to refrain from speculating as to what it actually is.
What says this glance? What meaning lurks in this
Squeezing of hands, embrace, and ling'ring kiss?
This only can your heart explain to you.
What have such matters with the brain to do?
So, for instance, says Aarestrup; but he adds as a sort of explanation—
But when I see thee my fond kiss denying,
And straightway, nathless, mine embrace not spurning,
Then needs must I to tedious arts be turning,
And let crabb'd wisdom from my lips go flying.
Know then the voice alone interprets rightful
And with poetic fire from heart's depth welleth,
And yet the sweetest of them all by no means!
Whereas the bosom, arms, and lips, and eye-sheens—
How shall I call it? for the total swelleth
Unto a language wordless as delightful.
which has not brought us nearer to a solution of the question. Other poets give us an allegorical transcription, couched in vague poetical terms, which rather refer to the feelings of which the kiss may be an expression than attempt to define its physiology. Thus Paul Verlaine defines a kiss as "the fiery accompaniment on the key-
