THE KISS IN POETRY. (continued 2)

Two thousand kisses of the sweetest kind, ’Twas once agreed, our mutual love should bind; First from my lips a rapturous thousand flowed, Then you a thousand in your turn bestowed; The promised numbers were fulfilled, I own, But love sufficed with numbers ne’er was known! Who thinks of counting every separate blade Upon the meadow’s verdant robe inlaid? Who prays for numbered ears of ripening grain, When lavish Ceres yellows o’er the plain? Or to a scanty hundred would confine The clustering grapes, when Bacchus loads the vine? Who asks the guardian of the honeyed store To grant a thousand bees, and grant no more? Or tells the drops, while o’er some thirsty field The liquid stores are from above distilled? When Jove with fury hurls the moulded hail, And earth and sea destructive storms assail, Or when he bids, from his tempestuous sky, The winds unchained with wasting horror fly, The god ne’er heeds what harvests he may spoil, Nor yet regards each desolated soil: So, when its blessings bounteous heaven ordains, It ne’er with sparing hand the good restrains; Evils in like abundance too it showers; Well suits profusion with immortal powers! Then, since such gifts with heavenly minds agree, Shed, goddess-like, your blandishments on me; And say, Neæra! for that form divine Speaks thee descended of ethereal line,— Say, goddess! than that goddess lovelier far Who roams o’er ocean in her pearly car,— Your kisses, boons celestial, why withhold, Or why by scanty numbers are they told? Still you ne’er count, hard-hearted maid, those sighs Which in my laboring breast incessant rise; Nor yet those lucid drops of tender woe Which down my cheeks in quick succession flow. Yes, dearest life! your kisses number all; And number, too, my sorrowing tears that fall: Or, if you count not all the tears, my fair, To count the kisses sure you must forbear. But let your lips now soothe a lover’s pain, (Yet griefs like mine what soothings shall restrain!) If tears unnumbered pity can regard, Unnumbered kisses must each tear reward.

Kisses told by hundreds o’er, Thousands told by thousands more, Millions, countless millions, then, Told by millions o’er again, Countless as the drops that glide In the ocean’s billowy tide, Countless as yon orbs of light Spangled o’er the vault of light, I’ll with ceaseless love bestow On those cheeks of crimson glow, On those lips so gently swelling, On those eyes such fond tales telling. But when circled in thy arms, As I’m panting o’er thy charms, O’er thy cheeks of rosy bloom, O’er thy lips that breathe perfume, O’er thine eyes so sweetly bright, Shedding soft expressive light,— Then, nor cheeks of rosy bloom, Nor thy lips that breathe perfume, Nor thine eyes’ expressive light, Bless thy lover’s envious sight; Nor that soothing smile, which cheers All his tender hopes and fears: For, as radiant Phœbus streams O’er the globe with placid beams, Whirling through the ethereal way The fiery-axled car of day, And from the tempestuous sky While the rapid coursers fly, All the stormy clouds are driven Which deformed the face of heaven So thy golden smile, my fair, Chases every amorous care; Dries the torrents of mine eyes; Calms my fond, tumultuous sighs. Oh! how emulous the strife ’Twixt my lips and eyes, sweet life! Of thy charms are these possest, Those are envious till they’re blest: Think not, then, that in my love I’ll be rivalled e’en by Jove, When such jealous conflicts rise ’Twixt my very lips and eyes.

Ah! what ungoverned rage, declare, Neæra, too capricious fair, What unrevenged, unguarded wrong, Could urge thee thus to wound my tongue? Perhaps you deem the afflictive pains Too trifling, which my heart sustains, Nor think enough my bosom smarts With all the sure, destructive darts Incessant sped from every charm, That thus your wanton teeth must harm, Must harm that little tuneful thing, Which wont so oft thy praise to sing, What time the morn has streaked the skies, Or evening’s faded radiance dies, Through painful days consuming slow, Through lingering nights of amorous woe. This tongue, thou know’st, has oft extolled Thy hair in shining ringlets rolled; Thine eyes with tender passion bright; Thy swelling breast of purest white; Thy taper neck of polished grace; And all the beauties of thy face; Beyond the lucid orbs above, Beyond the starry throne of Jove; Extolled them in such lofty lays That gods with envy heard the praise. Oft has it called thee every name Which boundless rapture taught to frame; My life! my joy! my soul’s desire! All that my wish could e’er require! My pretty Venus! and my love! My gentle turtle! and my dove! Till Cypria’s self with envy heard Each partial, each endearing word. Say, beauteous tyrant! dost delight To wound this tongue in wanton spite? Because, alas! too well aware That every wrong it yet could bear Ne’er urged it once in angry strain Of thy unkindness to complain; But, suffering patient all its harms, Still would it sing thy matchless charms, Sing the soft lustre of thine eye, Sing thy sweet lips of rosy dye, Nay, still those guilty teeth ’twould sing, Whence all its cruel mischiefs spring: E’en now it lisps in faltering lays, While yet it bleeds, Neæra’s praise: Thus, beauteous tyrant! you control, Thus sway my fond, enamored soul!

