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 reckoned; 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 beckoned, Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung-- Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.[ca]

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.