Tis now since I began to die
Four months, yet still I gasping live;
Wrappd up in sorrow do I lie,
Hoping, yet doubting a reprieve.
Adam from Paradise expelld
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 imprisond gold:
Which though the sum be neer 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, linkd 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.
