AN ELEGY – Since you must go
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 agen.
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