Explore "Absence" by Francis Neilson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There is no anguish like the mourning heart, / That mourns for its lost love and mourns in vain; / That is the anguish which defies all pain -- / Torture at which Prometheus' soul would start!
What agony can still the heart of joy, / That holds its loved one to its surging breast?
All hell can rage and not disturb that rest -- / Then Stygian tortures are but pain's alloy!
And what is absence but a gaping sore, / That aches and suffers every stinging thrust?
A burning lesion, or a bleeding rent, / That rives the soul of lovers to the core?
When hearts in absence stronger grow, then must / Those hearts have held no lover's aliment!