Why was I doomed by fate to prove
Absence is Hell to faithful love;
Is it thereby at my return
To make my joys the brighter burn?
If so, that needless care decline,
I want no foil to set off mine.
Or else does fortune think my joy
Not qualified would soon destroy?
Alas! absence is such an ill
It will not qualify but kill.
I ask of Fortune and of Fate
But not to change my present state.
In all things else I shall but find
The one is cruel, t'other blind.