Names - By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[FROM LESSING]


  I ask'd my fair one happy day,
  What I should call her in my lay;
    By what sweet name from Rome or Greece;
  Lalage, Nesera, 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."

Morning Post, August 27,1799.