IX

PRESENT IN ABSENCE

ABSENCE, hear thou my 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,
He soon hath found
Affection's ground

Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
To hearts that cannot vary

Absence is Presence, Time doth tarry.

By absence this good means I gain,
That I can catch her,

Where none can watch her,
In some close corner of my brain :
There I embrace and kiss her;
And so I both enjoy and miss her.

Anon.

X

ABSENCE

EING your slave, what should I do but tend

BEING

Upon the hours and time 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

XI

H

OW 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 everywhere!

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, 't is with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter.'s near.
W. Shakespeare

WHE

XII

A CONSOLATION

WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my ou
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,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
W. Shakespeare

O

XIII

THE UNCHANGEABLE

NEVER say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify:

As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie;

That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again,

Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.

Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:

For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose: in it thou art my all.

W. Shakespeare

XIV

'O me, fair Friend, you never can be old,

your eye eyed

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the season have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,
Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead.
W. Shakespeare

DIA

XV

DIAPHENIA

IAPHENIA like the daffadowndilly,
White as the sun, fair as the lily,

Heigh ho, how I do love thee !

I do love thee as my lambs

Are beloved of their dams;

How blest were I if thou wouldst prove me.

Diaphenia like the spreading roses, That in thy sweets all sweets encloses, Fair sweet, how I do love thee!

I do love thee as each flower Loves the sun's life-giving power; For dead, thy breath to life might move me.

Diaphenia like to all things blessed
When all thy praises are expresséd,
Dear joy, how I do love thee!

As the birds do love the spring,
Or the bees their careful king:

Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me !

XVI

ROSALINE

H. Constable

IKE to the clear in highest sphere

L'Where all cheperial glory thines,

Of selfsame colour is her hair

Whether unfolded, or in twines :
Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!