On the Poet’s Birth

A page, a huntsman and a priest of God

    Her lovers, met in jealous contrariety

Equally claiming the sole parenthood

    Of him the perfect crown of their variety.

Then, whom to admit, herself she could not tell:

That always was her fate, she loved too well.

“But many-fathered little one,” she said,

    “Whether of high or low, of smooth or rough,

Here is your mother whom you brought to bed;

    Acknowledge only me; be this enough;

For such as worship after shall be told

A white dove sired you or a rain of gold.”