"Ah!" returned my gentle fair,
"Beloved, what are names but air?
Choose whatever suits the line;
Call me Sappho, call me Chloris,
Call me Lalage or Doris,
Only, only call me Thine!"
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A Summer Day in Old Sicily
Gods, what a sun! I think the world's aglow
This garment irks me. Phoebus, it is hot!
'Twere sad if Glycera should find me shot
By flame-tipp'd arrows from the Archer's bow.
Perchance he envies me,—the villain! O
For one tree's shadow or a cliff-side grot!
Where shall I shelter that he slay me not?
In what cool air or element?—I know.
The sea shall save me from the sweltering land:
Far out I'll wade, till creeping up and up,
The cold green water quenches every limb.
Then to the jealous god with lifted hand
I'll pour libation from a rosy cup,
And leap, and dive, and see the tunnies swim.
—Edward Cracroft Lefroy
On a Nightingale in April
The yellow moon is a dancing phantom
Down secret ways of the flowing shade;
And the waveless stream has a murmuring whisper
Where the alders wade.
Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow stream's whisper:
Only the moon is a dancing blade
That leads a host of the Crescent warriors
To a phantom raid.
Out of the lands of Faerie a summons,
A long strange cry that thrills thro' the glade:—
The grey-green glooms of the elm are stirring,
Newly afraid.