Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Phantasmion. A Fairy Tale (1837). XII. “Full oft before some Gorgeous Fane”

Sarah Coleridge (1802–1850)

FULL oft before some gorgeous fane

The youngling heifer bleeds and dies;

Her life-blood issuing forth amain,

While wreaths of incense climb the skies.

The mother wanders all around,

Through shadowy grove and lightsome glade;

Her foot-marks on the yielding ground

Will prove what anxious quest she made.

The stall where late her darling lay

She visits oft with eager look:

In restless movements wastes the day,

And fills with cries each neighbouring nook.

She roams along the willowy copse,

Where purest waters softly gleam:

But ne’er a leaf or blade she crops,

Nor crouches by the gliding stream.

No youthful kine, though fresh and fair,

Her vainly searching eyes engage;

No pleasant fields relieve her care,

No murmuring streams her grief assuage.