Sweetness

Isn't that an interesting word - sweetness.  Old-fashioned. I'm surprised it's still around, sounding so sentimental and all.

I want sweetness. I crave it.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight. 

You see it sounds quite wonderful in this quote from Shakespeare,
and also in this one by Browning:

How sad, and bad, and mad it was,
But then, how it was sweet.

But now I think we associate the word sweet with babies, and food, or we change it, bored with it, to slang.

I have had to go from sugar-sweet to honey-sweet.  It's a major change, and it's definitely hard to adjust. There is a fairy-tale I vaguely remember, where there are three princesses, one with sugar-sweet, one with syrup-sweet, and one with honey-sweet lips.  Guess which one the prince chose to marry.

                                Sweet idleness


My favourite word would be "bittersweet".