HEART’S-EASE.
* * * * * * * I saw,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm’d; a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned in 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
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon.
And the imperial vot’ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark’d 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.
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make a man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
W. Shakspeare, 1564–1616.