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Quotes by Hartley Coleridge
She is not fair to outward view As many maidens be; Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me: Oh! then I saw her eye was bright, A well of love, a spring of light.— filed under Beauty
Sts. 1 and 4 The merry lark he soars on high, No worldly thought o'ertakes him. He sings aloud to the clear blue sky, And the daylight that awakes him.— filed under Birds-Lark
Her very frowns are fairer far Than smiles of other maidens are.— filed under Love
The dusky waters shudder as they shine, The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define, And the gaunt woods, in ragged scant array, Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine.— filed under Months-October
The crackling embers on the hearth are dead; The indoor note of industry is still; The latch is fast; upon the window-sill The small birds wait not for their daily bread; The voiceless flowers-how quietly they shed Their nightly odours ;-and the household rill Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill The vacant expectation, and the dread Of listening night.— filed under Night
Be not afraid to pray-to pray is right. Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray, Though hope be weak or sick with long delay; Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.— filed under Prayer
(Posthumous.) Prayer. Pray to be perfect, though material leaven Forbid the spirit so on earth to be; But if for any wish thou darest not pray, Then pray to God to cast that wish away.— filed under Prayer
Her very frowns are fairer far Than smiles of other maidens are.— filed under Smiles
The soul of man is larger than the sky, Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark Of the unfathomed centre.— filed under Sorrow
The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant's shoulders to mount on.— filed under Ability
Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth, And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny, and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.— filed under Anger
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she.— filed under Apparitions
Her gentle limbs did she undress, And lay down in her loveliness.— filed under Beauty
Albatross. And a good south wind sprung up behind, The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine. "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends that plague thee thus!- Why look'st thou so?"-" With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross."— filed under Benevolence
"Most musical, most melancholy" bird ! A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy.— filed under Birds-Nightingale
'Tis the merry nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!— filed under Birds-Nightingale
A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I bless'd them unaware.— filed under Blessings
It is saying less than the truth to affirm that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification, if only we ourselves return to it with the same healthful appetite.— filed under Books
Lovely was the death Of Him whose life was Love! Holy with power, He on the thought-benighted Skeptic beamed Manifest Godhead.— filed under Christ
Oh! St. Patrick was a gentleman Who came of decent people; He built a church in, Dublin town, And on it put a steeple. HENRY BENNETT St. Patrick Was a Gentleman. An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.— filed under Churches
R. Vincent's In the Shadow of the Pyrenees. Ch. XVII. Cologne. In Köln, a town of monks and bones, And pavement fang'd with murderous stones, And rags and hags, and hideous wenches, I counted two-and-seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The River Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, nymphs! what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine? S.— filed under Cities-Delft
O, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy.— filed under Clouds
The Past lives o'er again In its effects, and to the guilty spirit The ever-frowning Present is its image.— filed under Conscience
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sunthaw; whether the evedrops fall, Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.— filed under Content
Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, etc., if they could: they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics.— filed under Criticism
Lady in Autumn. Dew-drops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve!— filed under Dew
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, (Portentous sight) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, "Where is it?"— filed under Doctrine
And so, his senses gradually wrapt In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds, And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark: That singest like an angel in the clouds.— filed under Dreams
For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.— filed under Eating
Never, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone.— filed under Bias
Lady Mary Wentworth. It is so soon that I am done for, I wonder what I was begun for! Epitaph in Cheltenham Church-yard. Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care; The opening bud to Heaven conveyed, And bade it blossom there.— filed under Epitaph
A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn.— filed under Experience
My eyes make pictures, when they are shut.— filed under Eyes
Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.— filed under Fear
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!— filed under Flirting
Forget-me-not. Myosotis. That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook, Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not.— filed under Flowers-Forget-Me-Not
And across the porch Thick jasmins twined.— filed under Flowers-Ivy
With kingcups and daisies, that all the year please, Sprays, petals, and leaflets, that nod in the breeze. S.— filed under Flowers-Kingcup
In the open air Our myrtles blossomed.— filed under Flowers-Pansy
Rose, Wild. Rosa Lucida. A wild rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer well agree.— filed under Flowers-Rosemary
Friendship is a sheltering tree.— filed under Friendship
God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!— filed under God
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, And hope without an object cannot live.— filed under Hope
He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility! And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility.— filed under Humility
Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge. but passes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day through twilight.— filed under Ignorance
Pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company.— filed under Language
Bannockburn. Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, And shot my being through earth, sea, and air, Possessing all things with intensest love, O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.— filed under Liberty
Life is but thought.— filed under Life
To know, to esteem, to love, and then to part, Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart.— filed under Life
He holds him with his glittering eye- * * * * * * And listens like a three years' child.— filed under Listening
not Fair. All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.— filed under Love
And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.— filed under Love
I have heard of reasons manifold Why Love must needs be blind, But this is the best of all I hold- His eyes are in his mind.— filed under Love
Blest hour! It was a luxury-to be!— filed under Luxury
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits, If any man obtain that which he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains.— filed under Merit
He went like one that hath been stunn'd, And is of sense forlorn : A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn.— filed under Misfortune
The moving moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside.— filed under Monuments
A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive.— filed under Motherhood
Iago's soliloquy-the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity-how awful it is!— filed under Motive
Cabinet-Making. Carved with figures strange and sweet, All made out of the carver's brain.— filed under Occupations-Authorship
and Westminster Review. 1838. In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column: In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.— filed under Poetry
That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of nonsense.— filed under Poetry
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.— filed under Praise
(Posthumous.) Prayer. He prayeth best who loveth best All things, both great and small.— filed under Prayer
He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.— filed under Prayer
The saints will aid if men will call: For the blue sky bends over all.— filed under Prayer
Ancestral voices prophesying war.— filed under Prophecy
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place, (Portentous sight!) the owlet atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fring'd lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, "Where is it?"— filed under Xxv
Remorse is as the heart in which it grows; If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, It is the poison tree, that pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison.— filed under Remorse
O! lady, we receive but what we give, And in our life alone doth nature live; Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!— filed under Results
Alph. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree; Where Alph, the sacred river ran, Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.— filed under Rivers-Afton
And the spring comes slowly up this way.— filed under Sculpture
The frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind.— filed under Sows
Shakespeare. Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.— filed under Shakespeare
of Scott. And they three passed over the white sands, between the rocks, silent as the shadows.— filed under Silence
O sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given ! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven That slid into my soul.— filed under Sleep
Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing, And may this storm be but a mountain-birth, May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth! C.— filed under Sleep
Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea.— filed under Solitude
So lonely 'twas that God himself . Scarce seemed there to be.— filed under Solitude
S. Act V. Sc. 3. A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.— filed under Sound
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? S.— filed under Stars
Consider it Again. Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together Thoughts so all unlike each other; To mutter and mock a broken charm, To dally with wrong that does no harm.— filed under Thought
The Course of Time. *** So often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow.— filed under Time
Elder. Sambucus. O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids! And listen to my lay.— filed under Trees And Plants-Chestnut
Those hollies of themselves a shape As of an arbor took.— filed under Trees And Plants-Chestnut
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines.— filed under Trees And Plants-Palm
Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.— filed under Water
Soft blows the wind that breathes from that blue sky!— filed under Wind
All Nature seems at work, slugs leave their lair- The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing- And Winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.— filed under Work
Life went a-Maying 10 With Nature, Hope, and Poesy; When I was young! When I was young?-Ah, woful when! C.— filed under Wrongs