Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

FAREWELL, sweet Love! yet blame you not my truth:

More fondly ne’er did mother eye her child

Than I your form. Yours were my hopes of youth,

And as you shaped my thoughts, I sighed or smiled.

While most were wooing wealth, or gayly swerving

To pleasure’s secret haunts, and some apart

Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving,

To you I gave my whole, weak, wishing heart.

And when I met the maid that realized

Your fair creations, and had won her kindness,

Say but for her if aught in earth I prized!

Your dream alone I dreamt, and caught your blindness.

O grief!—but farewell, Love! I will go play me

With thoughts that please me less, and less betray me.