KISS XIII.
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.
