IF YOU WANT A KISS, WHY, TAKE IT

THERE’S a jolly Saxon proverb

That is pretty much like this—

That a man is half in heaven

If he has a woman’s kiss.

There is danger in delaying,

For the sweetness may forsake it;

So I tell you, bashful lover,

If you want a kiss, why, take it.

Never let another fellow

Steal a march on you in this;

Never let a laughing maiden

See you spoiling for a kiss.

There’s a royal way to kissing,

And the jolly ones who make it

Have a motto that is winning,—

If you want a kiss, why, take it.

Any fool may face a cannon,

Anybody wear a crown,

But a man must win a woman

If he’d have her for his own.

Would you have the golden apple,

You must find the tree and shake it;

If the thing is worth the having,

And you want a kiss, why take it.

Who would burn upon a desert

With a forest smiling by?

Who would change his sunny summer

For a bleak and wintry sky?

Oh, I tell you there is magic,

And you cannot, cannot break it;

For the sweetest part of loving

Is to want a kiss, and take it.

Anonymous.