To a Commencement of Scoundrels by Samuel Hazo
To a Commencement of Scoundrels by Samuel Hazo My boys, we lied to you. The world by definition stinks of Cain, no matter what your teachers told you. Heroes and the fools of God may rise like accidental green or gray saharas, but the sand stays smotheringly near. Deny me if you can. Already you […]
The Nearness That Is All by Samuel Hazo
The Nearness That Is All by Samuel Hazo Love’s what Shakespeare never said by saying, “You have bereft me of all words, lady.” Love is the man who siphoned phlegm from his ill wife’s throat three times a day for seven years. Love’s what the Arabs mean when they bless those with children: “May God […]
The Middle of the World by Samuel Hazo
The Middle of the World by Samuel Hazo Call it the dark wood’s year. Call it a year of hell and mountains and a guide to keep at bay the leopard, lion and the wolf. Call it something! I am ripe for parables. My only mountain is the one I climb to work, and I […]
The First Sam Hazo at the Last by Samuel Hazo
The First Sam Hazo at the Last by Samuel Hazo A minor brush with medicine in eighty years was all he’d known. But this was different. His right arm limp and slung, his right leg dead to feeling and response, he let me spoon him chicken-broth. Later he said without self-pity that he’d like to […]
The Cleaving by Samuel Hazo
The Cleaving by Samuel Hazo Imagining my wife dead, I am stopped, stilled, halved and driven singly back to fears too real for loneliness alone to name. Then, nothing. Slowly intimidations shame me back and up from hell like Orpheus, saying it was not time, it was not time to leave her rouged and coffined […]
Carol of a Father by Samuel Hazo
Carol of a Father by Samuel Hazo He runs ahead to ford a flood of leaves— he suddenly a forager and I the lagging child content to stay behind and watch the gold upheavals at the curb submerge his surging ankles and subside. A word could leash him back or make him turn and ask […]
To A Young Lady. On Her Recovery From A Fever by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Why need I say, Louisa dear! How glad I am to see you here, A lovely convalescent; Risen from the bed of pain and fear, And feverish heat incessant. The sunny showers, the dappled sky, The little birds that warble high, Their vernal loves commencing, Will better welcome you than I With their sweet influencing. […]
Written In Early Youth. The Time,–An Autumnal Evening by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
O thou wild fancy, check thy wing! No more Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore! Nor there with happy spirits speed thy light Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light; Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day, With western peasants hail the morning ray! Ah! rather bid the perished pleasures move, […]
The Lime-tree Bower my Prison by Samuel Coleridge
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimm’d mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top […]
Psyche by Samuel Coleridge
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. ————— […]
Brockley Coomb by Samuel Coleridge
Lines composed while climbing the left ascent of Brockley Coomb, May 1795 With many a pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb’s ascent: sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock That on green plots o’er […]
As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment) by Samuel Coleridge
As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank, (By the slant current’s pressure scoop’d away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol […]
Constancy To An Ideal Object by Samuel Coleridge
Since all, that beat about in Nature’s range, Or veer or vanish ; why should’st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning THOUGHT ! that liv’st but in the brain ? Call to the HOURS, that in the distance play, The faery people of the future day– — Fond THOUGHT […]
A Tombless Epitaph by Samuel Coleridge
‘Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane ! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise, And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,) ‘Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honouring with religious love the Great Of elder times, he hated to excess, […]
Cologne by Samuel Coleridge
In K?hln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements 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 […]
Duty Surviving Self-Love by Samuel Coleridge
Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others’ Wanings should’st thou fret ? Then only might’st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble […]
Epitaph by Samuel Coleridge
Stop, Christian passer-by : Stop, child of God, And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seem’d he– O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.– That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death […]
Dejection: An Ode by Samuel Coleridge
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms ; And I fear, I fear, My Master dear ! We shall have a deadly storm. Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence ————————————————————————— I Well ! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, […]
About The Nightingale by Samuel Coleridge
From a letter from STC to Wordsworth after writing The Nightingale: In stale blank verse a subject stale I send per post my Nightingale; And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth, You’ll tell me what you think, my Bird’s worth. My own opinion’s briefly this– His bill he opens not amiss; And when he has […]
