The Self Banished

By Edmund Waller 1606–1687 Edmund Waller

It is not that I love you less

Than when before your feet I lay,

But to prevent the sad increase

Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain (alas!) for everything

Which I have known belong to you,

Your form does to my fancy bring,

And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the spring from the new sun

Already has a fever got,

Too late begins those shafts to shun,

Which Phœbus through his veins has shot.

Too late he would the pain assuage,

And to thick shadows does retire;

About with him he bears the rage,

And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vow’d I have, and never must

Your banish’d servant trouble you;

For if I break, you may distrust

The vow I made to love you, too.

Biography

Elected to Parliament at age 16, Edmund Waller quickly gained a reputation as a masterful orator. He was also a celebrated lyric poet long before the publication of his Poems in 1645. Despite his eloquent efforts to placate both Oliver Cromwell and Charles II, Waller was forced into exile for nearly a decade. His highly refined work, particularly his heroic couplets, were much admired by Alexander Pope and John Dryden.

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