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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

In Absence

George Parsons Lathrop

My love for thee is like a winged seed
  Blown from the heart of thy rare beauty’s flower,
  And deftly guided by some breezy power
To fall and rest, where I should never heed,
In deepest caves of memory. There, indeed,
  With virtue rife of many a sunny hoar,—
  Ev’n making cold neglect and darkness dower
Its roots with life,—swiftly it ‘gan to breed,
Till now wide-branching tendrils it outspreads
  Like circling arms, to prison its own prison,
Fretting the walls with blooms by myriads,
  And blazoning in my brain full summer-season:
Thy face, whose dearness presence had not taught.
In absence multiplies, and fills all thought.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Rose and Roof-Tree: Poems
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