On his Love after Death

Let lovers that like honey-flies
After balm-dropping showers
Swarming in sunshine of thine eyes,
Kissing thy beauty's flowers,
Believe that they do live, while they do taste
Of all those dainty sweetnesses thou hast.

Let them believe while they do sip,
Or while that they have suckt,
The rosy nectar of thy lip.
Or from the rose unpluckt
Of thy fair cheek, or of thy fragrant breasts.
The aromatic odours of the East.

Let them believe, that they do live,
So long as they are fed
Upon the honey thou dost give,
Which wanting, they are dead :
For if thou that ambrosial food deny,
Their loves, like souls of beasts, do with them die.

But, Cynthia, that ne'er-ending love
Wherewith I honour thee,
To be immortal, thus I prove,
For though that absence be
A truer portraiture of death than sleep.
Nay, a true death, for absent lovers weep :

Yet like a long-departed soul
That hath a body lost,
Hath yet a being to condole,
So my love like a ghost,
Remaining follows thee, whose Heaven thou art.
Lives, though not in thine eyes, yet in my heart.