From An Invite, To Eternity by John Clare 1793 1864 Will you go with me? Will you go with me? Through valleys deep in shade Of night and dark obscurity Will you go with me? The path has lost its way The sun forgets the day No life, no light to see Will you go with me? Will you follow me? Where parents live and are forgot Through their sad nonidentity Where sisters live and know us not Will you 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 To live in death and be the same Without this life or home or name At once to be and not to be Were wed to one eternity The present mixed with reasons gone And past and present are as one Say maiden can thy life be led To join the living with the dead
present, nonidentity, eternity, visioned, live