Famous Kiss Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Kiss poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous kiss poems. These examples illustrate what a famous kiss poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

See also:

The Kiss

by Edith Nesbit
 The snow is white on wood and wold,
The wind is in the firs,
So dead my heart is with the cold,
No pulse within it stirs,
Even to see your face, my dear,
Your face that was my sun;
There is no spring this bitter year,
And summer's dreams are done.

The snakes that lie about my heart
Are in their wintry sleep;
Their fangs no more deal...Read more of this...

Every Time I Kiss You

by Nizar Qabbani
 Every time I kiss you
After a long separation
I feel
I am putting a hurried love letter
In a red mailbox....Read more of this...

Alas Madam for Stealing of a Kiss

by Sir Thomas Wyatt
 Alas, madam, for stealing of a kiss
Have I so much your mind there offended?
Have I then done so grievously amiss
That by no means it may be amended? 

Then revenge you, and the next way is this:
Another kiss shall have my life ended, 
For to my mouth the first my heart did suck; 
The next shall clean out of my...Read more of this...

Kiss

by Ruth Padel
 He's gone. She can't believe it, can't go on. She's going to give up painting. So she paints Her final canvas, total-turn-off
Black. One long
Obsidian goodbye. A charcoal-burner's Smirnoff, The mirror of Loch Ness Reflecting the monster back to its own eye.
But something's wrong. Those mad Black-body particles don't sing Her story of despair, the steel and
Garnet spindle
Of the storm.
This...Read more of this...

The Kiss

by Siegfried Sassoon
 To these I turn, in these I trust; 
Brother Lead and Sister Steel. 
To his blind power I make appeal; 
I guard her beauty clean from rust. 

He spins and burns and loves the air, 
And splits a skull to win my praise; 
But up the nobly marching days 
She glitters naked, cold and fair. 

Sweet Sister, grant your...Read more of this...

A Kiss

by Thomas Lux
 One wave falling forward meets another wave falling
forward. Well-water,
hand-hauled, mineral, cool, could be
a kiss, or pastures
fiery green after rain, before
the grazers. The kiss -- like a shoal of fish whipped
one way, another way, like the fever dreams
of a million monkeys -- the kiss
carry me -- closer than your carotid artery -- to you...Read more of this...

Happiness And Vision

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 TOGETHER at the altar we
In vision oft were seen by thee,

Thyself as bride, as bridegroom I.
Oft from thy mouth full many a kiss
In an unguarded hour of bliss

I then would steal, while none were by.

The purest rapture we then knew,
The joy those happy hours gave too,

When tasted, fled, as time fleets on.
What now avails my joy to me?
Like dreams...Read more of this...

360. Song—Ae fond Kiss

by Robert Burns
 AE fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.


I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to...Read more of this...

The Kiss: A Dialogue

by Robert Herrick
 1 Among thy fancies, tell me this,
What is the thing we call a kiss?
2 I shall resolve ye what it is:--

It is a creature born and bred
Between the lips, all cherry-red,
By love and warm desires fed,--
CHOR. And makes more soft the bridal bed.

2 It is an active flame, that flies
First to the babies of the eyes,
And charms them there...Read more of this...

The Angels Kiss

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 An angel stood beside the bed 
Where lay the living and the dead. 
He gave the mother -- her who died -- 
A kiss that Christ the Crucified 

Had sent to greet the weary soul 
When, worn and faint, it reached its goal. 

He gave the infant kisses twain, 
One on the breast, one on the brain. 

"Go forth...Read more of this...

Never Try To Trick Me With A Kiss

by Sylvia Plath
 Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man...Read more of this...

240. Verses on a Parting Kiss

by Robert Burns
 HUMID seal of soft affections,
 Tenderest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
 Love’s first snowdrop, virgin kiss!


Speaking silence, dumb confession,
 Passion’s birth, and infant’s play,
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,
 Glowing dawn of future day!


Sorrowing joy, Adieu’s last action,
 (Lingering lips must now disjoin),
What words can ever speak affection
 So thrilling and sincere as thine!...Read more of this...

