A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love,
And beauty, all concentrating like rays
Into one focus, kindled from above;
Such kisses as belong to early days,
When heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move,
And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze,
Each kiss a heart-quake,—for a kiss’s strength,
I think, it must be reckoned by its length.
By length I mean duration; theirs endured
Heaven knows how long—no doubt they never reckoned;