Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Fancy: II. Fairies: Elves: SpritesCompliment to Queen Elizabeth
William Shakespeare (15641616)O
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music.
P
O
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal thronèd by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower.