The Golden Treasury. Various

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      Absence, hear thou this protestation

       Against thy strength,

       Distance, and length;

       Do what thou canst for alteration:

       For hearts of truest mettle

       Absence doth join, and Time doth settle.

      Who loves a mistress of such quality,

       His mind hath found

       Affection's ground

       Beyond time, place, and mortality.

       To hearts that cannot vary

       Absence is present, Time doth tarry.

      

      By absence this good means I gain,

       That I can catch her,

       Where none can match her,

       In some close corner of my brain:

       There I embrace and kiss her;

       And so I both enjoy and miss her.

      J. Donne

XIII

      VIA AMORIS

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      High-way, since you my chief Parnassus be,

       And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,

       Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet

       More oft than to a chamber-melody,—

      Now, blesséd you bear onward blesséd me

       To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet;

       My Muse and I must you of duty greet

       With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully;

      Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed;

       By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot;

       Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed;

       And that you know I envy you no lot

      Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,—

       Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may kiss!

      Sir P. Sidney

XIV

      ABSENCE

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      Being your slave, what should I do but tend

       Upon the hours and times of your desire?

       I have no precious time at all to spend

       Nor services to do, till you require:

      Nor dare I chide the world-without-end-hour

       Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

       Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

       When you have bid your servant once adieu:

      

      Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

       Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

       But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

       Save, where you are, how happy you make those;—

      So true a fool is love, that in your will

       Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

      W. Shakespeare

XV

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      How like a winter hath my absence been

       From Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

       What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,

       What old December's bareness every where!

      And yet this time removed was summer's time:

       The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,

       Bearing the wanton burden of the prime

       Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:

      Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me

       But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;

       For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

       And, thou away, the very birds are mute;

      Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,

       That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

      W. Shakespeare

XVI

      A CONSOLATION

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      When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

       I all alone beweep my outcast state,

       And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

       And look upon myself, and curse my fate;

      Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

       Featured like him, like him with friends possest,

       Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,

       With what I most enjoy contented least;

      

      Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

       Haply I think on Thee—and then my state,

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