troublous man Who did and does me all the harm he can. Free from the world I would a prisoner be And my own shadow all my company.