'T is said that absence conquers love;
But oh! believe it not.
I've tried, alas! its power to prove,
But thou art not forgot.
_Absence Conquers Love_. F.W. THOMAS.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder;
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!
_Isle of Beauty_. T.H. BAYLY.
Though absent, present in desires they be;
Our souls much further than our eyes can see.
_Sonnet_. M. DRAYTON.
There's not a wind but whispers of thy name.
_Mirandola_. B.W. PROCTER.
Short absence hurt him more,
And made his wound far greater than before;
Absence not long enough to root out quite
All love, increases love at second sight.
_Henry II_. T. MAY.
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere.
_Sonnet XCVII_. SHAKESPEARE.
Days of absence, sad and dreary,
Clothed in sorrow's dark array,--
Days of absence, I am weary;
She I love is far away.
_Days of Absence_, J.J. ROUSSEAU.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years;
And every little absence is an age.
_Amphictrion_. J. DRYDEN.
What! keep a week away? Seven days and nights?
Eightscore eight hours? And lovers' absent hours
More tedious than the dial eightscore times?
O, weary reckoning!
_Othello. Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Long did his wife,
Suckling her babe, her only one, look out
The way he went at parting,--but he came not!
_Italy_. S. ROGERS.
With what a deep devotedness of woe
I wept thy absence--o'er and o'er again
Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,
And memory, like a drop that, night and day
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!
_Lalla Rookh: Veiled Prophet of Khorassan_. T. MOORE.
Condemned whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more.
_Eloise to Abélard_. A. POPE.