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.