Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 17721834551. Love
ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, | |
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, | |
All are but ministers of Love, | |
And feed his sacred flame. | |
Oft in my waking dreams do I | 5 |
Live o’er again that happy hour, | |
When midway on the mount I lay, | |
Beside the ruin’d tower. | |
The moonshine, stealing o’er the scene, | |
Had blended with the lights of eve; | 10 |
And she was there, my hope, my joy, | |
My own dear Genevieve! | |
She lean’d against the armèd man, | |
The statue of the armèd Knight; | |
She stood and listen’d to my lay, | 15 |
Amid the lingering light. | |
Few sorrows hath she of her own, | |
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! | |
She loves me best whene’er I sing | |
The songs that make her grieve. | 20 |
I play’d a soft and doleful air; | |
I sang an old and moving story— | |
An old rude song, that suited well | |
That ruin wild and hoary. | |
She listen’d with a flitting blush, | 25 |
With downcast eyes and modest grace; | |
For well she knew I could not choose | |
But gaze upon her face. | |
I told her of the Knight that wore | |
Upon his shield a burning brand; | 30 |
And that for ten long years he woo’d | |
The Lady of the Land. | |
I told her how he pined: and ah! | |
The deep, the low, the pleading tone | |
With which I sang another’s love, | 35 |
Interpreted my own. | |
She listen’d with a flitting blush, | |
With downcast eyes, and modest grace; | |
And she forgave me, that I gazed | |
Too fondly on her face! | 40 |
But when I told the cruel scorn | |
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, | |
And that he cross’d the mountain-woods, | |
Nor rested day nor night; | |
That sometimes from the savage den, | 45 |
And sometimes from the darksome shade, | |
And sometimes starting up at once | |
In green and sunny glade— | |
There came and look’d him in the face | |
An angel beautiful and bright; | 50 |
And that he knew it was a Fiend, | |
This miserable Knight! | |
And that, unknowing what he did, | |
He leap’d amid a murderous band, | |
And saved from outrage worse than death | 55 |
The Lady of the Land;— | |
And how she wept and clasp’d his knees; | |
And how she tended him in vain— | |
And ever strove to expiate | |
The scorn that crazed his brain;— | 60 |
And that she nursed him in a cave; | |
And how his madness went away, | |
When on the yellow forest leaves | |
A dying man he lay;— | |
His dying words—but when I reach’d | 65 |
That tenderest strain of all the ditty, | |
My faltering voice and pausing harp | |
Disturb’d her soul with pity! | |
All impulses of soul and sense | |
Had thrill’d my guileless Genevieve; | 70 |
The music and the doleful tale, | |
The rich and balmy eve; | |
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, | |
An undistinguishable throng, | |
And gentle wishes long subdued, | 75 |
Subdued and cherish’d long! | |
She wept with pity and delight, | |
She blush’d with love and virgin shame; | |
And like the murmur of a dream, | |
I heard her breathe my name. | 80 |
Her bosom heaved—she stepp’d aside, | |
As conscious of my look she stept— | |
Then suddenly, with timorous eye | |
She fled to me and wept. | |
She half enclosed me with her arms, | 85 |
She press’d me with a meek embrace; | |
And bending back her head, look’d up, | |
And gazed upon my face. | |
‘Twas partly love, and partly fear, | |
And partly ’twas a bashful art, | 90 |
That I might rather feel, than see. | |
The swelling of her heart. | |
I calm’d her fears, and she was calm, | |
And told her love with virgin pride; | |
And so I won my Genevieve, | 95 |
My bright and beauteous Bride. |