POETIC DESIRE FOR CONTACT

Besides such direct comparisons of feminine charms to flowers, to sun and moon and other beautiful objects of nature, amorous hyperbole has several other ways of expressing itself. The lover longs to be some article of dress that he might touch the beloved, or a bird that he might fly to her, or he fancies that all nature is love-sick in sympathy with him. Romeo's

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

is varied in Heine's poem, where the lover wishes he were a stool for her feet to rest on, a cushion for her to stick pins in, or a curl-paper that he might whisper his secrets into her ears; and in Tennyson's dainty lines:

It is the miller's daughter,

And she is grown so dear, so dear,

That I would be the jewel

That trembles at her ear;

For hid in ringlets day and night

I'd touch her neck so warm and white.

And I would be the girdle

About her dainty, dainty waist,

And her heart would beat against me

In sorrow and in rest;

And I should know if it beat right,

I'd clasp it round so close and tight.

And I would be the necklace,

And all day long to fall and rise

Upon her balmy bosom

With her laughter or her sighs,

And I would be so light, so light,

I scarce should be unclasped at night.

Herein, too, our modern poets were anticipated by the ancients. Anacreon wishes he were a mirror that he might reflect the image of his beloved; or the gown she wears every day; or the water that laves her limbs; or the balm that anoints her body; or the pearl that adorns her neck; or the cloth that covers her breast; or the shoes that are trodden by her feet.

The author of an anonymous poem in the Greek Anthology wishes he were a breath of air that he might be received in the bosom of his beloved; or a rose to be picked by her hand and fastened on her bosom. Others wish they were the water in the fountain from which a girl drinks, or a dolphin to carry her on its back, or the ring she wears. After the Hindoo Sakuntala has lost her ring in the river the poet expresses surprise that the ring should have been able to separate itself from that hand. The Cyclops of Theocritus wishes he had been born with the gills of a fish so that he might dive into the sea to visit the nymph Galatea and kiss her hands should her mouth be refused. One of the goatherds of the same bucolic poet wishes he were a bee that he might fly to the grotto of Amaryllis. From such fancies it is but a short step to the "were I a swallow, to her I would fly" of Heine and other modern poets.