Poems (Dorr)/The Kiss

by Julia Caroline Dorr

For works with similar titles, see The Kiss.

THE KISS

When you lay before me dead,
 In your pallid rest,
On those passive lips of thine
 Not one kiss I pressed!

Did you wonder—looking down
 From some higher sphere—
Knowing how we two had loved
 Many and many a year?

Did you think me strange and cold
 When I did not touch,
Even with reverent finger-tips,
 What I had loved so much?

Ah! when last you kissed me, dear,
 Know you what you said?
"Take this last kiss, my beloved,
 Soon shall I be dead!

"Keep it for a solemn sign,
 Through our love's long night,
Till you give it back again
 On some morning bright."

So I gave you no caress;
 But, remembering this,
Warm upon my lips I keep
 Your last living kiss!