Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LOVE AND FOLLY, by JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: Love's worshippers alone can know Last Line: "where'er the boy may choose to go." Subject(s): Fables; Love; Allegories | ||||||||
LOVE'S worshippers alone can know The thousand mysteries that are his; His blazing torch, his twanging bow, His blooming age are mysteries. A charming science -- but the day Were all too short to con it o'er; So take of me this little lay, A sample of its boundless lore. As once, beneath the fragrant shade Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air, The children, Love and Folly, played -- A quarrel rose betwixt the pair. Love said the gods should do him right -- But Folly vowed to do it then, And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight, So hard, he never saw again. His lovely mother's grief was deep, She called for vengeance on the deed; A beauty does not vainly weep, Nor coldly does a mother plead. A shade came o'er the eternal bliss That fills the dwellers of the skies; Even stony-hearted Nemesis, And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes. "Behold," she said, "this lovely boy," While streamed afresh her graceful tears, "Immortal, yet shut out from joy And sunshine, all his future years. The child can never take, you see, A single step without a staff -- The harshest punishment would be Too lenient for the crime by half." All said that Love had suffered wrong, And well that wrong should be repaid; Then weighed the public interest long, And long the party's interest weighed. And thus decreed the court above -- "Since Love is blind from Folly's blow, Let Folly be the guide of Love, Where'er the boy may choose to go." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CYMON AND IPHIGENIA by GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO SIGISMONDA AND GUISCARDO by GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON by GEOFFREY CHAUCER THE COCK AND THE FOX, OR THE TALE OF THE NUN'S PRIEST by GEOFFREY CHAUCER TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY; AN ALLEGORY by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE GLADYS AND HER ISLAND; AN IMPERFECT TALE WITH DOUBTFUL MORAL by JEAN INGELOW THE WOLF AND THE DOG by JEAN DE LA FONTAINE THE WOLF AND THE DOG by JEAN DE LA FONTAINE |
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