Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834)Love
A
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene’er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another’s love,
Interpreted my own.
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,—
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;—
And how she tended him in vain—
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain;—
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay;—
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music, and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes, long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
As conscious of my look she stept—
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.
And partly ’twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.
And told her love with virgin-pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.