I Begged a Kiss of a Little Maid

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337723"I Begged a Kiss of a Little Maid"Nikola Tesla and Robert Underwood JohnsonZmai Iovan Iovanovich

I begged a kiss of a little maid;
    Shyly, sweetly, she consented;
Then of a sudden, all afraid,
    After she gave it, she repented;
And now as penance for that one kiss
    She asks a poem — I'll give her this.

But how can my song be my very best
    When she, with a voice as soft as Circe's,
Has charmed the heart from my lonely breast —
    The heart, the fountain of all true verses?
Why, oh, why should a maid do this?
    No — I must give her back her kiss.

 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1943, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse