Song XXXVI. Kissing

Ye delicate lovelies, with leave, I maintain That happiness here you may find. To yourselves I appeal for Felicity's reign When you meet with a man to your mind.

When Gratitude Friendship to Fondness unites, Inexpressive endearments arise: Then hopes, fears, and fancies, strange doubts, and delights, Are announc'd by those tell tales, the eyes.

Those technical terms, in the science of Love, Cold schoolmen attempt to describe, But how should they paint what they never can prove? For Tenderness knows not their tribe.

Of all the abuse on enjoyment that's thrown, The treatment Love takes most amiss, Is the rant of the coxcomb, the sot, and the clown, Who pretend to indulge on a Kiss.

The love of a fribble at self only aims: For sots and clowns—class them with beasts. No fibre, no atom, have they in their frames, To relish such delicate feasts.

In circling embraces, when lips to lips move, Description, oh! teach me to praise The Overture KISS to th' Op'ra of Love— But Beauty wou'd laugh at the phrase.

Love's preludes are Kisses, and, after the play, They fill up the pause of delight. The rich repetitions, which never decay, The Lip's silent language at night.

The raptures of KISSING we only can taste, When sympathies equal inspire; And while to enjoyment, unbounded, we haste, Their breath blows the coals of desire.

Again, and again, and again Beauty sips; What feelings these pressures excite? When fleeting life's stopp'd by a Kiss of the lips, Then sinks in a sigh of delight.

Whilst our glasses we kiss, and we frolick at ease, Of Happiness ne'er may we miss; May we live as we list, may we kiss whom we please, And may we still please whom we kiss.