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.