A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart, And in the wood the furious winter blowing. Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks, And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter, I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks, Far from my cause, my proper heat and center. And though I think this heart's blood froze not fast It ran too small to spare one drop for dreaming. Dear love, these fingers that had known your touch, And tied our separate forces first together, Were ten poor idiot fingers not worth much, Ten frozen parsnips hanging in the weather. Dawn lightened the place where the battle had been won.
Flesh fails, and the postured bones lie weather-beaten.
The lords of chivalry lay prone and shattered. For him enduring all men's pleasantries. Close by the sable stream that purged the plain Lay the white stallion and his rider thrown, The great beast had spilled there his little brain, And the little groin of the knight was spilled by a stone. Whom the kites of Heaven solicited with sweet cries. Nursing his knees, too rheumy and cold To warm the wraith of a Forest of Arden.