dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse  »  Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Song: ‘She is not fair to outward view’

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849)

SHE is not fair to outward view

As many maidens be;

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me;

O, 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.