The roguish mouth with the white teeth and the moist red, delicately-shaped lips say to every man who is not made of marble, “Kiss me, kiss me”:
Her fresh mouth’s playing
Seems ever saying
To kiss I am fain
Again, again.
W. F. H.
How human is Byron’s wish that all women had but one mouth so that he might kiss them all at the same time:
That womankind had but one rosy mouth,
To kiss them all at once from north to south.
Runeberg has uttered a similar wish, and with a minute account of his reasons:
I gaze on a bevy of damsels,
I’m gazing and gazing incessant,
The fairest of all I’ll be choosing,
And yet as to choice I’m uncertain;
For one has the brightest of bright eyes,
Another girl’s cheeks are more rosy,
A third one’s lips are the riper,
The fourth has a heart far more tender.
There isn’t a single maid lacking
A something that captures my senses.
There isn’t one there I’d say “no” to,
Oh, would I might kiss the whole bevy!
W. F. H.
Even an ecclesiastic such as Æneas Silvius Piccolomini, when wishing to describe how beautiful and fascinating a young girl was, writes that “no one could see her without being seized at once with a desire to kiss her.” So as not to shock my readers, I may mention that he wrote this before he was made Pope and assumed the name of Pius II.
It ought now to be taken as proved that women—beautiful women—and kisses are of a piece. It is at the same time nature’s ordinance, and we find it verified in all countries and in all ages. Odin himself says, you know, in Hávamál, where he instructs mortals in the wisdom of life:
Ships are for voyages,
And shields for ward,
Sword-blades to smite,
And maids to kiss.
W. F. H.
And the Greeks sing: “Wine belongs to chestnuts, honey to nuts, and kisses morning and night to young maids.”