Say maiden wilt thou go with me

While obviously a dark poem, John Clare?s insistence in An Invite to Eternity, his persistence in asking the ?sweet maid? if she will accompany him along his disillusioned way, seems almost an unnecessary assault on the maiden he addresses. She is sweet, an unnamed maiden, and her sweetness easily translates here into timidity given her lack of a voice or agency in the face of his repeated entreaties. Will she really be suited to the ?night and dark obscurity?? It is unlikely. He states in the final line that they are ?wed to one eternity,? completely obfuscating her agency in the poem. Clare requests her presence yet seems to assume as a foregone conclusion the fact that she ultimately has no choice, she will accompany him whether she wishes or no. It is their mutual destiny. In the first three stanzas, Clare asks his maiden if she will go with him to a variety of unappealing locations, however in the final stanza, he asks if her life ?can be led / to join the living with the dead.? She is no longer asked if she will go, Clare instead asks if she will survive the journey.

Image that reminded me of the poem