Love & 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
Heavens haloo around thee
Earths hopes to decieve
Thou fairest & 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
& sweeter to fancy
The bud of the rose
& now thourt in heaven
More pure is the birth
Of thoughts that wake of thee
Than ought upon earth

As a bud green in spring
As a rose blown in June
Thy beauty looked out
& departed as soon
Heaven saw thee too fair
For earths tennants of clay
& ere age did thee wrong
Thou wert summoned away

I know thou art happy
Why in grief need I be
Yet I am & the more so
To feel its for thee
For thy presence possest
As thy abscence destroyed

The most that I loved
& the all I enjoyed

So I try to seek pleasure
But vainly I try
Now joys cup is drained
& hopes fountain is dry
I mix with the living
Yet what do I see
Only more cause for sorrow
In loosing of thee

The year has its winter
As well as its May
So the sweetest must leave us
& the fairest decay
Suns leave us to night
& their light none may borrow
So joy retreats from us
Overtaken by sorrow

The sun greets the spring
& the blossom the bee
The grass the blea hill
& 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
& the song of the nightingale
Gladdens the moon
But the gayest to day
May be saddest to morrow
& the loudest in joy
Sink the deepest in sorrow

For the lovely in death
& the fairest must die
Fall once & for ever
Like stars from the sky
So in vain do I mourn thee

I know its in vain
Who would wish thee from joy
To earths troubles again

Yet thy love shed upon me
Life more then mine own
& 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

 

(Clare wrote in 1828 “Written a good while ago.” – ‘Letters, p436)