Formalist analysis of Love Lives beyond the Tomb by John Clare.

“Love Lives Beyond the Tomb” is more optimistic, but similarly abstract. In it, Clare defines love as something that is both beyond the world, and found within the world. Rather than looking to romance in his own life, he turns to the dew, the flowers, the grass, and the sky as things whose beauty makes clear the presence of love in the world. As in “I Am!,” Clare’s references to sky and grass are far more generic than his descriptions of the twigs that make up the yellowhammer’s nest or his methodical, detailed account of the badger baiting. Yet his references to them still record a deep relationship between the poet and the natural world, one which persisted throughout his life.