The Kiss: A Dialogue
by Robert Herrick
1 Among thy fancies, tell me this,
What is the thing we call a kiss?
2 I shall resolve ye what it is:–
It is a creature born and bred
Between the lips, all cherry-red,
By love and warm desires fed,–
CHOR. And makes more soft the bridal bed.
2 It is an active flame, that flies
First to the babies of the eyes,
And charms them there with lullabies,–
CHOR. And stills the bride, too, when she cries.
2 Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear,
It frisks and flies, now here, now there:
‘Tis now far off, and then ’tis near,–
CHOR. And here, and there, and every where.
1 Has it a speaking virtue? 2 Yes.
1 How speaks it, say? 2 Do you but this,–
Part your join’d lips, then speaks your kiss;
CHOR. And this Love’s sweetest language is.
1 Has it a body? 2 Ay, and wings,
With thousand rare encolourings;
And as it flies, it gently sings–
CHOR. Love honey yields, but never stings.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry.
Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.
Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:
Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)
