To an Absent Love

"Dear Husband:
Come this fall without fail.
I want to see you so much.
That is the one bright hope I have.
If you do not get me,
Somebody else will.
It is said that Master will sell me;
Then all my hopes will fade.
If I thought I should never see you again,
This earth would have no charms for me.
The baby has started to crawl.
The other children are well.
Oh that blessed hour
When I shall see you once more!
You must write to me soon
And say when you can come."

Goodbye! - no, do not grieve that it is over,
  The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
  Flits from the flower.

Grieve not - it is the law. Love will be flying -
  Yes, love and all.
Glad was the living - blessed be the dying.
  Let the leaves fall.

Fair Robin I love and hourly die,
But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye;
He's fickle and false, and there we agree,
For I am as false and as fickle as he.

We neither believe what either can say;
And neither believing, we neither betray.
'Tis civil to swear and say things, of course;
We mean not the taking for better or worse.

When present we love; when absent agree:
I think not of Robin, nor Robin of me.
The legend of love no couple can find,
So easy to part or so easily joined.

My debt to you, Beloved,
Is one I cannot pay
In any coin of any realm
On any reckoning day;

For where is he shall figure
The debt, when all is said,
To one who makes you dream again
When all the dreams were dead?

Or where is the appraiser
Who shall the claim compute
Of one who makes you sing again
When all the songs were mute?