Poems by Hartley Coleridge With a Memoir of his Life by his Brother. In Two Volumes |
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WRITTEN AT BELLE-VUE, AMBLESIDE. |
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 | Poems by Hartley Coleridge |  |
161
WRITTEN AT BELLE-VUE, AMBLESIDE.
Still is it there, the same soft quiet scene,
Which, whether sodden with importunate rain,
Or sprinkled with the yellow sun, that pours
Columnal brightness through the fissured clouds
Of autumn eve, or, e'en as now display'd,
In the full brightness of the argent moon,
Is yet the same, the same beloved scene,
Which neither time nor change shall wipe away
From the capacious memory of the soul.
Oh blessed faculty of inward sight,
Safe from disease and mortal accident
As love itself, secure from dull caprice
Of prohibition! Blind Mæonides,
That, wandering by the myriad-sounding sea,
Saw not his footsteps on the passive beach,
Nor saw, alas! the many beauteous eyes
That gleam'd with gladness at his potent song,
Had yet a world of beauty—verdant hills,
Bright with the infinite motion of their leaves;
Close-vested towers in olive-groves embower'd,
Whence the gold-cinctured dove for ever coo'd,
Wide-laughing ocean, rich with southern gleam
Purpureal, jewell'd with a hundred isles,
Or roused indignant from its slumberous depths
To smite the long-presumptuous rampart, piled
Without a prayer;—Achilles vast, reclined,
Listening afar the tumults of the field;—
Sweet Helen, sad amidst her loveliness,
Taming her once glad motions to the halt
Of Priam, leaning on her rounded arm;—
Pelides, glittering like an evil star;—
Or love-struck Hecuba, when first she wept
O'er the new-ransom'd carcase of her best,
Her fate-devoted Hector.
Which, whether sodden with importunate rain,
Or sprinkled with the yellow sun, that pours
Columnal brightness through the fissured clouds
Of autumn eve, or, e'en as now display'd,
In the full brightness of the argent moon,
Is yet the same, the same beloved scene,
Which neither time nor change shall wipe away
From the capacious memory of the soul.
Oh blessed faculty of inward sight,
Safe from disease and mortal accident
As love itself, secure from dull caprice
Of prohibition! Blind Mæonides,
That, wandering by the myriad-sounding sea,
Saw not his footsteps on the passive beach,
Nor saw, alas! the many beauteous eyes
That gleam'd with gladness at his potent song,
Had yet a world of beauty—verdant hills,
Bright with the infinite motion of their leaves;
162
Whence the gold-cinctured dove for ever coo'd,
Wide-laughing ocean, rich with southern gleam
Purpureal, jewell'd with a hundred isles,
Or roused indignant from its slumberous depths
To smite the long-presumptuous rampart, piled
Without a prayer;—Achilles vast, reclined,
Listening afar the tumults of the field;—
Sweet Helen, sad amidst her loveliness,
Taming her once glad motions to the halt
Of Priam, leaning on her rounded arm;—
Pelides, glittering like an evil star;—
Or love-struck Hecuba, when first she wept
O'er the new-ransom'd carcase of her best,
Her fate-devoted Hector.
So, if He
Who in his judgments is for ever good,
Should make the brightest noon a night to me,
Yet will those fields, those lowly heaving hills,
That roving river, that pure inland lake,
And those neat dwellings that assure my heart
That not alone I love and linger here,
Abide the heir-looms of my inner life,
As sweet, as vivid to my happier dreams,
As when through tears I saw her snatch'd away.
Who in his judgments is for ever good,
Should make the brightest noon a night to me,
Yet will those fields, those lowly heaving hills,
That roving river, that pure inland lake,
And those neat dwellings that assure my heart
That not alone I love and linger here,
Abide the heir-looms of my inner life,
As sweet, as vivid to my happier dreams,
As when through tears I saw her snatch'd away.
| Poems by Hartley Coleridge | |