Or as sweet music sharpens afterward, Being half disrelished both for sharp and sweet; As sea-water, having killed over-heat In a man's body, chills it with faint ache; So their sense, burdened only for love's sake, Failed for pure love; yet so time served their wit, They saved each day some gold reserves of it, Being wiser in love's riddle than such be Whom fragments feed with his chance charity. All things felt sweet were felt sweet overmuch; The rose-thorn's prickle dangerous to touch, And flecks of fire in the thin leaf-shadows; Too keen the breathed honey of the rose, Its red too harsh a weight on feasted eyes; They were so far gone in love's histories, Beyond all shape and colour and mere breath, Where pleasure has for kinsfolk sleep and death, And strength of soul and body waxen blind For weariness, and flesh entailed with mind, When the keen edge of sense foretasteth sin. Even this green place the summer caught them in Seemed half deflowered and sick with beaten leaves In their strayed eyes; these gold flower-fumèd eves Burnt out to make the sun's love-offering, The midnoon's prayer, the rose's thanksgiving, The trees' weight burdening the strengthless air, The shape of her stilled eyes, her coloured hair, Her body's balance from the moving feet-- All this, found fair, lacked yet one grain of sweet It had some warm weeks back: so perisheth On May's new lip the tender April breath: So those same walks the wind sowed lilies in All April through, and all their latter kin Of languid leaves whereon the Autumn blows-- The dead red raiment of the last year's rose-- The last year's laurel, and the last year's love, Fade, and grow things that death grows weary of. What man will gather in red summer-time The fruit of some obscure and hoary rhyme Heard last midwinter, taste the heart in it, Mould the smooth semitones afresh, refit The fair limbs ruined, flush the dead blood through With colour, make all broken beauties new For love's new lesson--shall not such find pain When the marred music labouring in his brain Frets him with sweet sharp fragments, and lets slip One word that might leave satisfied his lip-- One touch that might put fire in all the chords? This was her pain: to miss from all sweet words Some taste of sound, diverse and delicate-- Some speech the old love found out to compensate For seasons of shut lips and drowsiness-- Some grace, some word the old love found out to bless Passionless months and undelighted weeks. The flowers had lost their summer-scented cheeks, Their lips were no more sweet than daily breath: The year was plagued with instances of death. So fell it, these were sitting in cool grass With leaves about, and many a bird there was Where the green shadow thickliest impleached Soft fruit and writhen spray and blossom bleached Dry in the sun or washed with rains to white: