Numberless poets have varied the theme of the quenching yet burning kisses of love.
O'er me flows in streams delicious
Kisses' rosy and glowing rain,
sings Waldemar at his meeting with Tove, and Aarestrup laments:
In vain I'm seeking
In ev'ry land,
Thy sweetness burning
Of mouth and hand.
This "burning sweetness" seems to be an indubitable characteristic of a genuine love kiss; we even find it again in Heine:
The world's an ass, the world can't see,
Thy character not knowing,
It knows not how sweet thy kisses be,
How rapturously glowing.
The emotions consequent on the first kiss have been described in the old naïve, but, nevertheless, exceedingly delicate love-story, of Daphnis and Chloe. As a reward Chloe has bestowed a kiss on Daphnis—an innocent young-maid's kiss, but it has on him the effect of an electrical shock:
