Sol 5.6

  1. O you, second only to my soul, and yet

    the dearest third beside my two eyes;

  2. the confidant of my thoughts, beyond all

    the others whom I confide in or converse with.

  3. I lament your absence; it is the most

    painful of all the calamities I have suffered—

  4. the lament of one consumed by longing, who finds

    rest in you, with the dreaded thing breathing close.

  5. I blame Time, which grew earnest in

    scattering all I held together, though merely at play.

  6. In trying to endure your absence, I have clung

    to cords now tattered and worn thin.

  7. I made it pledge that distance would never

    shake it—yet I see it breaking faith.

  8. And when remembrance of you arises, my heart seems

    caught in the hand of one gripping it tight.

  9. My living on after parting from you

    is a grave ordeal—by your father’s life, a crushing one.

Sol 5.6