To Lucasta, Going beyond the Seas
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone
You or I were alone;
Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
Pity from blustering wind or swallowing wave.
Though seas and land betwixt us both,
Our faith and troth,
Like separated souls,
All time and space control:
Above the highest sphere we meet
Unseen, unknown, and greet as Angels greet.
So then we do anticipate
Our after-fate,
And are alive i' the skies,
If thus our lips and eyes
Can speak like spirits unconfined
In Heaven, their earthy bodies left behind.
Colonel Richard Lovelace (1618-57)
To my friend who lives across the sea.
