Poems by Hartley Coleridge With a Memoir of his Life by his Brother. In Two Volumes |
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TO ROBERT SOUTHEY,
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 | Poems by Hartley Coleridge |  |
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TO ROBERT SOUTHEY,
NEITHER THE ESQUIRE, THE LAUREATE, THE LL.D., BUT THE GOOD MAN, THE MERRY MAN, THE POET, AND THE DOCTOR.
He was not born beneath the Cambrian hills;
No mountain breezes lull'd his infant slumbers;
Loud rattling cars, and penny-dropping tills,
And blended murmurs of conglomerate numbers,
Were the chief sounds that baby Robert heard;
The pecking sparrow, his sole household bird.
No mountain breezes lull'd his infant slumbers;
Loud rattling cars, and penny-dropping tills,
And blended murmurs of conglomerate numbers,
Were the chief sounds that baby Robert heard;
The pecking sparrow, his sole household bird.
Great Bristol was his nest and natal town,
And not till he had cast his baby frock
He felt the liberal air of Durdum Down,
Or look'd on Avon from St. Vincent's rock,
Whence many a bark was seen in trim array,
Bound on bad quest to hapless Africa.
And not till he had cast his baby frock
He felt the liberal air of Durdum Down,
Or look'd on Avon from St. Vincent's rock,
Whence many a bark was seen in trim array,
Bound on bad quest to hapless Africa.
'Tis hard to say what might have been his lot,
If born with Nature from the first to dwell;
Yet am I prone to guess that he would not
Have conn'd, or known, or loved her half so well.
She was a stranger to his opening eyes,
Clad with the charm of still renew'd surprise.
If born with Nature from the first to dwell;
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Have conn'd, or known, or loved her half so well.
She was a stranger to his opening eyes,
Clad with the charm of still renew'd surprise.
And finding little in the daily round
To fashion fancy from the things of sense,
His love of kin was all the more profound;
Not wide in surface, but in act intense,
Affection still a dutiful reality,
The ground and law, and soul of all morality.
To fashion fancy from the things of sense,
His love of kin was all the more profound;
Not wide in surface, but in act intense,
Affection still a dutiful reality,
The ground and law, and soul of all morality.
Yet keeping still his little heart at home,
He wander'd with his mind in realms remote,
Made playmates of the Fairy, Sylph, and Gnome,
And knew each Giant, Knight, and Wight of note
Whate'er of wonderful the East and North,
Darkly commingling, gender'd and brought forth.
He wander'd with his mind in realms remote,
Made playmates of the Fairy, Sylph, and Gnome,
And knew each Giant, Knight, and Wight of note
Whate'er of wonderful the East and North,
Darkly commingling, gender'd and brought forth.
Sweet thought he found, and noble, in the story
Of the Wehr-Wolf and sweet Red Ridinghood,
Shudder'd at feast of Ogre, raw and gory,
And watch'd the Sleeping Beauty in the wood.
[OMITTED]
Of the Wehr-Wolf and sweet Red Ridinghood,
Shudder'd at feast of Ogre, raw and gory,
And watch'd the Sleeping Beauty in the wood.
[OMITTED]
| Poems by Hartley Coleridge | |