Before Parting

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