Alexander Brome

Out of Catallus

My Lesbia, let us live and love,
Let crabbed Age talk what it will.
The sun when down, returns above,
But we, once dead, must be so still.

Kiss me a thousand times, and then
Give me a hundred kisses more,
Now kiss a thousand times again,
Then t'other hundred as before.

Come, a third thousand, and to those,
Another hundred kisses fix;
That done, to make the sweeter close,
We'll millions of kisses mix.

And huddle them together so,
That we ourselves shan't know how many,
And others can't their number know,
If we should envied be by any.

And then, when we have done all this,
That our pleasures may remain,
We'll continue on our bliss,
By unkissing all again.

Thus we'll love, and thus we'll live,
While our posting minutes fly,
We'll have no time to vex or grieve,
But kiss and unkiss till we die.