Sonnet LXXVIII. Lacking my love, I go from place to place

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

LACKING my love, I go from place to place,

Like a young fawn, that late hath lost the hind;

And seek each where, where last I saw her face,

Whose image yet I carry fresh in mind.

I seek the fields with her late footing signed;

I seek her bower with her late presence deck’d;

Yet nor in field nor bower I her can find;

Yet field and bower are full of her aspect:

But, when mine eyes I thereunto direct,

They idly back return to me again:

And, when I hope to see their true object,

I find myself but fed with fancies vain.

Cease then, mine eyes, to seek herself to see;

And let my thoughts behold herself in me.