They are the only dead who did not love,
Lipless and tongueless in the sour earth
Staring at others, poor unlovers.
They are the only living thing who did love,
So are we full with strength,
Ready to rise, easy to sleep.
Who has completeness that can cut
A comic hour to an end through want of woman
And the warmth she gives,
And yet be human,
Feel the same soft blood flow thoroughly,
Have food and drink, unloving?
None, and his deadly welcome
At the hour’s end
Shall prove unworthy for his doing,
Which was good at word,
But came from out the mouth unknowing
Of such great goodness as is ours.
There is no dead but is not loved
Awhile, a little,
Out of the fullness of another's heart
Having so much to spare.
That, then, is fortunate,
But, by your habit unreturned,
And by your habit unreturnable.
So is there missed a certain godliness
That’s not without its woe,
And not without divinity,
For it can quicken or it can kill.
Look, there’s the dead who did not love,
And there’s the living who did love,
Around our little selves
Touching our separate love with badinage.

My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, nay more,
My joy, my Magazine of earthly store,
If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lye?
So many steps, head from the heart to sever
If but a neck, soon should we be together:
I like the earth this season, mourn in black,
My Sun is gone so far in’s Zodiack,
Whom whilst I ’joy’d, nor storms, nor frosts I felt,
His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt.
My chilled limbs now nummed lye forlorn;
Return, return sweet Sol from Capricorn;
In this dead time, alas, what can I more
Then view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?
Which sweet contentment yield me for a space,
True living Pictures of their Fathers face.
O strange effect! now thou art Southward gone,
I weary grow, the tedious day so long;
But when thou Northward to me shalt return,
I wish my Sun may never set, but burn
Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,
The welcome house of him my dearest guest.
Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,
Till natures sad decree shall call thee hence;
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,
I here, thou there, yet both but one.