Summer pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away

In these lines Clare laments the swift passing of summer—both as a season and as a figure for youth, vitality, and happiness. The pleasures of summer vanish “like…visions,” emphasizing their dreamlike, insubstantial quality once they have passed. Autumn and winter arrive as unavoidable forces, bringing “cloudy days” that suggest decline, hardship, and emotional chill. The speaker’s attempt to “call them back” fails: memory cannot restore what time has taken. The closing repetition—“Far away…for ever far away”—intensifies the sense of irrevocable loss, a characteristic Clare note of elegy and longing for what cannot be recovered.