THE KISS IN METAPHOR.
MORNING SONG.
Speed, zephyr! kiss each opening flower,
Its fragrant spirit make thine own,
Then wing thy way to Rosa’s bower,’
Ere her light sleep is flown.
There, o’er her downy pillow fly,
Wake the sweet maid to life and day:
Breathe on her balmy lip a sigh,
And o’er her bosom play.
Mrs. Hemans.
SUNRISE ON THE HILLS.
I stood upon the hills, when heaven’s wide arch
Was glorious with the sun’s returning march,
And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.
Longfellow.
SPRING.
No icy fetters hold the stream;
The sun’s bright beam
Comes dancing o’er it to my feet;
The violets that skirt the bank
Bend down to thank
The laughing stream with kisses sweet.
SPRING FLOWERS
Spring has come with a smile of blessing,
Kissing the earth with her soft warm breath,
Till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing,
And wakes from the winter’s dream of death.
THE VIOLETS.
Close by the roots of moss-grown stumps,—
The sweetest and the first to blow,—
The blue-eyed violets, in clumps,
Kiss one another as they grow;
And, kissing one another, blend
Their dewy tears upon the earth,
And purest fragrance upward send,
Unconscious types of modest worth!
SPRING SONG.
When the soft winds blow,
And kiss away the snow,—
When the bluebirds sing,
For the dear warm spring,—
Then we’ll go a-Maying,
Through the meadows straying.
Rose Terry.
AUTUMN.
Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird,
Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned,
And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved.
Longfellow.
THE EVENING WIND.
The faint old man shall lean his silver head
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep.
Bryant.
THE CRIMSON SUNSET.
Fall on her, tell her dying glow,
How I am dreaming of her here,
And kiss for me her snowy brow;
Love, I am weak with hope and fear,
Thinking of thee.
Hone.
THE MOON-BEAM.
The silver light, so pale and faint,
Showed many a prophet, and many a saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst, his cross of red
Triumphant Michael brandishèd,
And trampled the Apostate’s pride.
The moon-beam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.
Scott.
THE LIGHT FROM THE TOMB.
No earthly flame blazed e’er so bright:
It shone like heaven’s own blessed light,
And, issuing from the tomb,
Showed the monk’s cowl, and visage pale,
Danced on the dark-browed warrior’s mail,
And kissed his waving plume.
Scott.
TIME AND TIDE.
The bridegroom sea
Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride,
And in the fulness of his marriage joy
He decorates her tawny brow with shells,
Retires a pace to see how fair she looks,
Then, proud, runs up to kiss her.
THE LIGHT-HOUSE.
It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp
The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace;
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.
Longfellow.
THE GROWING CORN.
Then, like a column of Corinthian mould,
The stalk struts upward and the leaves unfold;
The bushy branches all the ridges fill,
Entwine their arms, and kiss from hill to hill.
Barlow.
FROM THE PSALMS OF DAVID.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.—lxxxv. 10.
PARAPHRASE.
In the book of Deuteronomy, ch. xxxiv. v. 5, occurs the sentence, “So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.” The literal rendering of the last words is, “by the mouth of the Lord,” or, as the Hebrews express it, “with a kiss from the mouth of God.” It is thus paraphrased by an old English poet:
Softly his fainting head he lay
Upon his Maker’s breast;
His Maker kissed his soul away,
And laid his flesh to rest.
TO CELIA.
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
Ben Jonson.
FROM ANACREON.
The shadowy grove,
Where, in the tempting guise of love,
Reclining sleeps some witching maid,
Whose sunny charms, but half displayed,
Blush through the bower, that, closely twined,
Excludes the kisses of the wind.
Ode 59.
LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY.
The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
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?
Shelley.
FROM PLATO.
Kissing Helena, together
With my kiss, my soul beside it
Came to my lips, and there I kept it,—
For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it;
Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!
Shelley.
FROM “THE LOVER’S CREED.”
I believe if I should die,
And you should kiss my eyelids when I lie
Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,
The folded orbs would open at your breath,
And, from its exile in the Isles of Death,
Life would come gladly back along my veins.
NATURE’S MINISTRATIONS.
Nature’s voice
Bids thee hie fieldward and rejoice;
She calls thee from unhallowed mirth
To walk with beauty o’er the earth;
Proudly she calls thee forth, and now
Prints blandest kisses on thy brow;
On lip, on cheek, on bosom bare,
She pours the balmy morning air.
Motherwell.
“GENTLEST OF MY FRIENDS.”
The branches of the trees
Bend down thy touch to meet,
The clover-blossoms in the grass
Rise up to kiss thy feet.
Longfellow.
THE RELEASED CAPTIVE.
The hour which back to summer’s light
Calls the worn captive, with the gentle kiss
Of winds, and gush of waters, and the sight
Of the green earth.
Mrs. Hemans.
FROM “PHILASTER.”
Let me love lightning, let me be embraced
And kissed by scorpions, or adore the eyes
Of basilisks, rather than trust the tongues
Of hell-bred women.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
FROM “THE TRAITOR.”
Does not
That death’s head look most temptingly? the worms
Have kissed the lips off.
Shirley.
FROM “THE DYING SOLDIER.”
And here upon the battle ground,
Exhausted with the march and fight,
And sickened with the dreary sight
Of the red carnage all around,
I sigh to taste one cooling breath
Blown from the icy hills and sea;
Then welcome as a bride’s to me
Would be the gentle kiss of Death.
MARY IN HEAVEN.
Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore
O’erhung with wild woods thickening green.
Burns.
QUEEN GUINEVERE.
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth, for this,
To waste his whole heart on one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
Tennyson.
THE PARTING.
The trance gave way
To those caresses, when a hundred times
In that last kiss, which never was the last,
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.
Tennyson.
THE POET’S FOOD.
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the aërial kisses
Of shapes that haunt Thought’s wildernesses.
Shelley.
SLEEP.
Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again.
Shelley.