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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Kiss V

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Kiss V

By Joannes Secundus (1511–1536)
 
(From Kisses; translated by John Nott, 1775)

WHILE tenderly around me cast
Your arms, Neaera, hold me fast;
And hanging o’er, to view confest,
Your neck, and gently-heaving breast;
Down on my shoulders soft decline        5
Your beauties more than half divine;
With wand’ring looks that o’er me rove,
And fire the melting soul with love:
 
  While you, Neaera, fondly join
Your little pouting lips with mine;        10
And frolic bite your am’rous swain,
Complaining soft if bit again;
And sweetly-murm’ring pour along
The trembling accents of your tongue,
Your tongue, now here now there that strays,        15
Now here now there delighted plays;
That now my humid kisses sips,
Now wanton darts between my lips;
And on my bosom raptured lie,
Venting the gently-whisper’d sigh;        20
A sigh that kindles warm desires,
And kindly fans life’s drooping fires;
Soft as the zephyr’s breezy wing,
And balmy as the breath of spring:
 
  While you, sweet nymph! with am’rous play,        25
In kisses suck my breath away;
My breath with wasting warmth replete,
Parch’d by my breast’s contagious heat;
Till, breathing soft, you pour again
Returning life through every vein;        30
Thus soothe to rest my passion’s rage,
Love’s burning fever thus assuage:
Sweet nymph! whose breath can best allay
Those fires that on my bosom prey,
Breath welcome as the cooling gale,        35
That blows when scorching heats prevail!
Then, more than blest, I fondly swear,
“No power can with Love’s power compare!
None in the starry court of Jove
Is greater than the god of Love!        40
If any can yet greater be,
Yes, my Neaera! ye, ’tis thee!”