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.