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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ There surely must some reason be

       Why you would change sweet Liswyn farm,

       For Kilve by the green sea.”

      At this, my boy hung down his head,

       He blush’d with shame, nor made reply;

       And five times to the child I said,

       ”Why, Edward, tell me, why?”

      His head he raised — there was in sight,

       It caught his eye, he saw it plain —

       Upon the house-top, glittering bright,

       A broad and gilded vane.

      Then did the boy his tongue unlock,

       And thus to me he made reply;

       ”At Kilve there was no weathercock,

       And that’s the reason why.”

      Oh dearest, dearest boy! my heart

       For better lore would seldom yearn

       Could I but teach the hundredth part

       Of what from thee I learn.

LINES WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY TO THE PERSON TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED.

       Table of Contents

      It is the first mild day of March:

       Each minute sweeter than before,

       The redbreast sings from the tall larch

       That stands beside our door.

      There is a blessing in the air,

       Which seems a sense of joy to yield

       To the bare trees, and mountains bare,

       And grass in the green field.

      My Sister! (‘tis a wish of mine)

       Now that our morning meal is done,

       Make haste, your morning task resign;

       Come forth and feel the sun.

      Edward will come with you, and pray,

       Put on with speed your woodland dress,

       And bring no book, for this one day

       We’ll give to idleness.

      No joyless forms shall regulate

       Our living Calendar:

       We from to-day, my friend, will date

       The opening of the year.

      Love, now an universal birth,

       From heart to heart is stealing,

       From earth to man, from man to earth,

       — It is the hour of feeling.

      One moment now may give us more

       Than fifty years of reason;

       Our minds shall drink at every pore

       The spirit of the season.

      Some silent laws our hearts may make,

       Which they shall long obey;

       We for the year to come may take

       Our temper from to-day.

      And from the blessed power that rolls

       About, below, above;

       We’ll frame the measure of our souls,

       They shall be tuned to love.

      Then come, my sister I come, I pray,

       With speed put on your woodland dress,

       And bring no book; for this one day

       We’ll give to idleness.

THE FEMALE VAGRANT

       Table of Contents

      By Derwent’s side my Father’s cottage stood,

       (The Woman thus her artless story told)

       One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood

       Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.

       Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll’d:

       With thoughtless joy I stretch’d along the shore

       My father’s nets, or from the mountain fold

       Saw on the distant lake his twinkling oar

       Or watch’d his lazy boat still less’ning more and more

      My father was a good and pious man,

       An honest man by honest parents bred,

       And I believe that, soon as I began

       To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,

       And in his hearing there my prayers I said:

       And afterwards, by my good father taught,

       I read, and loved the books in which I read;

       For books in every neighbouring house I sought,

       And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.

      Can I forget what charms did once adorn

       My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,

       And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn?

       The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;

       The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;

       My hen’s rich nest through long grass scarce espied;

       The cowslip-gathering at May’s dewy prime;

       The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,

       From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.

      The staff I yet remember which upbore

       СКАЧАТЬ