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.