Love’s Last Respite (may be called, yet finished)

Can there be but a sweeter thing
To see, to touch, to hear, to taste?
Will life again drink the same spring
That had still the gracious haste?


The wine is strong, I drink it up
To feel once more the one I saw.
Now adazed, there is half the cup
And the colours do slow and gnaw


My replica, my last embrace,
The ling’ring scent, the subtle sight;
You and I meeting, face to face,
And the sudden, lonely respite.


Each drop of wine to surrogate
Is red and figment in my mind;
Each blushing hope that I inflate
Pales to every foil entwined.


Every pine of adoration,
Which loves of her each aspect and art,
When align to my ‘toxication
I grieve to compare heart to heart.


I’m lost to that that never was,
The dawn that breaks as I still sleep
In melancholy dreaming pause,
As my world moves from where I keep.


As I wake, the shadows shorten,
The peach sunlight lightens and goes,
I think to chase days that lengthen
As the long lustre further glows.