The self banished

It is not that I love you less
    Than when before your feet I lay:
But to prevent the sad increase
    Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain! (alas!) for ev'ry thing
    Which I have known belong1 to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
    And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the Spring from the new Sun
    Already has a fever got,
Too late begins those shafts to shun,
    Which Phoebus through his veins has shot.

Too late he would the pain assuage,
    And to shadows thick he doth retire;
About with him he bears the [rage]2,
    And in his tainted blood the fire.3

But vow'd I have, and never must
    Your banish'd servant trouble you;
For if I break, you may [distrust]4
    The vow I made to love you, too.

Absence is vain for ev'ry thing
    That I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
    And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

by Edmund Waller (1608-1687) , "The self banished", 1645

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by John Blow (1649-1708) , "The self-banished", published 1700, stanzas 1-2, from Amphion Anglicus
by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) , "The self banished", 1875 [soprano or tenor and piano], unpublished

Date added to the website: 2009-02-07.

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