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...DOMESDAY BOOK: GOTTLIEB GERALD by EDGAR LEE MASTERS BRAID CLAITH by ROBERT FERGUSSON THE LAST WORD OF A BLUEBIRD; AS TOLD TO A CHILD by ROBERT FROST THE CHURCH WINDOWS by GEORGE HERBERT IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 43 by ALFRED TENNYSON EPISTLES ON THE CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF WOMEN: 1 by LUCY AIKEN TO SAN FRANCISCO by SAMUEL JOHN ALEXANDER |