cercolas

Updated: July 8, 2026

In many guises didst thou come to me; I saw thee by the maidens when they danced, Phaon allured me with a look of thine, In Anactoria I knew thy grace. I looked at Cercolas and saw thine eyes, But never wholly, soul and body mine Didst thou bid any love me as I loved. The last two lines suggest another reason for the fickleness, as well as for the insatiability of the poet's love.

Elizabeth Atkins - The Poet's Poet : essays on the character and mission of the poet as interpreted in English verse of the last one hundred and fifty years