Pansy Story Poem by Douglas Scotney

In times more or less stupid,
Cupid shot a dart at a famous fancy-free,
probably Queen E.

It missed and hit a white flower instead,
that turned purple.
Maidens called it love-in-idleness.
Sense named it pansy.

Purple pansy juice,
squeezed on a sleeping creatures eyelids,
would make it think
that the first creature it saw on waking
was its for the taking.

If an antidote was required,
say, if the first was a donkey,
'Dian's bud' was the resort -
vitex agnus castus, chasteberry,
it is thought.