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.
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.
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