An Invite to Eternity

Wilt thou go with me sweet maid
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through the valley depths of shade
Of night and dark obscurity
Where the path hath lost its way
Where the sun forgets the day
Where there's nor life nor light to see
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me

Where stones will turn to flooding streams
Where plains will rise like ocean waves
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot
And sisters live and know us not

Say maiden wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be
To live in death and be the same
Without this life, or home, or name
At once to be, & not to be
That was, and is not - yet to see
Things pass like shadows - and the sky
Above, below, around us lie

The land of shadows wilt thou trace
And look - nor know each others face
The present mixed with reasons gone
And past, and present all as one
Say maiden can thy life be led
To join the living with the dead
Then trace thy footstepts on with me
We're wed to one eternity

Text source: The Later Poems of John Clare, ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. Robinson's ongoing edition of Clare's poetry goes back to the original manuscripts in order to restore Clare's punctuation and spelling, eliminating editorial touches.

An edited version of An Invite to Eternity

Related essays in RAP

Audience and Expectation in An Invite to Eternity

Clare and the Ubiquitous Editor

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