Jenny kissed me. Poet Leigh Hunt had been ill for several weeks during an influenza epidemic that had taken many lives, when he suddenly recovered and unexpectedly visited his friend Jane (“Jenny”) Welsh Carlyle. Mrs. Carlyle impulsively jumped up and kissed him as he came in the door. This inspired Hunt’s famous verse: Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in: Say I’m weary, say I’m sad. Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I’m growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me. |