The Kiss
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
In these two lines, Graves alludes to the fact that one’s anger, or the “white-steaming mist” would block out feeligs of desire towards someone. It’s almost like steppig from a hot shower into a steamy bathroom where your vision is obscured. While you’ve navigated the bathroom hundreds of times, the only feeling you have is a sense of being lost. The steam in the poem blocks out all feelings of desire towards the owner of subject of the poem. 
