OBERON. -- My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st 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. PUCK. -- I remember. OBERON -- That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SATIRE: 3 by AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS AFTER THE GALE by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES CHARADES: 3 by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY LOVE'S SIMILITUDES by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE ALL SOUL'S EVE by SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE RUTH'S ANSWER TO NAOMI by LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON THE DRAFT RIOT by CHARLES DE KAY THE CHILD IN THE STORY GOES TO BED by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE |