It is not that I love you less <br />Than when before your feet I lay, <br />But to prevent the sad increase <br />Of hopeless love, I keep away. <br /> <br />In vain (alas!) for everything <br />Which I have known belong to you, <br />Your form does to my fancy bring, <br />And makes my old wounds bleed anew. <br /> <br />Who in the spring from the new sun <br />Already has a fever got, <br />Too late begins those shafts to shun, <br />Which Phœbus through his veins has shot. <br /> <br />Too late he would the pain assuage, <br />And to thick shadows does retire; <br />About with him he bears the rage, <br />And in his tainted blood the fire. <br /> <br />But vow'd I have, and never must <br />Your banish'd servant trouble you; <br />For if I break, you may distrust <br />The vow I made to love you, too.<br /><br />Edmund Waller<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-self-banished/
