Love, the world's life! What a sad death Thy absence is to lose our breath At once and die, is but to live Enlarged, without the scant reprieve Of pulse and air: whose dull returns And narrow circles the soul mourns. But to be dead alive, and still To wish, but never have our will: To be possessed, and yet to miss; To wed a true but absent bliss: Are lingering tortures, and their smart Dissects and racks and grinds the heart! As soul and body in that state Which unto us seems separate, Cannot be said to live, until Reunion; which days fulfil And slow-paced seasons: so in vain Through hours and minutes (Time's long train,) I look for thee, and from thy sight, As from my soul, for life and light. For till thine eyes shine so on me, Mine are fast-closed and will not see.