Love & Memory (Recited by Damon Albarn) (Bonus Track)
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