Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid, <br />Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me <br />Through the valley-depths of shade, <br />Of bright and dark obscurity; <br />Where the path has lost its way, <br />Where the sun forgets the day, <br />Where there's nor light nor life to see, <br />Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me? <br /> <br />Where stones will turn to flooding streams, <br />Where plains will rise like ocean's waves, <br />Where life will fade like visioned dreams <br />And darkness darken into caves, <br />Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me <br />Through this sad non-identity <br />Where parents live and are forgot, <br />And sisters live and know us not? <br /> <br />Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me <br />In this strange death of life to be, <br />To live in death and be the same, <br />Without this life or home or name, <br />At once to be and not to be-- <br />That was and is not--yet to see <br />Things pass like shadows, and the sky <br />Above, below, around us lie? <br /> <br />The land of shadows wilt thou trace, <br />Nor look nor know each other's face; <br />The present marred with reason gone, <br />And past and present both as one? <br />Say, maiden, can thy life be led <br />To join the living and the dead? <br />Then trace thy footsteps on with me: <br />We are wed to one eternity.<br /><br />John Clare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/invitation-to-eternity/
