I think of Thee

David's latest YouTube upload of original music for Clare poems/songs (click on the title above).

I think of thee at early day
& wonder where my love can be
& when the evening shadows grey
O how I think of thee
Along the meadow banks I rove
& down the flaggy fen
& hope my first & early love
To meet thee once again

From Child Harold… a song (so Clare calls it) of Clare’s disturbed time in Northborough in 1841, after his long walk from Epping Forest. It is thought this poem was written in mid November of that year, and is a painful realisation that he had lost Mary Joyce forever. Perhaps he had some knowledge that he was destined for another asylum, as the last two lines of the poem read:

“whether in freedom or in thrall,
Mary, I think of thee”