Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844836. Absence
WHEN my love was away, | |
Full three days were not sped, | |
I caught my fancy astray | |
Thinking if she were dead, | |
And I alone, alone: | 5 |
It seem’d in my misery | |
In all the world was none | |
Ever so lone as I. | |
I wept; but it did not shame | |
Nor comfort my heart: away | 10 |
I rode as I might, and came | |
To my love at close of day. | |
The sight of her still’d my fears, | |
My fairest-hearted love: | |
And yet in her eyes were tears: | 15 |
Which when I question’d of, | |
‘O now thou art come,’ she cried, | |
”Tis fled: but I thought to-day | |
I never could here abide, | |
If thou wert longer away.’ | 20 |