"The Self Banished" is a poem written by Edmund Waller in about 1645.
It was set to music by the baroque composer John Blow in 1700.
[1] It is also one of the first songs written by the English composer Edward Elgar.
Composed in 1875, specifically for "soprano or tenor", it was unpublished until recently.
Elgar added a stanza beginning with his own spelling of "Absence".