Absent muse

Whatever happened to my muse?
Has she gone off to warmer climes
Now that the gloom of winter's here?
Has she got tired of my mutterings
Deciding it is time to disappear?

I don't mind that for after all
She kept me much awake at night
And nagged me in the middle of the day
And dragged me from the lingering sight
Of beauty on a summer's day.

Oh yes she was a mistress hard,
Keeping me always to my task
With no respite.   She said if bard
You wish to be then heed when asked
And take your pen and write.
And so I did for many a day and night!

Now year on writing year has passed
And she, my muse, has fled at last.
I said I do not mind, and it is so.
I bade her many times to go.
But now I sometimes question why
She took my pen when off she went?
Yet asking gets me no reply:
She's gone and she will not relent!