What is a kiss? alacke! at worst, A single drop to quench a thirst, Tho’ oft it proves in happier hour The first sweet drop of one long shower.
Robert Herrick, the old English divine, says of a kiss:
It isn’t creature born and bred Between the lips all cherry red; It is an active flame that flies First to the babies of the eyes; Then to the cheek, the chin, the ear; It frisks and flies—now here, now there; ’Tis now far off, and then ’tis near; Here and there and everywhere.
Among short definitions we have that of the old Georgia farmer who caught a young couple kissing on a train that was passing through a tunnel, and called the act “dipping sugar.” A kiss is like a rumor, because it goes from mouth to mouth; its shape is a lip-tickle; as a grammatical part of speech it is a conjunction; kisses are the interrogation points in the literature of love. Then again, kissing has been called lip-service and has been defined as the prologue to sin; more often, let us hope, it is simply a sweetmeat which satisfies the hunger of the heart.
Martial, the old satirist, has called the kisses of his favorite “the fragrance of balsam extracted from aromatic trees; the ripe odor yielded by the teeming saffron; the perfume of fruits mellowing in their winter repository; the flowery meadows in the vernal season; amber warmed by the hand of a maiden; a garden that attracts the bees.”
Kisses have been called the balm of love; Cupid’s seal; the lover’s fee; the fee of parting; the first and last of joys; the homage of the life; the hostage of promise; love’s chief sign; love’s language; love’s mintage; love’s print; love’s tribute; love’s rhetoric; the nectar of Venus; the pledge of bliss and love; the seal of bliss; the melting sip, and the stamp of love.
Johannas Secundus says to his sweetheart:
’Tis not a kiss you give, my love! ’Tis richest nectar from above! A fragrant shower of balmy dews, Which thy sweet lips alone diffuse! ’Tis every aromatic breeze, That wafts from Africa’s spicy trees; ’Tis honey from the osier hive, Which chymist bees with care derive From all the newly opened flowers That bloom in Cecrop’s roseate bowers, Or from the breathing sweets that grow On famed Hymettus’ thymy brow.