"O Blush not so!"

O blush not so! O blush not so!
      Or I shall think you knowing;
And if you smile the blushing while,
      Then maidenheads are going.

There's a blush for want, and a blush for shan't,
      And a blush for having done it;
There's a blush for thought, and a blush for nought,
      And a blush for just begun it.

O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
      For it sounds of Eve's sweet pippin;
By these loosen'd lips you have tasted the pips
      And fought in an amorous nipping.

Will you play once more at nice-cut-core,
      For it only will last our youth out,
And we have the prime of the kissing time,
      We have not one sweet tooth out.

There's a sigh for aye, and a sigh for nay,
      And a sigh for "I can't bear it!"
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?
      O cut the sweet apple and share it!

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Indeed, let's cut the sweet apple and share it... such hot stuff, that Keats!

I had to share with you this about blushing: it's my péché mignon to make people blush. It's lovely. It's one of the rare times that one sees true emotion. 

I rarely blush but when I do, it's because something that was said was very true and I wanted terribly to hide it but cannot. That is generally the reason that people blush, because of this very struggle. 

There is the question of shyness, but shyness is always meant to hide something, isn't it? Some people's skin type makes them blush more than others, or more visibly so and there is even a phobia associated to this called "ereuthophobia". It sounds mad but most phobias sound mad and I believe stem from the same lack of self-esteem or of confidence, but of course are generally very profound and take years to surmount. 

What is fascinating about blushing also (and this is my favorite detail): monkeys don't do it.

I love that people love to compare themselves to monkeys, like a certain number of them with typewriters coming up with Shakespeare and such nonsense. Let those who like to compare us to apes know that they could not have come up with Keats!

Professor Frans de Wall at Emory University in Georgia claims that the human capacity to blush is a way of signaling emotion that animals do not possess, not even our famous "cousins", chimpanzees. Blushing is one of the last stumpers of the defenders of evolutionary theory, including Darwin himself who wrestled with the question to no avail.

Dr. Frédéric Saldmann, a nutritionist who writes about health and hygiene, published a book last year about blushing called "Petites Hontes" where he discusses in length all those things about social expectations and how we feel about what others think of us, but with the proposes that it is essential to us to blush in order, not only to express ourselves but to check ourselves. If we've lied or lied in such a way that is flagrant, blushing may catch us before others do. 

The way, he suggests, to "get over it" is to be able to laugh at it, since in writing about all the silly things that make us blush, we should be able to see that we all suffer from the fear of what others think, fear of being rejected, and we should be able to take ourselves more lightly. 

A mesure of intelligence is being able to laugh at yourself, isn't it? And to laugh about our blushing is no different.

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