First Love by John Clare

Explore how the poet conveys his intimate experience of love in this poem

First Love’ by John Clare is a poem written about unrequited love, and how love can die. To show this, the poet used poetic techniques, such as metaphors, contrast and images; however the tone and the pattern of syllables in the stanzas also played a major part.
The first stanza has 8 syllables in each line, which expresses an optimistic feeling, showing that his life is full. The second one, though has a pattern of 8, 6 syllables per line, showing that now, he misses something, he is losing his hope, as 2 syllables have disappeared. The last stanza continues this pattern, showing that now, he realizes what is happening to him, and he sees the cold reality (which is also shown by mentioning winter). The change in the syllables shows the continuation of loss of hope, until nothing is left.
The first verse includes the verb “struck” which means that love is unexpected, but it has a violent effect, showing that love can be dangerous. The next line has alliteration: “sweet” and “sudden” have opposite meanings, but are united by the sound‘s’. That shows that love includes a many things, which may contradict to each other. “Bloomed” and “sweet flower” are also mentioned, that are connected to spring. This is effective, because spring is the time men are in love, and it is also when new thing start in people’s lives, e.g. love. Despite that, the next line holds the negative word “deadly” in it, which could convey, that the poem will end negatively.
Negativity doesn’t stop there though, in stanza one, there are other examples of it, as well, such as “ail”(sick) and “clay”, which could be associated with a dead body.
The second stanza has “blood” written in it twice. Blood is the image of passion, life and danger, things that love all includes. There is a Biblical reference in it too:”seemed midnight at noon day”, which shows that when Christ was crucified, the day turned to light. This could reflect the torture the poet feels, like how Christ had felt on the cross. The word “burnt” in the last line is a contrast to “winter” and “snow” in the next stanza, showing that the burning love is getting cold and lost.
The last stanza starts with “Are flowers the winters choice?” a reference to the first stanza, with the flowers and spring. However, it became, flowers froze and love disappeared, like how winter shows moving on, the ‘death’ of something. “Snow” also shows this. “Silent voice” shows that he is helpless in the world, as nobody listens to what he says; no one cares about him any more. In the poet’s real life, this was the situation, as he was forbidden to meet the love of his life. In the end, the words “no more” have long vowels, to show that his loss of hope will last throughout the rest of his life.
The diction of the poem also shows the overwhelming emotions of the poet, as the syllables decrease during the poem, as the hope of love is declining, the poet becomes hopeless.
“First Love” by John Clare is a poem written about unrequited love, and using tone, contrast, metaphors and images, he wrote a very powerful poem. I think realistic emotions are shown, and it is a very detailed description about unreturned love.