Romantic Poetry WebQuest
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire.
1My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
2Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
3To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown
4With white-flowered jasmin, and the broad-leaved myrtle,
5(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
6And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
7Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
8Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)
9Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
10Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
11The stilly murmur of the distant sea
12Tells us of silence.
12 And that simplest lute,
13Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
14How by the desultory breeze caressed,
15Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
16It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
17Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
18Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
19Over delicious surges sink and rise,
20Such a soft floating witchery of sound
21As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
22Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
23Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
24Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
25Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
26O the one life within us and abroad,
27Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
28A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
29Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where---
30Methinks, it should have been impossible
31Not to love all things in a world so filled;
32Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
33Is Music slumbering on her instrument.
34 And thus, my love! as on the midway slope
35Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
36Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold
37The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
38And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
39Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
40And many idle flitting phantasies,
41Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
42As wild and various as the random gales
43That swell and flutter on this subject lute!
44 And what if all of animated nature
45Be but organic harps diversely framed,
46That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
47Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
48At once the Soul of each, and God of All?
49 But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
50Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts
51Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
52And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
53Meek daughter in the family of Christ!
54Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
55These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
56Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
57On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
58For never guiltless may I speak of him,
59The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
60I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
61Who with his saving mercies healed me,
62A sinful and most miserable man,
63Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
64Peace, and this cot, and thee, heart-honoured Maid!
Notes
1] Sara Fricker, whom Coleridge married less than two months after writing this poem. On one level, this poem is one of courtship.
3] cot: small cottage
12] simplest lute: eolian harp. An eolian harp, or wind harp, is a rectagular box with strings stretched across it such that when wind passes through the box, the strings vibrate, producing musical sounds.
13] casement: window frame
18] sequacious notes: musical notes that follow each other with little variation
47] plastic: malleable, able to be moulded