Robert Graves: The Kiss

 

The Kiss

Are you shaken, are you stirred
    By a whisper of love,
Spellbound to a word
    Does Time cease to move,
Till her calm grey eye
    Expands to a sky
And the clouds of her hair
    Like storms go by?
 
Then the lips that you have kissed
    Turn to frost and fire,
And a white-steaming mist
    Obscures desire:
So back to their birth
    Fade water, air, earth,
And the First Power moves
    Over void and dearth.

Is that Love? no, but Death,
    A passion, a shout,
The deep in-breath,
    The breath roaring out,
And once that is flown,
    You must lie alone,
Without hope, without life,
    Poor flesh, sad bone.


Robert Graves






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