ADDRESS TO CERTAIN GOLD FISHES. RESTLESS forms of living light Fleet are ye as fleetest galley Was the sun himself your sire? Or of the shade of golden flowers, Such as we fetch from Eastern bow As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe, And yet, since on this hapless earth Your restless roving round and round, Your little lives are inly pining! Nay - but still I fain would dream That ye are happy as ye seem. THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH. YOUTH, thou art fled, - but where are all the charms Which, though with thee they came, and passed with thee, Should leave a perfume and sweet memory Of what they have been? All thy And boons and harms Have perished quite. vered alarms the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array, Thy oft-re- Wrap their old limbs with sombre Forsake the fluttering echo. Smiles and tears Die on my cheek, or, petrified with years, ivy-twine. NO LIFE VAIN. Show the dull woe which no compas- LET me not deem that I was made sion warms, in vain, Or that my being was an accident, Which fate, in working its sublime intent, Not wished to be, to hinder would not deign. Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain Hath its own mission, and is duly sent To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent 'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main. The very shadow of an insect's wing, For which the violet cared not while it stayed, Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing, Proved that the sun was shining by its shade: Then can a drop of the eternal spring, Shadow of living lights, in vain be made? SONG. SHE is not fair to outward view, Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me; But now her looks are coy and cold The lovelight in her eye, SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. [Passages from The Rime of the Ancient | Sure I had drunken in my dreams, Mariner.] THE SHIP BECALMED. THE fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break All in a hot and copper sky, Right up above the mast did stand, Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; Water, water everywhere, And still my body drank. I moved, and could not feel my limbs: I was so light- almost I thought that I had died in sleep, THE VOICES OF THE ANGELS. AROUND, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Sometimes a-dropping from the sky Sometimes all little birds that are, With their sweet jargoning! And now 'twas like all instruments, And now it is an angel's song, It ceased; yet still the sails made on A noise like of a hidden brook THE ANCIENT MARINER REFRESHED In the leafy month of June, BY SLEEP AND RAIN. O SLEEP! it is a gentle thing, To Mary queen the praise be given! The silly buckets on the deck, That to the sleeping woods all night PENANCE OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, I dreamt that they were filled with Which forced me to begin my tale: That had so long remained, dew; And when I awoke it rained. And then it left me free. Since then at an uncertain hour, My lips were wet, my throat was That agony returns: cold, My garments all were dank. And till my ghastly tale is told I pass, like night, from land to land; I know the man that must hear me: What loud uproar bursts from that The wedding-guests are there: [From Christabel.] BROKEN FRIENDSHIPS. ALAS! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And to be wroth with one we love, O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath Each spake words of high disdain been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God himself O sweeter than the marriage-feast, To walk together to the kirk, To walk together to the kirk, While each to his great Father bends, And youths and maidens gay! Farewell, farewell! but this I tell He prayeth best, who loveth best The Mariner, whose eye is bright, He went like one that hath been And is of sense forlorn: And insult to his heart's best brother: To free the hollow heart from pain A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element! O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be! What, and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power. Joy, virtuous lady, joy that Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Life, and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower Joy, lady, is the spirit and the power, Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower, A new earth and new heaven, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light. There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth, But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, |