C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Songs and Their Settings: Where Is Fancy Bred?

From the ‘Merchant of Venice’

A SONG[the whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself]

TELL me, where is fancy bred,—

Or in the heart, or in the head?

How begot, how nourishèd?

Reply, reply.

It is engendered in the eyes,

With gazing fed; and fancy dies

In the cradle where it lies.

Let us all ring fancy’s knell;

I’ll begin it,—Ding, dong, bell.

All—Ding, dong, bell.