Longing and Absence

To lure this tassel-gentle back again.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.

But to see her was to love her, Love but her, and love forever. Had we never lov’d sae kindly, Had we never lov’d sae blindly, Never met—or never parted— We had ne’er been brokenhearted.

Ye banks and braes o’ bonny Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary fu’ o’ care! Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn! Thou minds me o’ departed joys, Departed never to return.

When I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away, The rime was on the spray, And starlight lit my lonesomeness.

Open my heart and you will see

And they are gone: aye, ages long ago

By the time you say you’re his,

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Now warm in love, now with’ring in my bloom, Lost in a convent’s solitary gloom!

And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy gray eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams— In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea, There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me; For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say: “Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”

It was the last nostalgia: that he Should understand.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? 12 Deny thy father, and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Love that comes too late, Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried.

It were all one That I should love a bright particular star And think to wed it, he is so above me.

This piercing cold I feel: my dead wife’s comb, in our bedroom under my heel… 1

Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and forever!

The music in my heart I bore Long after it was heard no more.

A solitary sail that rises White in the blue mist on the foam— What is it in far lands it prizes? What does it leave behind at home?

Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery Have left exposed a Friend— Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind.

Like one that stands upon a promontory, And spies a far-off shore where he would tread, Wishing his foot were equal with his eye.

If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me; For such as I am all true lovers are: Unstaid and skittish in all motions else Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov’d.

Give me to drink mandragora…. That I might sleep out this great gap of time My Antony is away.