What Kisses Had John Keats?

Robert William Service

I scanned two lines with some surmise
As over Keats I chanced to pore:
‘And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
               With kisses four.’

Says I: ‘Why was it only four,
Not five or six or seven?
I think I would have made it more,—
               Even eleven.

‘Gee! If she’d lured a guy like me
Into her gelid grot
I’d make that Belle Dame sans Merci
               Sure kiss a lot.

‘Them poets have their little tricks;
I think John counted kisses for,
Not two or three or five or six
               To rhyme with “sore.”‘

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