Time & Brevity

Pleasures Past

by John Clare 1793–1864

From The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems (1821)

Time & Brevity

Spring's sweets they are not fled, though Summer's blossom
Has met its blight of sadness, drooping low;
Still flowers gone by find beds in memory's bosom,
Life's nursling buds among the weeds of woe.
Each pleasing token of Spring's early morning
Warms with the pleasures which we once did know;
Each little stem the leafy bank adorning,
Reminds of joys from infancy that flow.
Spring's early heralds on the winter smiling,
That often on their errands meet their doom,
Primrose and daisy, dreary hours beguiling,
Smile o'er my pleasures past whene'er they come;
And the speckt throstle never wakes his song,
But Life's past Spring seems melting from his tongue.

MLA

Clare, John. “Pleasures Past.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/clare/260/.

Chicago

Clare, John. “Pleasures Past.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/clare/260/.

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