The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poems, Plays, Essays, Lectures, Autobiography & Personal Letters (Illustrated). Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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СКАЧАТЬ And there sits in a scarlet cloak,

       I will be sworn is true.

       For one day with my telescope,

       To view the ocean wide and bright,

       When to this country first I came,

       Ere I had heard of Martha’s name,

       I climbed the mountain’s height:

       A storm came on, and I could see

       No object higher than my knee.

      XVIII.

      ’Twas mist and rain, and storm and rain,

       No screen, no fence could I discover,

       And then the wind! in faith, it was

       A wind full ten times over.

       Hooked around, I thought I saw

       A jutting crag, and off I ran,

       Head-foremost, through the driving rain,

       The shelter of the crag to gain,

       And, as I am a man,

       Instead of jutting crag, I found

       A woman seated on the ground.

      XIX.

      I did not speak — I saw her face,

       In truth it was enough for me;

       I turned about and heard her cry,

       ”O misery! O misery!”

       And there she sits, until the moon

       Through half the clear blue sky will go,

       And when the little breezes make

       The waters of the pond to shake,

       As all the country know

       She shudders, and you hear her cry,

       ”Oh misery! oh misery!”

      XX.

      ”But what’s the thorn? and what’s the pond?

       And what’s the hill of moss to her?

       And what’s the creeping breeze that comes

       The little pond to stir?”

       I cannot tell; but some will say

       She hanged her baby on the tree,

       Some say she drowned it in the pond,

       Which is a little step beyond,

       But all and each agree,

       The little babe was buried there,

       Beneath that hill of moss so fair.

      XXI.

      I’ve heard, the moss is spotted red

       With drops of that poor infant’s blood;

       But kill a newborn infant thus!

       I do not think she could.

       Some say, if to the pond you go,

       And fix on it a steady view,

       The shadow of a babe you trace,

       A baby and a baby’s face,

       And that it looks at you;

       Whene’er you look on it, ‘tis plain

       The baby looks at you again.

      XXII.

      And some had sworn an oath that she

       Should be to public justice brought;

       And for the little infant’s bones

       With spades they would have sought.

       But then the beauteous bill of moss

       Before their eyes began to stir;

       And for full fifty yards around,

       The grass it shook upon the ground;

       But all do still aver

       The little babe is buried there.

       Beneath that hill of moss so fair.

      XXIII.

      I cannot tell how this may be,

       But plain it is, the thorn is bound

       With heavy tufts of moss, that strive

       To drag it to the ground.

       And this I know, full many a time,

       When she was on the mountain high,

       By day, and in the silent night;

       When all the stars shone clear and bright,

       That I have heard her cry,

       ”Oh misery! oh misery!

       O woe is me! oh misery!”

WE ARE SEVEN.

       Table of Contents

      A simple child, dear brother Jim,

       That lightly draws its breath,

       And feels its life in every limb,

       What should it know of death?

      I met a little cottage girl,

       She was eight years old, she said;

       Her hair was thick with many a curl

       That cluster’d round her head.

      She had a rustic, woodland air,

       And she was wildly clad;

       Her eyes were fair, and very fair,

       — Her beauty made me glad.

      ”Sisters and brothers, little maid,

       How many may you be?”

       ”How many? seven in all,” she said,

       And wondering looked at me.

      ”And СКАЧАТЬ