THE KISS IN EPIGRAM.
CASUISTRY.
When Sarah Jane, the moral miss,
Declares ’tis very wrong to kiss,
I’ll bet a shilling I see through it:
The damsel, fairly understood,
Feels just as any Christian should,—
She’d rather suffer wrong than do it.
Saxe.
THE DIFFERENCE.
“I never give a kiss,” says Prue,
“To naughty man, for I abhor it.”
She will not give a kiss, ’tis true:
She’ll take one, though, and thank you for it.[30]
Moore.
MODESTY.
“Kiss me, dear maid, to seal the vow
Of love that you have made.”
“I have no right to kiss you now,”
The modest maiden said.
“If you can find it in your heart
My first wish to refuse,
Perhaps ’tis best that we should part
Ere we our freedom lose.”
“Although to kiss you I demur,
Yet please to recollect
That if you choose to kiss me, sir,
Of course, I—can’t object.”
FOOLISH ROBIN.
“Come kiss me,” said Robin. I gently said, “No!
For my mother forbade me to play with men so.”
Abashed by my answer, he glided away,
Though my looks very plainly advised him to stay.
Silly swain, not at all recollecting—not he—
That his mother ne’er said that he must not kiss me.
THE PRINTER’S KISSES.
Print on my lips another kiss,
The picture of thy glowing passion;
Nay, this won’t do—nor this—nor this—
But now—Ah, that’s a proof impression!
But yet, methinks, it might be mended—
Oh, yes, I see it in those eyes;
Our lips again together blended
Will make the impression a revise.
TULIPS AND ROSES.
My Rosa from the latticed grove
Brought me a sweet bouquet of posies,
And asked, as round my neck she clung,
If tulips I preferred to roses.
“I cannot tell, sweet wife,” I sighed,
“But kiss me ere I see the posies:”
She did. “Oh, I prefer,” I cried,
“Your two lips to a dozen roses.”
SEALING AN OATH.
“Do you,” said Fanny, t’other day,
“In earnest love me as you say?
Or are those tender words applied
Alike to fifty girls beside?”
“Dear, cruel girl,” cried I, “forbear;
For by those eyes—those lips—I swear!”
She stopped me as the oath I took,
And cried, “You’ve sworn—now kiss the book.”
MOUSTACHES.
Kate hates moustaches; so much hair
Makes every man look like a bear;
But Nellie, whom no thought could fetter,
Pouts out, “The more like bears the better,
Because” (her pretty shoulders shrugging)
“Bears are such glorious chaps for hugging.”
THE ANCIENT MAIDEN’S LAMENT.
I have a mouth for kisses,
No one to give or to take;
I have a heart in my bosom
Beating for nobody’s sake.
THE STAKES.
The following playful lines of Strode first appeared in a little volume entitled “New Court Songs and Poems,” printed in 1672, and were reproduced in Dryden’s “Miscellany,” 1716:
My love and I for kisses played:
She would hold stakes; I was content;
But when I won, she would be paid;
With that, I asked her what she meant.
“Nay, since I see,” quoth she, “your wrangling vain,
Take your own kisses; give me mine again.”[31]
DECLINING A KISS.
Said the master to Mary, a sweet-lipped lass,
As she stood in her place at the head of her class,
“You can decline ‘a kiss,’ no doubt?”
“I can,” she replied, with a blush and a pout,
And a glance to the master’s heart there shot,
“But, sir, if you please, I would rather not.”
EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS.
I recollect a nurse called Ann,
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a nice young man
Came up and kissed the pretty lass.
She did not make the least objection!
Thinks I, “Ah!
When I can talk, I’ll tell mamma”—
And that’s my earliest recollection.
Frederick Locker.
THE DISAPPOINTMENT.
Old Birch, who taught a village school,
Wedded a maid of homespun habit:
He was as stubborn as a mule,
And she was playful as a rabbit.
Poor Kate had scarce become a wife,
Before her husband sought to make her
The pink of country polished life,
And prim and formal as a Quaker.
One day the tutor went abroad,
And simple Katy sadly missed him:
When he returned, behind her lord
She slyly stole, and fondly kissed him.
The husband’s anger rose, and red
And white his face alternate grew.
“Less freedom, ma’am!”[32] Kate sighed, and said,
“Oh, dear! I didn’t know ’twas you!”
NON-COMPUTATION.
Old Jealousy would count our blisses;
Then give to me a thousand kisses,
Quick kissing me—quick kissing thee—
Oh, quick, oh, quick, the jade to trick!
O Ada, kiss so many kisses,
She, counting ever, ever misses.
