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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Song: ‘She is not fair to outward view’

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849)

Song: ‘She is not fair to outward view’

SHE is not fair to outward view

As many maidens be,

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me;

Oh! then I saw her eye was bright,

A well of love, a spring of light.

But now her looks are coy and cold,

To mine they ne’er reply,

And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye:

Her very frowns are fairer far,

Than smiles of other maidens are.