Love and Memory - John Clare

Love and Memory

Thou art gone the dark journey
That leaves no returning;
'Tis fruitless to mourn thee
But who can help mourning
To think of the life
That did laugh on thy brow
In the beautiful past
Left so desolate now?

When youth seemed immortal,
So sweet did it weave
Heaven's halo around thee
Earth's hopes to deceive;
Thou fairest and dearest
Where many were fair,
To my heart thou art nearest
Though this name is but there.

The nearer the fountain
More pure the stream flows
And sweeter to fancy
The bud of the rose,
And now thou'rt in heaven
More pure is the birth
Of thoughts that wake of thee
Than aught upon earth.

As a bud green in spring,
As a rose blown in June,
Thy beauty looked out
And departed as soon;
Heaven saw thee too fair
For earth's tenants of clay
And ere age did thee wrong
Thou wert summoned away.

I know thou art happy,
Why in grief need I be?
Yet I am and the more so
To feel it's for thee,
For thy presence possessed
As thy absence destroyed
The most that I loved
And the all I enjoyed.

So I try to seek pleasure
But vainly I try
Now joy's cup is drained
And hope's fountain is dry;
I mix with the living,
Yet what do I see?
Only more cause for sorrow
In losing of thee.

The year has its winter
As well as its May,
So the sweetest must leave us
And the fairest decay;
Suns leave us tonight
And their light none may borrow
So joy retreats from us
Overtaken by sorrow.

The sun greets the spring
And the blossom the bee,
The grass the blea hill
And the leaf the bare tree,
But suns nor yet seasons
As sweet as they be
Shall ever more greet me
With tidings of thee.

The voice of the cuckoo
Is merry at noon
And the song of the nightingale
Gladdens the moon,
But the gayest today
May be saddest tomorrow
And the loudest in joy
Sink the deepest in sorrow.

For the lovely in death
And the fairest must die,
Fall once and forever
Like stars from the sky;
So in vain do I mourn thee,
I know it's in vain,
Who would wish thee from joy
To earth's troubles again?

Yet thy love shed upon me
Life more than mine own,
And now thou art from me
My being is gone;
Words know not my grief
Thus without thee to dwell,
Yet in one I felt all
When life bade thee farewell.