Modest matrons, maidens, say, Why thus turn your looks away? Frolic feats of lawless love, Of the lustful powers above, Forms obscene that shock the sight, In my verse I ne’er recite,— Verse where naught indecent reigns; Guiltless are my tender strains, Such as pedagogues austere Might with strict decorum hear, Might, with no licentious speech, To their youth reproachless teach. I, chaste votary of the Nine, Kisses sing of chaste design. Maids and matrons yet, with rage, Frown upon my blameless page,— Frown, because some wanton word Here and there by chance occurred, Or the cheated fancy caught Some obscure though harmless thought. Hence, ye prudish matrons! hence, Squeamish maids devoid of sense! And shall these in virtue dare With my virtuous maid compare,— She who in the bard will prize What she’ll in his lays despise? Wantonness with love agrees, But reserve in verse must please. KISS XIII. With amorous strife exanimate I lay; Around your neck my languid arm I threw; My trembling heart had just forgot to play, Its vital spirit from my bosom flew;— The Stygian lake, the dreary realms below, To which the sun a cheering beam denies, Old Charon’s boat, slow-wandering to and fro, Promiscuous passed before my swimming eyes,— When you, Neæra! with your humid breath O’er my parched lips the deep-fetched kiss bestowed Sudden my fleeting soul returned from death, And freightless hence the infernal pilot rowed. Yet soft,—for, oh, my erring senses stray;— Not quite unfreighted to the Stygian shore Old Charon steered his lurid bark away: My plaintive shade he to the Manes bore. Then, since my soul can here no more remain, A part of thine, sweet life, that loss supplies! But what this feeble fabric must sustain, If of thy soul that part its aid denies! And much I fear; for, struggling to be free, Oft from its new abode it fain would roam; Oft seeks, impatient to return to thee, Some secret pass to gain its native home. Unless thy fostering breath retards its flight, It now prepares to quit this falling frame: Haste, then; to mine thy clinging lips unite, And let one spirit feed each vital flame, Till, after frequent ecstasies of bliss, Mutual, unsating to the impassioned heart, From bodies thus conjoined, in one long kiss, That single life which nourished both shall part. KISS XIV. Those tempting lips of scarlet glow Why pout with fond, bewitching art? For to those lips, Neæra, know, My lips shall not one kiss impart. Perhaps you’d have me greatly prize, Hard-hearted fair, your precious kiss; But learn, proud mortal, I despise Such cold, such unimpassioned bliss. Think’st thou I calmly feel the flame That all my rending bosom fires, And patient bear, through all my frame, The pangs of unallayed desires?