Cease thy sweet, thy balmy kisses; Cease thy many-wreathèd smiles; Cease thy melting, murmuring blisses; Cease thy fond, bewitching wiles: On my bosom soft reclined, Cease to pour thy tender joys; Pleasure’s limits are confined, Pleasure oft repeated cloys. Sparingly your bounty use; When I ask for kisses nine, Seven at least you must refuse, And let only two be mine; Yet let these be neither long, Nor delicious sweets respire, But like those which virgins young Artless give their aged sire: Such as, with a sister’s love, Beauteous Dian may bestow On the radiant son of Jove, Phœbus of the silver bow. Tripping light with wanton grace, Now my lips disordered fly, And in some retired place Hide thee from my searching eye. Each recess I’ll traverse o’er Where I think thou liest concealed; Every covert I’ll explore, Till my wanton’s all revealed: Then, in sportive, amorous play, Victor-like I’ll seize my love; Seize thee as the bird of prey Pounces on a trembling dove. Captive then, and sore dismayed, How you’ll fondle, how you’ll plead, Vainly offering, silly maid, Seven sweet kisses to be freed! Not so fast, fair runaway! Kisses seven times seven be mine! Chained within these arms you stay Till I touch the balmy fine. Paying then the forfeit due, By your much-loved beauties swear, Faults like these you’ll still pursue, Faults which kisses can repair.

In various kisses various charms I find, For changeful fancy loves each changeful kind: Whene’er with mine thy humid lips unite, Then humid kisses with their sweets delight; From ardent lips so ardent kisses please, For glowing transports often spring from these. What joy! to kiss those eyes that wanton rove, Then catch the glances of returning love; Or clinging to the cheek of crimson glow, The bosom, shoulder, or the neck of snow; What pleasure! tender passion to assuage, And see the traces of our amorous rage On the soft neck or blooming cheek exprest, On the white shoulder, or still whiter breast! ’Twixt yielding lips, in every thrilling kiss, To dart the trembling tongue,—what matchless bliss! Inhaling sweet each other’s mingling breath, While Love lies gasping in the arms of Death! While soul with soul in ecstasy unites, Entranced, impassioned, with the fond delights From thee received, or given to thee, my love! Alike to me those kisses grateful prove; The kiss that’s rapid, or prolonged with art, The fierce, the gentle, equal joys impart: But mark! be all my kisses, beauteous maid, With different kisses from thy lips repaid; Then varying rapture shall from either flow, As varying kisses either shall bestow: And let the first who with an unchanged kiss Shall cease to thus diversify the bliss, Observe, with looks in meek submission dressed, That law by which this forfeiture’s expressed: “As many kisses as each lover gave, As each might in return again receive, So many kisses from the vanquished side The victor claims, so many ways applied.”

Some think my kisses too luxurious told, Kisses, they say, not known to sires of old: But, while entranced on thy soft neck I lie, And o’er thy lips in tender transport die, Shall I then ask, dear life, perplexed in vain, Why rigid cynics censure thus my strain? Ah, no! thy blandishments so rapturous prove That every ravished sense is lost in love: Blest with those blandishments, divine I seem, And all Elysium paints the blissful dream. Neæra heard,—then, smiling, instant threw Around my neck her arm of fairest hue, And kissed me fonder, more voluptuous far, Than Beauty’s queen e’er kissed the god of War: “What (cries the nymph)! and shall my amorous bard Pedantic wisdom’s stern decree regard? Thy cause must be at my tribunal tried: None but Neæra can the point decide.”

Modest matrons, maidens, say, Why thus turn your looks away? Frolic feats of lawless love, Of the lustful powers above, Forms obscene that shock the sight, In my verse I ne’er recite,— Verse where naught indecent reigns; Guiltless are my tender strains, Such as pedagogues austere Might with strict decorum hear, Might, with no licentious speech, To their youth reproachless teach. I, chaste votary of the Nine, Kisses sing of chaste design. Maids and matrons yet, with rage, Frown upon my blameless page,— Frown, because some wanton word Here and there by chance occurred, Or the cheated fancy caught Some obscure though harmless thought. Hence, ye prudish matrons! hence, Squeamish maids devoid of sense! And shall these in virtue dare With my virtuous maid compare,— She who in the bard will prize What she’ll in his lays despise? Wantonness with love agrees, But reserve in verse must please.

