Part 2 — "I ASKED MY FAIR, ONE HAPPY DAY"
Reading edition
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]