Longing and Absence

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.

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

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.

Seeking with the soul the land of the Greeks.

What peaceful hours I once enjoy’d! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.

Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravel’d fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

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

For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling’ring look behind?

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

Oh name forever sad! forever dear! Still breath’d in sighs, still usher’d with a tear.

Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d again.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must return!

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

Dull sublunary lovers’ love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.

Our two souls therefore which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.

Send home my long strayed eyes to me, Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee.

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

Clean starved for a look.

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

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.

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.

O mistress mine! where are you roaming?

As many farewells as be stars in heaven.