When she's not near, then pleasure flies my life, And misery and I sit down and moan, And make a sad complaint like man and wife, Who bear Love's chains when Love himself has flown. And when I think of all her presence is, And then do reckon all the gain I miss,— The dead dull night for want of her clear eyes, The scentless air for lack of her sweet breath, The absent music of her fond replies,— Life's emptiness is but the ghost of death. An exile from the happy light, I brood Upon the bitterness my soul now tastes, In desolation worse than desert wastes Or polar fields of starless solitude. |