| |
| AN AGE, in her embraces past, | |
| Would seem a winter’s day; | |
| Where life and light, with envious haste, | |
| Are torn and snatched away. | |
| |
| But, oh! how slowly minutes roll, | 5 |
| When absent from her eyes; | |
| That fed my love, which is my soul, | |
| It languishes and dies. | |
| |
| For then, no more a soul but shade, | |
| It mournfully does move; | 10 |
| And haunts my breast, by absence made | |
| The living tomb of love. | |
| |
| You wiser men despise me not; | |
| Whose love-sick fancy raves, | |
| On shades of souls, and heaven knows what: | 15 |
| Short ages live in graves. | |
| |
| Whene’er those wounding eyes, so full | |
| Of sweetness you did see, | |
| Had you not been profoundly dull, | |
| You had gone mad like me. | 20 |
| |
| Nor censure us, you who perceive | |
| My best-belov’d and me, | |
| Sigh and lament, complain and grieve, | |
| You think we disagree. | |
| |
| Alas! ’tis sacred jealousy, | 25 |
| Love raised to an extreme; | |
| The only proof, ’twixt them and me, | |
| We love, and do not dream. | |
| |
| Fantastic fancies fondly move, | |
| And in frail joys believe: | 30 |
| Taking false pleasure for true love; | |
| But pain can ne’er deceive. | |
| |
| Kind jealous doubts, tormenting fears, | |
| And anxious cares, when past, | |
| Prove our heart’s treasure fixed and déar, | 35 |
| And make us bless’d at last. | |
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