Classic Poem

The instrument of your reason being tuned
To the pitch of madness and desire to wound,
You would not drink my health save from her glass
Who drinks my death: can such things come to pass?
But I considered, striving to be just
(Who strive not to be loving, for I must),
That we, your vassals bound by every oath,
Are thus your vessels, and you drink from both:
That she and I, being each of us a woman,
Taste the elixir of your lips in common;
Though I alone am privy to the fact;
I have your half, and lesser than exact:
That I, having sworn I would devote my powers
To advance her interests as well as yours,
Am therefore chattel of yourself and her
And so divided into share and share.
Should I not count me more unfortunate
If from two cups you drank my single fate,
Than now, when both of you set lips to one
And from its sole brim drink division?
For you have drunk me joy and she despair
In the same wine, that served you share and share,
But never share and share alike: the mood
In which you drank transformed the wine to blood.
Although your mood was black, it did distill
Such essences as could not wish me ill;
While she, who smiled to drink my mortal pain,
Brewed hell itself within her smallest vein.
O, if from different cups you drank a curse,
Though yours was gold, and hers was something worse,
I were indeed undone! But you have blessed
Your own particular drop, and damn the rest!
Yet it is saved: your drop converts it all,
And makes it holy and medicinal:
She drinks her health (who drank to me disease),
Long life, and happiness and more than these;
Moons in solution; flavours of the sun's:
The cup is loving, having kissed you once.