Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Hartley Coleridge 1796–1849

Whither?

ColeridgH

WHITHER is gone the wisdom and the power

That ancient sages scatter’d with the notes

Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats

In the void air; e’en at this breathing hour,

In every cell and every blooming bower

The sweetness of old lays is hovering still:

But the strong soul, the self-constraining will,

The rugged root that bare the winsome flower

Is weak and wither’d. Were we like the Fays

That sweetly nestle in the foxglove bells,

Or lurk and murmur in the rose-lipp’d shells

Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays,

Then might our pretty modern Philomels

Sustain our spirits with their roundelays.