The literature of kissing

by Charles C. Bombaugh

And when she took that pinch of Maccabaw

That made my love so delicately sneeze,

Thee to her Roman nose applied I saw;

And thou art doubly dear for things like these.

No washerwoman’s filthy hand shall e’er,

Sweet pocket-handkerchief! thy worth profane;

For thou hast touched the rubies of my fair,

And I will kiss thee o’er and o’er again.

Scotch song abounds with pleasant allusions to the custom of kissing, like this, for example, from a well-known West Highland ditty: