Unseen.

Collins, Birch Trunk, 2011

I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too

From the grey peeling willow as idlers do,

And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone

Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone.

My illness was love, though I knew not the smart,

But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart.

Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude

And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.

Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,

Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids--

The hermit bees find them but once and away.

There I'll bury alive and in silence decay.

I looked on the eyes of fair woman too long,

Till silence and shame stole the use of my tongue:

When I tried to speak to her I'd nothing to say,

So I turned myself round and she wandered away.

When she got too far off, why, I'd something to tell,

So I sent sighs behind her and walked to my cell.

Willow switches I broke and peeled bits of straws,

Ever lonely in crowds, in Nature's own laws--

My ball room the pasture, my music the bees,

My drink was the fountain, my church the tall trees.

Who ever would love or be tied to a wife

When it makes a man mad all the days of his life?

John Clare