With amorous strife exanimate I lay; Around your neck my languid arm I threw; My trembling heart had just forgot to play, Its vital spirit from my bosom flew;— The Stygian lake, the dreary realms below, To which the sun a cheering beam denies, Old Charon’s boat, slow-wandering to and fro, Promiscuous passed before my swimming eyes,— When you, Neæra! with your humid breath O’er my parched lips the deep-fetched kiss bestowed Sudden my fleeting soul returned from death, And freightless hence the infernal pilot rowed. Yet soft,—for, oh, my erring senses stray;— Not quite unfreighted to the Stygian shore Old Charon steered his lurid bark away: My plaintive shade he to the Manes bore. Then, since my soul can here no more remain, A part of thine, sweet life, that loss supplies! But what this feeble fabric must sustain, If of thy soul that part its aid denies! And much I fear; for, struggling to be free, Oft from its new abode it fain would roam; Oft seeks, impatient to return to thee, Some secret pass to gain its native home. Unless thy fostering breath retards its flight, It now prepares to quit this falling frame: Haste, then; to mine thy clinging lips unite, And let one spirit feed each vital flame, Till, after frequent ecstasies of bliss, Mutual, unsating to the impassioned heart, From bodies thus conjoined, in one long kiss, That single life which nourished both shall part.

Those tempting lips of scarlet glow Why pout with fond, bewitching art? For to those lips, Neæra, know, My lips shall not one kiss impart. Perhaps you’d have me greatly prize, Hard-hearted fair, your precious kiss; But learn, proud mortal, I despise Such cold, such unimpassioned bliss. Think’st thou I calmly feel the flame That all my rending bosom fires, And patient bear, through all my frame, The pangs of unallayed desires? Ah, no!—but turn not thus aside Those tempting lips of scarlet glow; Nor yet avert, with angry pride, Those eyes, from whence such raptures flow! Forgive the past, sweet-natured maid; My kisses, love, are all thy own: Then let my lips to thine be laid, To thine, more soft than softest down.

The Idalian boy, to pierce Neæra’s heart, Had bent his bow, had chose the fatal dart; But when the child, in wonder lost, surveyed That brow, o’er which your sunny tresses played, Those cheeks, that blushed the rose’s warmest dye, That streamy languish of your lucid eye, That bosom, too, with matchless beauty bright (Scarce Cypria’s own could boast so pure a white), Though mischief urged him first to wound my fair, Yet partial fondness urged him now to spare. But, doubting still, he lingered to decide; At length, resolved, he flung the shaft aside, Then sudden rushed impetuous to thy arms, And hung voluptuous on thy heavenly charms: There as the boy in wanton folds was laid, His lips o’er thine in varied kisses played; With every kiss he tried a thousand wiles, A thousand gestures, and a thousand smiles; Your inmost breast with Cyprian odors filled, And all the myrtle’s luscious scent instilled: Lastly, he swore by every power above, By Venus’ self, the potent Queen of Love, That you, blest nymph, forever should remain Exempt from amorous care, from amorous pain. What wonder, then, such balmy sweets should flow In every grateful kiss your lips bestow? What wonder, then, obdurate maid, you prove Averse to all the tenderness of love?

Bright as Venus’ golden star, Fair as Dian’s silver car, Nymph with every charm replete, Give me hundred kisses sweet; Then as many kisses more O’er my lips profusely pour, As the insatiate bard could want, Or his bounteous Lesbia grant; As the vagrant Loves that stray On thy lips’ nectareous way; As the dimpling Graces spread On thy cheeks’ carnationed bed; As the deaths thy lovers die; As the conquests of thine eye, Or the cares and fond delights Which its changeful beam incites; As the hopes and fears we prove, Or the impassioned sighs, in love; As the shafts by Cupid sped, Shafts by which my heart has bled; As the countless stores that still All his golden quiver fill. Whispered plaints, and wanton wiles, Speeches soft, and soothing smiles, Teeth-imprinted, tell-tale blisses, Intermix with all thy kisses. So, when zephyr’s breezy wing Wafts the balmy breath of spring, Turtles thus their loves repeat, Fondly billing, murmuring sweet, While their trembling pinions tell What delights their bosoms swell. Kiss me, press me, till you feel All your raptured senses reel; Till your eyes, half closed and dim, In a dizzy transport swim, And you murmur faintly, “Grasp me, Swooning, in your arms, oh, clasp me.” In my fond sustaining arms I will hold your drooping charms; While the long, life-teeming kiss Shall recall your soul to bliss; And, as thus the vital store From my humid lips I pour, Till, exhausted with the play, All my spirit wastes away, Sudden, in my turn, I’ll cry, “Oh, support me, for I die.” To your fostering breast you’ll hold me, In your warm embrace enfold me, While your breath, in nectared gales, O’er my sinking soul prevails, While your kisses sweet impart Life and rapture to my heart. Thus, when youth is in its prime, Let’s enjoy the golden time; For when smiling youth is past, Age these tender joys shall blast: Sickness, which our bloom impairs, Slow-consuming, painful cares, Death, with dire remorseless rage, All attend the steps of age.