Proserpine may pull her flowers, Wet with dew or wet with tears, Red with anger, pale with fears, Is it any fault of ours, If Pluto be an amorous king, And comes home nightly, laden, Underneath his broad bat-wing, With a gentle, mortal maiden? Is it so? Wind, is it so? All that you and I do know Is, that we saw fly and fix 'Mongst the reeds and flowers of Styx, Yesterday, Where the Furies made their hay For a bed of tiger cubs, A great fly of Beelzebub's, The bee of hearts, which mortals name Cupid, Love, and Fie for shame. Proserpine may weep in rage, But, ere I and you have done Kissing, bathing in the sun, What I have in yonder cage, Bird or serpent, wild or tame, She shall guess and ask in vain; But, if Pluto does't again, It shall sing out loud his shame. What hast caught then? What hast caught? Nothing but a poet's thought, Which so light did fall and fix 'Mongst the reeds and flowers of Styx, Yesterday, Where the Furies made their hay For a bed of tiger cubs, -- A great fly of Beelzebub's, The bee of hearts, which mortals name Cupid, Love, and Fie for shame. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RIVULET by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ADVICE by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES IDEOGRAM by ALFRED GOLDSWORTHY BAILEY |