Thomas Hardy — A Kiss

By a wall the stranger now calls his, Was born of old a particular kiss, Without forethought in its genesis; Which in a trice took wing on the air. And where that spot is nothing shows:         There ivy calmly grows,         And no one knows         What a birth was there! That kiss is gone where none can tell - Not even those who felt its spell: It cannot have died; that know we well. Somewhere it pursues its flight, One of a long procession of sounds         Travelling aethereal rounds         Far from earth's bounds         In the infinite.