They look’d up to the sky, whose floating glow Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; They gazed upon the glittering sea below, Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight; They heard the waves splash, and the wind so low, And saw each other’s dark eyes darting light Into each other--and, beholding this, Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss. CLXXXVI A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love, And beauty, all concentrating like rays Into one focus, kindled from above: Such kisses as belong to early days Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move, And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze, Each kiss a heart-quake--for a kiss’s strength, I think, it must be reckoned by its length. CLXXXVII By length I mean duration; theirs endured Heaven knows how long--no doubt they never reckon’d; And if they had, they could not have secured The sum of their sensations to a second: They had not spoken; but they felt allured, As if their souls and lips each other beckon’d, Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung-- Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung. CLXXXVIII They were alone, but not alone as they Who shut in chambers think it loneliness; The silent ocean, and the starlight bay, The twilight glow, which momently grew less, The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay Around them, made them to each other press, As if there were no life beneath the sky Save theirs, and that their life could never die. CLXXXIX They fear’d no eyes nor ears on that lone beach, They felt no terrors from the night; they were All in all to each other: though their speech Was broken words, they thought a language there; And all the burning tongues the passions teach Found in one sigh the best interpreter Of Nature’s oracle--first love--that all Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall. CXC Haidée spoke not of scruples, ask’d no vows Nor offered any; she had never heard Of plight and promises to be a spouse Or perils by a loving maid incurr’d; She was all which pure ignorance allows, And flew to her young mate like a young bird; And never having dreamt of falsehood, she Had not one word to say of constancy.’ “Isn’t this poetry? Wouldn’t any of the minor poets of to-day be surprised and pleased to have found that they had written these stanzas and those which follow until the passage ends thus-- CXCVI