Oh, might thy lips but meet with mine,
My soul should melt away in thine.
Of course the poets have had a good deal to say about lips. Anacreon speaks of “lip-provoking kisses,” and, alluding to the lip of another fair one, calls it a “sweet petitioner for kisses.” Tatius speaks of “lips soft and delicate for kissing;” and Lucretius gave it as his opinion that girls who have large lips kiss much sweeter than others. The ancient ladies seemed to enter into kissing with such enthusiasm that they often bit their lovers. Cattalus, in one of his poems, asks:
Whom wilt thou for thy lover choose?
Whose shall they call thee, false one, whose?
Who shall thy darted kisses sip,
While thy keen love-bites scar his lip!
And Horace, in one of his odes, says:
Or on thy lips the fierce, fond boy
Marks with his teeth the furious joy.