Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Sara Coleridge 180252From Phantasmion
O
These eyes require;
But, when that long’d-for sight is shown,
What fatal fire
Shoots through my veins a keen and liquid flame,
That melts each fibre of my wasting frame!
I pine to hear;
But, when its meek mellifluous tone
Usurps mine ear,
Those slavish chains about my soul are wound,
Which ne’er, till death itself, can be unbound.
I fain would hold;
But, when it seems at my command,
My own grows cold;
Then low to earth I bend in sickly swoon,
Like lilies drooping ’mid the blaze of noon.
H
A sunrise in the northern sky,
More than the brightest dawn admir’d,
To shine and then forever fly.
Perchance was like the fitful blaze,
Which lives to light a steadier flame,
And, while that strengthens, fast decays.
Gay birds that breeze-like stir the leaves,
Why hither haste, no message bringing,
To solace one that deeply grieves?
So brightly heralding the day,
Bring one more welcome than the morn,
Or still in night’s dark prison stay.