Lessing.
BIANCA’S DREAM.
Meanwhile, remindful of the convent bars,
Bianca did not watch these signs in vain,
But turned to Julio at the dark eclipse,
With words like verbal kisses on her lips.
He took the hint full speedily, and, backed
By love, and night, and the occasion’s meetness,
Bestowed a something on her cheek that smacked
(Though quite in silence) of ambrosial sweetness,—
That made her think all other kisses lacked
Till then, but what she knew not, of completeness:
Being used but sisterly salutes to feel,
Insipid things—like sandwiches of veal.
Hood.
THE HONEY-MOON.
Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,
When such a bright planet governs the fate
Of a pair of united lovers!
’Tis theirs, in spite of the serpent’s hiss,
To enjoy the pure primeval kiss
With as much of the old original bliss
As mortality ever recovers.
Hood.
NO DOUBT OF IT.
She felt my lips’ impassioned touch,—
’Twas the first time I dared so much;
And yet she chid not,
But whispered o’er my burning brow,
“Oh! do you doubt I love you now?”
Sweet soul! I did not.
A REBUS.
“What is a rebus?” I asked of dear Mary,
As close by my side the dear maiden was seated:
I saw her eye droop and her countenance vary
As she said in reply, “’Tis a kiss, sir, repeated.”
THE DIFFERENCE.
My brother is shy,—I am not shy at all;
So, when there’s a mistletoe hung in our hall,
He manages always to miss all the kisses,
While I, on the contrary, kiss all the misses.
STOLEN KISSES.
Kiss her gently, but be sly;
Kiss her when there’s no one by;
Steal your kiss, for then ’tis meetest—
Stolen kisses are the sweetest.
THE REASON WHY.
An impertinent youth at Saratoga amused himself by exhibiting the following lines to some of the ladies at a hotel:
Men scorn to kiss among themselves,
And scarce would kiss a brother;
But women want to kiss so bad,
They kiss and kiss each other.
Whereupon a young lady pencilled this retort on the back of an envelope, and left it for the fool’s instruction:
Men do not kiss among themselves,
And it’s well that they refrain:
The bitter dose would vex them so,
They would never kiss again.
As sometimes on poor woman’s lip
Is applied this nauseous lotion,
We have to kiss among ourselves
As a counteracting potion.
THE INVENTOR OF KISSING.
When we dwell on the lips of the girl we adore,
What pleasure in Nature is missing?
May his soul be in heaven—he deserves it, I’m sure—
Who was first the inventor of kissing.
Master Adam, I verily think, was the man
Whose discovery can ne’er be surpast;
Then, since the sweet game with creation began,
To the end of the world may it last.
Wolcot.
FORGIVENESS.
Forgive thy foes; nor that alone;
Their evil deeds with good repay;
Fill those with joy who leave thee none,
And kiss the hand upraised to slay.
So does the fragrant sandal bow,
In meek forgiveness, to its doom,
And o’er the axe at every blow
Sheds in abundance rich perfume.
THE RIGHTS OF MEN.
While others, Delia, use their pen
To vindicate the rights of men,
Let us, more wise, to bliss attend:
Be ours the rights which they defend.
Those eyes that glow with love’s own fire,
And what they speak so well inspire;
That melting hand, that heaving breast,
That rises only to be prest;
That ivory neck, those lips of bliss
Which half invite the offered kiss;
These, these—and Love approves the plan—
I deem the dearest rights of man.
TO A PAINTED LADY IN THE OLDEN TIME.
Is’t for a grace, or is’t some dislike,
Where others give ye lippe you give the cheeke;
Some houlde it for a pride of your behaviour,
But I do rather count it as a favour.
Wherefore to shew my kindnesse and my love,
I leave both lippes and cheekes, and kisse your glove.
Now what’s the cause? To make you full acquainted,
Your glove’s perfumed, your lippes and cheekes bepainted.
THE SOURCE ALIKE OF LIFE AND DEATH.
Nature that gave the bee so feate a grace
To find honey of so wondrous fashion,
Hath taught the spyder out of the same place
To fetch poyson by strange alteration,
Though this be strange, it is a stranger case
With one kiss, by a secret operation,
Both these at once in those your lips to finde,
In change whereof I leave my heart behinde.
Sir Thomas Wyatt.
ON A LADY STUNG BY A BEE.
To heal the wound the bee had made
Upon my Delia’s face,
Its honey to the wound she laid,
And bid me kiss the place.
Pleased, I obeyed, and from the wound
Sucked both the sweet and smart:
The honey on my lips I found,
The sting went through my heart.