Il Bacio
KISS! Hollyhock in Love’s luxuriant close!
Brisk music played on pearly little keys;
In tempo with the witching melodies
Love in the ardent heart repeating goes.
Sonorous, graceful Kiss, hail! Kiss divine!
Unequalled boon, unutterable bliss!
Man, bent o’er thine enthralling chalice, Kiss,
Grows drunken with a rapture only thine!
Thou comfortest as music does, and wine,
And grief dies smothered in thy purple fold.
Let one greater than I, Kiss, and more bold,
Rear thee a classic, monumental line.
Humble Parisian bard, this infantile
Bouquet of rhymes I tender half in fear....
Be gracious, and in guerdon, on the dear
Red lips of One I know, a light and smile!
Paul Verlaine.