Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;

And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

LXXVI.

KISSES.

WHAT IS A KISS?

AMONG thy fancies tell me this:
What is the thing we call a kiss?
-I shall resolve ye what it is.

It is a creature born and bred
Between the lips all cherry-red,
By love and warm desires fed;
And makes more soft the marriage-bed.

It is an active flame that flies
First to the babies of the eyes,
And charms them there with lullabies,
And stills the bride, too, when she cries.

Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear,
It frisks and flies, now here, now there;
'T is now far off, and now 't is near:
And here and there and everywhere.

Has it a speaking virtue?—Yes.

How speaks it? Say.-Do you but this :
Part your joined lips; then speaks your kiss;
And this love's sweetest language is.

Has it a body?-Ay, and wings,

With thousand rare encolourings;

And, as it flies, it gently sings;
Love honey yields, but never stings.

Robert Herrick.

LXXVII.

KISSES.

RECIPROCATION.

THE fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea-
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

LXXVIII.

KISSES.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

THE WHISPERED "NO."

ONE kiss, dear maid!—I said and sighed—

Your scorn the little boon denied.

Ah, why refuse the blameless bliss?

Can danger lurk within a kiss?
Yon viewless wanderer of the vale,
The spirit of the western gale,

At morning's break, at evening's close,
Inhales the sweetness of the rose,
And hover's o'er the uninjured bloom,
Sighing back the soft perfume.

Vigour to the zephyr's wing

Her nectar-breathing kisses fling;

And he the glitter of the dew
Scatters on the rose's hue.

Bashful, lo! she bends her head,
And darts a blush of deeper red!
Too well those lovely lips disclose
The triumphs of the opening rose;
O fair! O graceful! bid them prove
As passive to the breath of love.'
In tender accents faint and low,

Well pleased I hear the whispered "No!"
The whispered "No!"-how little meant !
Sweet falsehood that endears consent !
For on those lovely lips the while
Dawns the soft relenting smile,

And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy
The gentle violence of joy.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

LXXIX.

KISSES.

JENNY KISSED ME.

JENNY kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief! who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;

Say that health and wealth have missed me; Say I'm growing old, but add--

Jenny kissed me !

James Henry Leigh Hunt.

LXXX.

LOVE'S TIME OF ROSES.

IT was not in the winter

Our loving lot was cast;

It was the time of roses :

We plucked them as we passed.

That churlish season never frowned
On early lovers yet!

Oh, no-the world was newly crowned
With flowers when first we met.

'Twas twilight, and I bade you go,
But still you held me fast;
It was the time of roses,-

We plucked them as we passed.

Thomas Hood.

LXXXI.

LOVE'S GARDEN-WAITING.

COME into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown ; Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the rose is blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,

And the planet of Love is on high,

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves,

On a bed of daffodil sky,

To faint in the light of the sun she loves,

To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirred
To the dancers dancing in tune;

Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play."

Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes

In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,
For one who will never be thine?

But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,
"For ever and ever, mine."

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

As the music clashed in the hall;

And long by the garden gate I stood,

For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet,

That whenever a March-wind sighs,

He sets the jewel print of your feet

In violets blue as your eyes,

To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sighed for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.

« ForrigeFortsæt »