Ere The Leviathan Can Swim Poem by gershon hepner

Ere the leviathan can swim a league
let us in idleness for love find room,
and when we have to stop because fatigue
exhausts us, as it must, let’s bloom
like western flowers on a summer night,
confusing lovers with their juices,
and when leviathan returns let’s fight
before we loosen lovers’ nooses.


That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by 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 watery moon,
And the imperial votaress 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.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

Linda wrote:

It just occurred to me that I have always pictured Oberon as flying east, to exotic places, especially as Titania talks about the Indian boy. But now I see Oberon was thinking of his flight westwards.... he finds a little western flower. Of course of course! The world was so aroused by the new discoveries to the west... it was a place of fantasy and flowers... and Oberon flew there like Puck in 40 minutes only faster long before prosaic explorers in tardy ships. That girdle of Puck's round the earth... look at the new maps! And suppose the Indian boy was not from India at all (I pictures the little son of a Nabob) but a wild princely creature from the West Indies...This all fits in with Tempest...

much love and thank you darling Oberon,

8/14/05