LOVE
by: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772-1834)
- LL thoughts,
all passions, all delights,
- Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
- All are but ministers of Love,
- And feed his sacred flame.
-
- Oft in my waking dreams do I
- Live o'er again that happy hour,
- When midway on the mount I lay,
- Beside the ruin'd tower.
-
- The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
- Had blended with the lights of eve;
- And she was there, my hope, my joy,
- My own dear Genevieve!
-
- She lean'd against the armèd man,
- The statue of the armèd Knight;
- She stood and listen'd to my lay,
- Amid the lingering light.
-
- Few sorrows hath she of her own,
- My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
- She loves me best whene'er I sing
- The songs that make her grieve.
-
- I play'd a soft and doleful air;
- I sang an old and moving story--
- An old rude song, that suited well
- That ruin wild and hoary.
-
- She listen'd with a flitting blush,
- With downcast eyes and modest grace;
- For well she knew I could not choose
- But gaze upon her face.
-
- I told her of the Knight that wore
- Upon his shield a burning brand;
- And that for ten long years he woo'd
- The Lady of the Land.
-
- I told her how he pined: and ah!
- The deep, the low, the pleading tone
- With which I sang another's love,
- Interpreted my own.
-
- She listen'd with a flitting blush,
- With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
- And she forgave me, that I gazed
- Too fondly on her face!
-
- But when I told the cruel scorn
- That crazed the bold and lovely Knight,
- And that he cross'd the mountain-woods,
- Nor rested day or night;
-
- That sometimes from the savage den,
- And sometimes from the darksome shade,
- And sometimes starting up at once
- In green and sunny glade--
-
- There came and look'd him in the face
- An angel beautiful and bright;
- And that he knew it was a Fiend,
- This miserable Knight!
-
- And that, unknowing what he did,
- He leap'd amid a murderous band,
- And saved from outrage worse than death
- The Lady of the Land;--
-
- And how she wept and clasp'd his knees;
- And how she tended him in vain--
- And ever strove to expiate
- The scorn that crazed his brain;--
-
- And that she nursed him in a cave;
- And how his madness went away,
- When on the yellow forest leaves
- A dying man he lay;--
-
- His dying words--but when I reach'd
- That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
- My faltering voice and pausing harp
- Disturb'd her soul with pity!
-
- All impulses of soul and sense
- Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
- The music and the doleful tale,
- The rich and balmy eve;
-
- And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
- An undistinguishable throng,
- And gentle wishes long subdued,
- Subdued and cherish'd long!
-
- She wept with pity and delight,
- She blush'd with love and virgin shame;
- And like the murmur of a dream,
- I heard her breathe my name.
-
- Her bosom heaved--she stepp'd aside,
- As conscious of my look she stept--
- Then suddenly, with timorous eye
- She fled to me and wept.
-
- She half enclosed me with her arms,
- She press'd me with a meek embrace;
- And bending back her head, look'd up,
- And gazed upon my face.
-
- 'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
- And partly 'twas a bashful art,
- That I might rather feel, than see,
- The swelling of her heart.
-
- I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
- And told her love with virgin pride;
- And so I won my Genevieve,
- My bright and beauteous Bride.
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