The Three Sorts of Friends (fragment)
Though friendships differ endless in degree ,
The sorts , methinks, may be reduced to three.
Ac quaintance many, and Con quaintance few;
But for In quaintance I know only two--
The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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What if you slept ...
What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in you hand
Ah, what then?
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Imitated From The Welsh
If, while my passion I impart,
You deem my words untrue,
O place your hand upon my heart,
Feel how it throbs for you!
Ah no! reject the thoughtless claim
In pity to your lover!
That thrilling touch would aid the flame
It wishes to discover.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud (fragment)
Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud
With arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my head
Posts on, as bent on speed, now passaging
Edges the stiffer Breeze, now, yielding, drifts,
Now floats upon the air, and sends from far
A wildly-wailing Note.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Phantom
All look and likeness caught from earth
All accident of kin and birth,
Had pass'd away. There was no trace
Of aught on that illumined face,
Uprais'd beneath the rifted stone
But of one spirit all her own ;--
She, she herself, and only she,
Shone through her body visibly.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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The Exchange
We pledged our hearts, my love and I,
I in my arms the maiden clasping;
I could not tell the reason why,
But, O, I trembled like an aspen!
Her father's love she bade me gain;
I went, and shook like any reed!
I strove to act the man---in vain!
We had exchanged our hearts indeed.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Aplolgia Pro Vita Sua
The poet in his lone yet genial hour
Gives to his eyes a magnifying power :
Or rather he emancipates his eyes
From the black shapeless accidents of size--
In unctuous cones of kindling coal,
Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim bole,
His gifted ken can see
Phantoms of sublimity.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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The Netherlands (fragment)
Water and windmills, greenness, Islets green;--
Willows whose Trunks beside the shadows stood
Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp:--
Farmhouses that at anchor seem'd--in the inland sky
The fog-transfixing Spires--
Water, wide water, greenness and green banks,
And water seen--
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Song
Tho' veiled in spires of myrtle-wreath,
Love is a sword that cuts its sheath,
And thro' the clefts, itself has made,
We spy the flashes of the Blade !
But thro' the clefts, itself has made,
We likewise see Love's flashing blade,
By rust consumed or snapt in twain :
And only Hilt and Stump remain.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Psyche
The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name--
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of mortal life !--For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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