Two lovers trade pretty comparisons, and then the poem lets a doubt creep in. It opens with a promise: I will be to you what the bee is to the flower. A second image follows, of a grassy bank and the stream that runs past it. But the third stanza asks an awkward question. Bees are rovers, and brooks do not stay put, so what do these reassurances actually guarantee? The final stanza answers with a shrug and a smile: flowers fade and banks wear away, so bees and brooks may as well "sip and kiss them, while they may." The central idea is that love is not a promise of permanence but an agreement to enjoy a passing beauty while it lasts. Whether that is comforting or a little cynical is left for the reader to decide.
The first two stanzas are built from tender, enclosed images. The bee searches "through the leaves that close embower it" for "honey-dew", and the word "embower" makes the flower sound like a private room with the foliage as walls. The stream, meanwhile, is "whispering kisses, while they're going", which is a lovely image of water lapping against grass. But look at that phrase again. The kiss happens "while they're going," so the moment of affection is already a departure. The comfort in these stanzas has its own farewell built in, and the third stanza simply says aloud what the second had quietly admitted. Even the verbs echo each other: the waves "wander near" in stanza two, and in stanza three the "faithless brooks will wander on." One small preposition turns closeness into abandonment.
The sound of the poem helps to disguise this. It runs in a light, lilting four-beat line, mostly falling in rhythm, and the rhymes are neat: *dew* and *you*, *near* and *dear*, *gone* and *on*. The first three stanzas also pair soft two-syllable rhymes in lines one and three (*floweret* and *embower it*, *glowing* and *going*, *rover* and *over*), which gives them a gentle, drifting feel. The printed speaker labels, "She" and "He", along with that tune-like movement, suggest a duet meant to be sung, though that is an inference from the text. The labels are a little tangled, since "She" appears twice, but the shape of the exchange is clear enough. Promises are made, a doubt is raised, and "He" gets the last word.
That last word is where the poem becomes most interesting. The final stanza changes its sound. The feminine rhymes disappear, and the lines end on firm, stressed syllables: *looks*, *away*, *brooks*, *may*. The speaker begins with "Nay" and settles the matter with "'Tis but right", a phrase borrowed from moral argument. It sounds like a fair judgment, but look at what is actually being said. Nobody answers the charge of faithlessness. Instead the argument shifts the blame. If the flowers will "lose their looks" and the sunny banks "wear away", then the bee and the brook are only being sensible. The beloved's fading beauty becomes the excuse for the lover's wandering. It is a charming piece of reasoning and also a slippery one, and it works because the verbs *sip* and *kiss* keep everything light and playful. A heavier word would expose how little has been promised.
The phrase "while they may" also carries the poem's real subject. It is a gentle version of the old advice to enjoy things before they pass, and the poem never pretends otherwise. The ending contains no vow of "forever", only an invitation to the present moment.
That is why the poem is worth reading even though it is slight. Thomas Moore is remembered as a songwriter, and this piece shows the skill that reputation suggests. It makes a conventional comparison between lovers and nature, then uses the same comparison to complicate itself. The bee and the brook start out as symbols of devotion and end up as the poem's defence of impermanence. A reader who stops after the second stanza would think it was a simple love song. One who reads on finds a witty argument about how far a sweet promise can be trusted.