The Kiss

Sweet, fervent couples, in your spring flight!
Love as the days fashion:
All, shadow, song, perfume, and light,
Bind and unbind passion.

 

While yet you are faithful, spend and rouse
Your warm unreason,
You will not hold your eternal vows
Till the next season.

 

The wind that mingles the branches or parts them
Has less sudden play
Than the desire of beings that starts them
One to the next, and away.

 

The gentle rustlings of earth and of ocean,
Grain thrusting higher,
Sorrow, and death, direct their motion
More than desire.

 

Joyful in the gardens where green summer settles
You laugh and call,
But the intertwined fingers, even as the petals,
Move to their fall.

 

The eyes whose looks dance like bees aswarm
Their store to bring,
Will no longer yield you, equally warm,
Honey and sting.

 

There will no longer in your hearts abide
Harmonious breath,
Your souls will crabbedly subside
Through love and death.