Shakspeare.
Wormwood. ... Absence.
Wormwood is the bitterest of plants; and absence, according to La Fontaine, is the worst of evils. Those in whose anxious breasts the “flame divine” is burning, will agree with the French author in his assertion. To be absent from one we love is to carry a vacant chamber in the heart, which naught else can fill.
When thou shalt yield to memory’s power,
And let her fondly lead thee o’er
The scenes that thou hast past before,
To absent friends and days gone by,—
Then should these meet thy pensive eye,
A true memento may they be
Of one whose bosom owes to thee
So many hours enjoyed in gladness,
That else perhaps had passed in sadness,
And many a golden dream of joy,
Untarnished and without alloy.
Oh, still my fervent prayer will be,
“Heaven’s choicest blessings rest on thee.”
How can the glintin sun shine bright?
How can the wimplin burnie glide?
Or flowers adorn the ingle side?
Or birdies deign
The woods, and streams, and vales to chide?
Eliza’s gane!
J. W. H.
If she be gone, the world, in my esteem,
Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it
But dust and feathers.
John Crown.
Thus absence dies, and dying proves
No absence can subsist with loves
That do partake of fair perfection;
Since, in the darkest night, they may,
By love’s quick motion, find a way
To see each other in reflection.