Absence, hear thou my protestation
          Against thy strength,
          Distance and length:
   Do what thou canst for alteration;
       For hearts of truest mettle
       Absence doth join, and time doth settle.

   Who loves a mistress of such quality,
          He soon hath found
          Affection's ground
  Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
      To hearts that cannot vary
      Absence is present, time doth tarry.

  My senses want their outward motions,
         Which now within
         Reason doth win
  Redoubl'd in her secret notions;
      Like rich men that take pleasure
      In hiding, more than handling, treasure.

  By absence this good means I gain,
  That I can catch her
  Where none can watch her,
  In some close corner of my brain.
  There I embrace and kiss her,
  And so I both enjoy and miss her.


Printed anonymously in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody,
1602. Cf. Donne, A Valediction  Forbidding Mourning.
This poem has been attributed to Donne because of its presence in
several Donne MSS. But Grierson argues convincingly on the
authority of a Hawthornden MS, as well as on the basis of style,
that its author is John Hoskins, who was a scholar, lawyer, and minor poet.