She is Overheard Singing

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 OH, Prue she has a patient man,
And Joan a gentle lover,
And Agatha's Arth' is a hug-the-hearth,­
But my true love's a rover! 

Mig, her man's as good as cheese
And honest as a briar,
Sue tells her love what he's thinking of,­
But my dear lad's a liar! 

Oh, Sue and Prue and Agatha
Are thick with Mig and Joan!
They bite their threads and...Read more of this...

The Kiss

by Edith Nesbit
 My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby , you fool!

Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see -- Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was...Read more of this...

Ae Fond Kiss And Then We Sever

by Robert Burns
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy;
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was...Read more of this...

546. Song—Jockie's taen the parting Kiss

by Robert Burns
 JOCKEY’S taen the parting kiss,
 O’er the mountains he is gane,
And with him is a’ my bliss,
 Nought but griefs with me remain,
Spare my Love, ye winds that blaw,
 Plashy sleets and beating rain!
Spare my Love, thou feath’ry snaw,
 Drifting o’er the frozen plain!


When the shades of evening creep
 O’er the day’s fair, gladsome e’e,
Sound and safely may he...Read more of this...

Ave Imperatrix

by Oscar Wilde
 Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires...Read more of this...

Phoebus with Admetus

by George Meredith
 WHEN by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked, 
 Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God, 
Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked, 
 Who: and what a track show'd the upturn'd sod! 
Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe 
 Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide, 
How the rustic flute drew the silver...Read more of this...

A Riddle: On A Kiss

by William Strode
 What thing is that, nor felt nor seene
Till it bee given? a present for a Queene:
A fine conceite to give and take the like:
The giver yet is farther for to seeke;
The taker doth possesse nothing the more,
The giver hee hath nothing lesse in store:
And given once that nature hath it still,
You cannot keepe or leave it if you will:
The...Read more of this...

The Fairy Temple; Or Oberons Chapel

by Robert Herrick
 THE FAIRY TEMPLE; OR, OBERON'S CHAPEL

DEDICATED TO MR JOHN MERRIFIELD,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW

RARE TEMPLES THOU HAST SEEN, I KNOW,
AND RICH FOR IN AND OUTWARD SHOW;
SURVEY THIS CHAPEL BUILT, ALONE,
WITHOUT OR LIME, OR WOOD, OR STONE.
THEN SAY, IF ONE THOU'ST SEEN MORE FINE
THAN THIS, THE FAIRIES' ONCE, NOW THINE.

THE TEMPLE

A way enchaced with glass and beads
There is, that to the Chapel...Read more of this...

The Phantom Kiss

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
One night in my room, still and beamless,
With will and with thought in eclipse,
I rested in sleep that was dreamless;
When softly there fell on my lips
A touch, as of lips that were pressing
Mine own with the message of bliss—
A sudden, soft, fleeting caressing,
A breath like a maiden's first kiss.
I woke-and the scoffer may doubt me—
I peered in surprise through the...Read more of this...

A Fantasy

by Louise Gluck
 I'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. And that's just the beginning.
Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born,
new orphans. They sit with their hands folded,
trying to decide about this new life.

Then they're in the cemetery, some of them
for the first time. They're frightened of crying,
sometimes of not crying. Someone leans over,
tells them what to do next,...Read more of this...

A Fallen Leaf

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 A trusting little leaf of green,
A bold audacious frost;
A rendezvous, a kiss or two,
And youth for ever lost.
Ah, me!
The bitter, bitter cost.

A flaunting patch of vivid red,
That quivers in the sun;
A windy gust, a grave of dust,
The little race is run.
Ah, me!
Were that the only one....Read more of this...

Church Monuments

by George Herbert
 While that my soul repairs to her devotion,
Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust;
To which the blast of death's incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

My body to this school, that it may learn 
To spell his elements, and find his birth
Written in...Read more of this...

On the Threshold

by Amy Levy
 O God, my dream! I dreamed that you were dead;
Your mother hung above the couch and wept
Whereon you lay all white, and garlanded
With blooms of waxen whiteness. I had crept
Up to your chamber-door, which stood ajar,
And in the doorway watched you from afar,
Nor dared advance to kiss your lips and brow.
I had no part nor lot in you, as...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Kiss poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace