Love, the world's life! what a sad death
Thy absence is! to lose our breath
At once and die, is but to live
Enlarg'd, without the scant reprieve
Of pulse and air; whose dull returns
And narrow circles the soul mourns.
But to be dead alive, and still
To wish, but never have our will,
To be possess'd, and yet to miss,
To wed a true but absent bliss,
Are ling'ring tortures, and their smart
Dissects and racks and grinds the heart!
As soul and body in that state
Which unto us, seems separate,
Cannot be said to live, until
Reunion; which days fulfil
And slow-pac'd seasons; so in vain
Through hours and minutes—Time's long train—
I look for thee, and from thy sight,
As from my soul, for life and light.
For till thine eyes shine so on me,
Mine are fast-clos'd and will not see.