Love's Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)



Like a lone Arab, old and blind,
   Some caravan had left behind,
   Who sits beside a ruin'd well,
   Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
   And now he hangs his ag{'e}d head aslant,
   And listens for a human sound--in vain!
   And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
   Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;--
   Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
  Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
  With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
  I sate upon the couch of camomile;
  And--whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
  Flitted across the idle brain, the while
  I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,
  In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
  Turn'd my eye inward--thee, O genial Hope,
  Love's elder sister! thee did I behold
  Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
  With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
      Lie lifeless at my feet!
  And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
      And stood beside my seat;
  She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,
      As she was wont to do;--
  Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath
  Woke just enough of life in death
      To make Hope die anew.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:02 min read
121

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBACDCEDEBFGHFHIIJKJKLMNNM
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,137
Words 201
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 28

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. more…

All Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems | Samuel Taylor Coleridge Books

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