- The other two, slight air, and purging fire
- Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
- The first my thought, the other my desire,
- These present-absent with swift motion slide.
- For when these quicker elements are gone
- In tender embassy of love to thee,
- My life, being made of four, with two alone
- Sinks down to death, oppress’d with melancholy;
- Until life’s composition be recur’d
- By those swift messengers return’d from thee,
- Who even but now come back again, assur’d,
- Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
- This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
- I send them back again, and straight grow sad.