Longing and Absence

I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost, Who died before the god of love was born.

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae farewell and then forever!

Woman much missed, how you call to me,

Clean starved for a look.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale.

O Mary, at thy window be! It is the wish’d, the trysted hour.

O! never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify.

Seeking with the soul the land of the Greeks.