Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/23

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By absence this good means I gain, That I can catch her, Where none can watch her, In some close comer of my brain: There I embrace and kiss her; And so I both enjoy and miss her. Anon.


x

ABSENCE

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


xi

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 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:
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