Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
The Self Banished
1It is not that I love you less
2Than when before your feet I lay,
3But to prevent the sad increase
4Of hopeless love, I keep away.
5In vain (alas!) for everything
6Which I have known belong to you,
7Your form does to my fancy bring,
8And makes my old wounds bleed anew.
9Who in the spring from the new sun
10Already has a fever got,
11Too late begins those shafts to shun,
12Which Phœbus through his veins has shot.
13Too late he would the pain assuage,
14And to thick shadows does retire;
15About with him he bears the rage,
16And in his tainted blood the fire.
17But vow'd I have, and never must
18Your banish'd servant trouble you;
19For if I break, you may distrust
20The vow I made to love you, too.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Edmund Waller, Poems (1645); facs.edn., Poems, 1645, together with poems from Bodleian MS Dond. 55 (Menston: Scolar Press, 1971). PR 3750 A1 1645 AB Robarts Library
First publication date:
1645
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 2RP.1.444; RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14
Rhyme: abab
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