Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
Queen and SlaveMortimer Collins (18271876)
O
O happy love, whose life is free!
O happy strings whose soft notes sound
Athwart the sea!
The moon has lover in the sea:
They meet too late, they part too soon—
And so do we.
I am a queen, and yet a slave.
It seems to me the self-same way
With moon and wave.
O may I always rule and serve,
And live the life whose love is free,
And never swerve!