I am–yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes– They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live–like vapours tossed Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange–nay, rather, stranger than the rest. John Clare
About This Quote

The poem "I am" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a dramatic monologue in which the speaker confides to herself as though speaking to an imaginary listener. The speaker laments the loss of her friends and the dissolution of her marriage, and she expresses her sorrows and her regret over the death of her daughter, who died in childhood. The speaker depicts herself as a mere shadow of a person, and with every line she sinks deeper and deeper into despair and loneliness. She admits that no one cares about her, and she seems to be talking to herself as though she has lost all hope.

Source: I Am: The Selected Poetry Of John Clare

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More Quotes By John Clare
  1. 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.
  2. I am–yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes– They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live–like vapours...
  3. I found the poems in the fields, And only wrote them down.
  4. O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away
  5. I am–yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes– They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live–like vapours...
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