KISS VI.
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.
