A MONTH or twain to live on honeycomb <br />Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time, <br />Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme, <br />And that strong purple under juice and foam <br />Where the wine’s heart has burst; <br />Nor feel the latter kisses like the first. <br /> <br />Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray <br />Even to change the bitterness of it, <br />The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet, <br />To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay <br />All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise <br />Over my face and eyes. <br /> <br />And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheat <br />Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red? <br />These were not sown, these are not harvested, <br />They grow a month and are cast under feet <br />And none has care thereof, <br />As none has care of a divided love. <br /> <br />I know each shadow of your lips by rote, <br />Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows; <br />The fashion of fair temples tremulous <br />With tender blood, and colour of your throat; <br />I know not how love is gone out of this, <br />Seeing that all was his. <br /> <br />Love’s likeness there endures upon all these: <br />But out of these one shall not gather love. <br />Day hath not strength nor the night shade enough <br />To make love whole and fill his lips with ease, <br />As some bee-builded cell <br />Feels at filled lips the heavy honey swell. <br /> <br />I know not how this last month leaves your hair <br />Less full of purple colour and hid spice, <br />And that luxurious trouble of closed eyes <br />Is mixed with meaner shadow and waste care; <br />And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yet <br />Worth patience to regret.<br /><br />Algernon Charles Swinburne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/before-parting/
