I said: “Nay, pluck not,—let the first fruit be: <br />Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red, <br />But let it ripen still. The tree's bent head <br />Sees in the stream its own fecundity <br />And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we <br />At the sun's hour that day possess the shade, <br />And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade, <br />And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?” <br />I say: “Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun <br />Too long,—'tis fallen and floats adown the stream. <br />Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one, <br />And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam <br />Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free, <br />And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.”<br /><br />Dante Gabriel Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-lxxxii-hoarded-joy/
