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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  646. Friendship

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Hartley Coleridge. 1796–1849

646. Friendship

WHEN we were idlers with the loitering rills, 
The need of human love we little noted: 
  Our love was nature; and the peace that floated 
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills, 
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:         5
  One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted, 
  That, wisely doting, ask’d not why it doted, 
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills. 
But now I find how dear thou wert to me; 
  That man is more than half of nature’s treasure,  10
Of that fair beauty which no eye can see, 
  Of that sweet music which no ear can measure; 
  And now the streams may sing for others’ pleasure, 
The hills sleep on in their eternity.