Since you must go, and I must bid farewell, Hear, mistress, your departing servant tell What it is like: and do not think they can Be idle words, though of a parting man; It is as if a night should shade noon-day, Or that the sun was here, but forced away; And we were left under that hemisphere, Where we must feel it dark for half a year. What fate is this to change men's days and hours, To shift their seasons, and destroy their powers! Alas I have lost my heat, my blood, my prime, Winter is come a quarter ere his time, My health will leave me; and when you depart, How shall I do, sweet mistress, for my heart? You would restore it? No, that's worth a fear, As if it were not worthy to be there: O, keep it still; for it had rather be Your sacrifice, than here remain with me. And so I spare it. Come what can become Of me, I'll softly tread unto my tomb; Or like a ghost walk silent amongst men, Till I may see both it and you again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GLAMOUR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DOMESDAY BOOK: HENRY BAKER, AT NEW YORK by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE SERE AND YELLOW LEAF by KAREN SWENSON OLNEY HYMNS: 1. WALKING WITH GOD by WILLIAM COWPER THE CONTRACT by EMILY DICKINSON VIRTUE [OR, VERTUE] by GEORGE HERBERT THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND: 3. GUDRIDA'S PROPHECY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |