Love & Memory (Recited)

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