The Self Banished

Edmund Waller 1606 (Coleshill) – 1687



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 everything
Which I have known belong 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 Phœbus through his veins has shot.

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

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

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

41 sec read
32

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA BCBC DEDE FXFX GCGC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 664
Words 137
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller, FRS was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1624 and 1679. more…

All Edmund Waller poems | Edmund Waller Books

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