AS oftentimes the too resplendent sun Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won A single ballad from the nightingale, So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail, And all my sweetest singing out of tune. And as at dawn across the level mead On wings impetuous some wind will come, And with its too harsh kisses break the reed Which was its only instrument of song, So my too stormy passions work me wrong, And for excess of Love my Love is dumb. But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; Else it were better we should part, and go, Thou to some lips of sweeter melody, And I to nurse the barren memory Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY by ROBERT BROWNING THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS VENUS OF THE LOUVRE by EMMA LAZARUS ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER THE BURDEN OF NINEVEH by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 115 by ALFRED TENNYSON SONG OF SEID NIMETOLLAH OF KUHISTAN by AMIR NURU'D-DIN NI'MATU'LLAH |