Shakespeare's Sonnet #39
[Redone by Bruce Hamilton]

How can I sweetly sing of your sweet ways,
when you remain the source of all my grace?
How can my praising me not breed much haze?
Yet: praising you, don't I praise my own face?
For just such reasons, let's dwell far apart
and let our love soon lose its single name,
and in that separation I may start
to give your heart its necessary fame.
(O, absence, what a "torment" you'd soon prove
if your sour leisure didn't give flesh leave
to while away the time with thoughts that move
the mind toward bliss -- though time and thought deceive!
For: yearnings, though they help split worlds in two,
bring many a gorgeous image back in view.)