A.S. Byatt in The Children’s Book (2009) answers:

But Julian was clever and observant enough to see that love was at its most intense before it was reciprocated. ‘Love is a standing, or still growing light / And his first moment, after noon, is night.’ ‘What will it be when that the watery palate tastes indeed / Love’s thrice repured nectar?’

–p. 251

More from this book.

–
–