Classic Poem

Those very lips with honey overflowing,
Which have pour'd out so much of peace and pleasure;
A stream of light and sweetness, without measure:
To those—to those alone, my pangs are owing.
So to the pilgrim in Arabia's fields,
Perfumes and balsams come—but drawing nigh,
He feels the fierceness of a burning sky,
And faints amidst the odours which it yields.
Her lips are full of manna and of nectar—
Heaven's fragrant breezes play—as to protect her;
And yet she breathes sweet poison, for there sits
Perdition on those lips, in Love's own shape;
And thence he wings his fiery darts in fits,
And he has struck me—how should I escape?