Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Hartley Coleridge. 17961849646. 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. |