"I Begged a Kiss of a Little Maid"

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←"Why," you ask, "has not the Servian Perished?" "I Begged a Kiss of a Little Maid"
by Zmai Iovan Iovanovich , translated by Nikola Tesla and Robert Underwood Johnson		 Why the Army Became Quiet→
Published in Poems.


←A Fairy from the Sun-shower Quid pro Quo
by Zmai Iovan Iovanovich , translated by Nikola Tesla and Robert Underwood Johnson		 Why the Army Became Quiet→
Published in the Century Magazine, Volume 49, Issue 2


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.


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