Grief, grief of my best love's absenting:
Now, oh, now wilt thou assail me?
I had rather life should fail me
Then endure thy slow tormenting.
Life our griefs and us do sever
Once for ever
Absence grief have no relenting.

Well, well, be it foul absence spites me,
So fit of it cannot send her,
As my heart should not attend her.
Oh, how this thought's thought delights me
Absence, do thy worst and spare not —
Know I care not;
When thou wrongst me, my thoughts right me.

Oh, oh, but such thoughts prove illusions,
Shadows of a substance banished,
Dreams of pleasure too soon vanished,
Reasons maimed of their conclusions,
Then since thoughts and all deceive me,
O life, leave me!
End of life ends love's confusions.