LOVE-KISSES
The happiest moment in the life of the happiest man is that when he is allowed for the first time to “steal immortal blessing” from the lips of her who has just promised to be his for ever. No wonder the poets have grown eloquent over this supreme moment of pre-heavenly rapture—
Tennyson—
“O love[“O love], O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.”
Moore—
“Grow to my lips thou sacred kiss.”
Shakspere—
“As if he plucked up kisses by the root
That grew upon my lips.”
Rückert—
“Meine Liebste, mit den frommen treuen
Braunen Rehesaugen, sagt, sie habe
Blaue einst als Kind gehabt. Ich glaub’es.
Neulich da ich, seliges Vergessen
Trinkend hing an ihren Lippen,
Meine Augen unterm langen Kusse
Oeffnend, schaut’ ich in die nahen ihren,
Und sie kamen mir in solcher Nähe
Tiefblau wie ein Himmel vor. Was ist das
Wer gibt dir der Kindheit Augen wieder?
Deine Liebe, sprach sie, deine Liebe,
Die mich hat zum Kind gemacht, die alle
Liebesunschuldsträume meiner Kindheit
Hat gereift zu sel’ger Erfüllung.
Soll der Himmel nicht, der mir im Herzen
Steht durch dich, mir blau durch’s Auge blicken?”
Love-kisses are silent like deep affection—
“Passions are likened best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.”—Raleigh.
True, Petruchio kissed Katrina “with such a clamorous smack, that at the parting all the church did echo”; but his object was not to express his Love, but to tease and tame the shrew. Loud kisses, moreover, might betray the lovers to profane ears, and bring on a fatal attack of Coyness on the girl’s part—
“The greatest sin ’twixt heaven and hell
Is first to kiss and then to tell.”
Love-kisses are passionate and long; for Love is Cupid’s lip-cement—
“Oh, a kiss, long as my exile,
Sweet as my revenge.”—Shakspere.
“A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love.”
“For a kiss’s strength
I think it must be measured by its length.”—Byron.
“A kiss now that will hang upon my lip
As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,
And full as long.”—Thomas Middleton.
Perhaps the longest kiss on record is that which Siegfried gives Brünnhilde in the drama of Siegfried. But this is not an ordinary kiss, for the hero has to wake with it the Valkyrie from the twenty years’ sleep into which old Wotan had plunged her for disobeying his orders. Thanks to Wagner’s art, the thrill of this Love-kiss, magically transmuted into tones, is felt by a thousand spectators simultaneously with the lover.
Love-kisses are innumerable. Thus sings the Italian poet, Cecco Angiolieri, in the thirteenth century—
“Because the stars are fewer in heaven’s span
Than all those kisses wherewith I kept time
All in an instant (I who now have none!)
Upon her mouth (I and no other man!)
So sweetly on the twentieth day of June
On the New Year twelve hundred ninety-one.”
Rossetti’s Transl.
Novelists and poets have exhausted their ingenuity in finding adjectives descriptive of Love-kisses and others. An anonymous essayist has compiled the following list:—
“Kisses are forced, unwilling, cold, comfortless, frigid, and frozen, chaste, timid, rosy, balmy, humid, dewy, trembling, soft, gentle, tender, tempting, fragrant, sacred, hallowed, divine, soothing, joyful, affectionate, delicious, rapturous, deep-drawn, impressive, quick, and nervous, warm, burning, impassioned, inebriating, ardent, flaming, and akin to fire, ravishing, lingering, long. One also hears of parting, tear-dewed, savoury, loathsome, poisonous, treacherous, false, rude, stolen, and great fat, noisy kisses.”