KISS OF DEATH • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Kiss of death

... was running outward to meet us. Ay de mi! it was the last race of her life. An Indian arrow shot after was too quick for her; and, pierced through and through, she fell dying into my arms. Pobrecita! She kissed me with her parting breath, and then expired. Ah! senor, that was a kiss of death!" A long deep-drawn sigh, and the drooping attitude into which the speaker had fallen, told me that he had ended his narrative. Out of respect to the sacredness of his sorrow, I forbore questioning him farther at the time. It was only afterwards that ...

— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... Grey shaft transfigured by the glow divine, Grey wall in flame of light pacific washed, Shone out all golden like that flower all gold Which shoots through sunset airs an arrowy beam, In charity perfected moved the monks, No longer sad, a long procession forth, With foreheads smoothed as by the kiss of death And eyes like eyes of Saints from death new risen, Bearing the relics of Northumbria's King, Oswald, the man of God. Behind them paced Warriors and chiefs; Osthryda last, the Queen, With face whereon that great miraculous light, By her all night unseen, appeared to rest, And foot ...

— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere