Love in Absence [poem by John Shaw Neilson]

[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934).]

Love in Absence

When thou art gone but a little way
I am in a cold fear:
The day like a long sickness is,
And I count the moon a year.

When thou art gone but a little way
I am in a deep alarm:
I cry, Oh God! her dear body,
If it should come to harm!

When thou art gone and light is gone
I fiercely wish thee near:
The day like a long sickness is,
And I count the moon a year.

Now mournfully I dream I fall
Where uncouth shadows be:
I foot it on the mist, — the heart
Renounces liberty.

Source:
John Shaw Neilson (editor: R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Publishing Company, 1934 [May 1949 reprint], pages 136