Poem by Thomas MacDonagh

In Absence

Last night I read your letters once again--
Read till the dawn filled all my room with grey;
Then quenched my light and put the leaves away,
And prayed for sleep to ease my heart's great pain.
But ah! that poignant tenderness made vain
My hope of rest -- I could not sleep or pray
For thought of you, and the slow, broadening day
Held me there prisoner of my throbbing brain.

Yet I did sleep before the silence broke,
And dream, but not of you -- the old dreams rife
With duties which would bind me to the yoke
Of my old futile, lone, reluctant life:
I stretched my hands for help in the vain strife,
And grasped these leaves, and to this pain awoke. 

1. To a Wise Man
2. Of the Man of My First Play
3. Dublin Tramcars
4. Cormac Óg
5. The Philistine

Sidney Lanier In Absence ("The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain")

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