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.

The Kiss by Robert Graves