Of facile falsehood and persuasive speech;
And hence, of one who talks in such a tone,
The peasants say, “He’s kissed the Blarney Stone.”
The famous “soulful” kiss given to Fatima suggests the thought that such kisses are by no means new, though, in the present day, they may be out of fashion. In “Don Juan” Byron speaks of
Such kisses as belong to early days,
When heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move.
Diagnosing such a kiss, the poet informs us that on such occasions the blood is like lava, the pulse is all ablaze, and each kiss of that kind he declares is a “heart-quake.”
In the time of Herrick there was an anonymous poet who thus philosophized on the “soulful kiss”:
Philosophers pretend to tell
How, like a hermit in his cell,