"I ASKED MY FAIR, ONE HAPPY DAY"
After Lessing
I asked my fair, one happy day,
What I should call her in my lay;
By what sweet name from Rome or Greece;
Lalage, Neaera, Chloris,
Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris,
Arethusa or Lucrece.
"Ah!" replied my gentle fair,
"Beloved, what are names but air?
Choose thou whatever suits the line;
Call me Sappho, call me Chloris,
Call me Lalage or Doris,
Only—only call me thine."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834]