Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 17721834552. Youth and Age
VERSE, a breeze ‘mid blossoms straying, | |
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee— | |
Both were mine! Life went a-maying | |
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, | |
When I was young! | 5 |
When I was young?—Ah, woful When! | |
Ah! for the change ‘twixt Now and Then! | |
This breathing house not built with hands, | |
This body that does me grievous wrong, | |
O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands, | 10 |
How lightly then it flash’d along— | |
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, | |
On winding lakes and rivers wide, | |
That ask no aid of sail or oar, | |
That fear no spite of wind or tide! | 15 |
Naught cared this body for wind or weather | |
When Youth and I lived in ‘t together. | |
Flowers are lovely! Love is flower-like; | |
Friendship is a sheltering tree; | |
O the joys, that came down shower-like, | 20 |
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, | |
Ere I was old! | |
Ere I was old? Ah, woful Ere, | |
Which tells me, Youth ‘s no longer here! | |
O Youth! for years so many and sweet, | 25 |
‘Tis known that thou and I were one; | |
I’ll think it but a fond conceit— | |
It cannot be that thou art gone! | |
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll’d— | |
And thou wert aye a masker bold! | 30 |
What strange disguise hast now put on, | |
To make believe that thou art gone? | |
I see these locks in silvery slips, | |
This drooping gait, this alter’d size: | |
But springtide blossoms on thy lips, | 35 |
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! | |
Life is but thought: so think I will | |
That Youth and I are housemates still. | |
Dewdrops are the gems of morning, | |
But the tears of mournful eve! | 40 |
Where no hope is, life ‘s a warning | |
That only serves to make us grieve, | |
When we are old! | |
That only serves to make us grieve | |
With oft and tedious taking-leave, | 45 |
Like some poor nigh-related guest | |
That may not rudely be dismist. | |
Yet hath outstay’d his welcome while, | |
And tells the jest without the smile. |