To Mrs. M. A. Upon Absence

’Tis now since I began to die

Four months, yet still I gasping live;

Wrapp’d up in sorrow do I lie,

Hoping, yet doubting a reprieve.

Adam from Paradise expell’d

Just such a wretched being held.

’Tis not thy love I fear to lose,

That will in spite of absence hold;

But ’tis the benefit and use

Is lost, as in imprison’d gold:

Which though the sum be ne’er so great,

Enriches nothing but conceit.

What angry star then governs me

That I must feel a double smart,

Prisoner to fate as well as thee;

Kept from thy face, link’d to thy heart?

Because my love all love excels,

Must my grief have no parallels?

Sapless and dead as Winter here

I now remain, and all I see

Copies of my wild state appear,

But I am their epitome.

Love me no more, for I am grown

Too dead and dull for thee to own.