The Heart (Symbol)
The heart is a conventional symbol for love. Clare also uses the heart in this context, returning to the symbol in each stanza of the poem. Because the heart symbolizes love, when the poet describes it abandoning the speaker in pursuit of his beloved, he conveys that the speaker’s romantic feelings now belong to someone else. However, Clare also uses the heart more literally, emphasizing its status as an organ surrounded by blood. He thus employs a conventional symbol in an unconventional way, in order to express how overwhelming, painful, and transformative love can be, for both body and mind.
Paradox (Motif)
“First Love” is studded with paradoxes, or pairs of mutually exclusive opposites that somehow coexist. The speaker’s love-blindness makes it seem like midnight at noon. His eyes, organs for seeing, become unable to see anything, and begin to speak instead. Flowers appear in winter, and a warm bed shared with a lover becomes cold as ice. His beloved both hears and does not hear his “silent voice.” All these paradoxes insist that in love, the rules of ordinary life cease to apply.
