"The Kiss" (of Death), Poem by Robert Graves

12 / 26 / 2013

Poem of the Day: The Kiss BY ROBERT GRAVES Are you shaken, are you stirred     By a whisper of love, Spellbound to a word     Does Time cease to move, Till her calm grey eye     Expands to a sky And the clouds of her hair     Like storms go by?   Then the lips that you have kissed     Turn to frost and fire, And a white-steaming mist     Obscures desire: So back to their birth     Fade water, air, earth, And the First Power moves     Over void and dearth. Is that Love? no, but Death,     A passion, a shout, The deep in-breath,     The breath roaring out, And once that is flown,     You must lie alone, Without hope, without life,     Poor flesh, sad bone. ROBERT GRAVES Biography  More poems by this author