Sonnet XXI.

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



Pensive, at eve, on the hard world I mused,
And my poor heart was sad: so at the Moon
I gazed--and sighed, and sighed--for, ah! how soon
Eve saddens into night! Mine eyes perused,
With tearful vacancy, the dampy grass,
That wept and glitter'd in the paly ray,
And I did pause me on my lonely way,
And mused me on the wretched ones, who pass
O'er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas!
Most of myself I thought: when it befell,
That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood
Breath'd in mine ear--'All this is very well;
But much of one thing is for no thing good.'
Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
118

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBACDDCCEFEFE
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 592
Words 117
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

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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