Love and Memory by John Clare

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