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Home  »  Parnassus  »  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.

Dirge: ‘He is gone—is dust’

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Translated from Schiller: Wallenstein

HE is gone—is dust.

He, the more fortunate! yea he hath finished!

For him there is no longer any future,

His life is bright,—bright without spot it was

And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour

Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap.

Far off is he, above desire and fear;

No more submitted to the change and chance

Of the unsteady planets. O ’tis well

With him! but who knows what the coming hour

Veiled in thick darkness brings for us!

That anguish will be wearied down, I know;

What pang is permanent with man? from the highest

As from the vilest thing of every day

He learns to wean himself; for the strong hours

Conquer him. Yet I feel what I have lost

In him. The bloom is vanished from my life.

For O! he stood beside me, like my youth,

Transformed for me the reäl to a dream,

Clothing the palpable and familiar

With golden exhalations of the dawn.

Whatever fortunes wait my future toils,

The beautiful is vanished—and returns not.