Fears In Solitude by Samuel Coleridge
A green and silent spot, amid the hills, A small and silent dell ! O’er stiller place No singing sky-lark ever poised himself. The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, All golden with the never-bloomless furze, Which now blooms most profusely : but the dell, Bathed […]
Christabel by Samuel Coleridge
PART I ‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock And the owls have awakened the crowing cock; Tu-whit!- Tu-whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff, which From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the […]
Epigram by Samuel Coleridge
Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry […]
Phantom by Samuel Coleridge
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. ————— The End And that’s […]
A Mathematical Problem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
This is now–this was erst, Proposition the first–and Problem the first. I. On a given finite Line Which must no way incline; To describe an equi– –lateral Tri– –A, N, G, L, E. Now let A. B. Be the given line Which must no way incline; The great Mathematician Makes this Requisition, That we describe […]
Fire, Famine, And Slaughter : A War Eclogue by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Scene a desolate Tract in la Vendee. Famine is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter Fire and Slaughter. Fam. Sister! sisters! who sent you here? Slau. [to Fire.] I will whisper it in her ear. Fire. No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell: ‘Twill make a holiday in Hell. No! no! […]
Fancy In Nubibus, Or The Poet In The Clouds by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of […]
Epitaph On An Infant. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Its balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother’s breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety! And such my infant’s latest sigh! Oh tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with Lullaby. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
Elegy, Imitated From One Of Akenside’s Blank-Verse Inscriptions by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Near the lone pile with ivy overspread, Fast by the rivulet’s sleep-persuading sound, Where ‘sleeps the moonlight’ on yon verdant bed– O humbly press that consecrated ground! For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain! And there his spirit most delights to rove: Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain, And the sore wounds of […]
Domestic Peace by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Tell me, on what holy ground May domestic peace be found? Halcyon daughter of the skies, Far on fearful wing she flies, From the pomp of scepter’d state, From the rebel’s noisy hate. In a cottaged vale she dwells List’ning to the Sabbath bells! Still around her steps are seen, Spotless honor’s meeker mien, Love, […]
Despair by Samuel Coleridge
I have experienc’d The worst, the World can wreak on me–the worst That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb With whisper’d Discontents the dying prayer– I have beheld the whole of all, wherein My Heart had any interest in this Life, To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes That nothing now is left. […]
Desire by Samuel Coleridge
Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame; It is the reflex of our earthly frame, That takes its meaning from the nobler part, And but translates the language of the heart. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the […]
A Day Dream by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
My eyes make pictures when they’re shut:– I see a fountain large and fair, A Willow and a ruined Hut, And thee, and me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o’er us, like a bower, my beautiful green Willow! A wild-rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer […]
Come, come thou bleak December wind (fragment) by Samuel Coleridge
Come, come thou bleak December wind, And blow the dry leaves from the tree! Flash, like a Love-thought, thro’ me, Death And take a Life that wearies me. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. […]
A Christmas Carol by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I. The shepherds went their hasty way, And found the lowly stable-shed Where the Virgin-Mother lay: And now they checked their eager tread, For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung, A Mother’s song the Virgin-Mother sung. II. They told her how a glorious light, Streaming from a heavenly throng. Around them shone, suspending […]
A Child’s Evening Prayer by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, God grant me grace my prayers to say: O God! preserve my mother dear In strength and health for many a year; And, O! preserve my father too, And may I pay him reverence due; And may I my best thoughts employ To be my parents’ hope […]
Aplolgia Pro Vita Sua by Samuel Coleridge
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. ————— The End And […]
Answer To A Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove, The linnet, and thrush say, ‘I love and I love!’ In the winter they’re silent, the wind is so strong; What it says I don’t know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing, and […]
Absence: A Farewell Ode On Quitting School For Jesus College by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Where graced with many a classic spoil Cam rolls his reverend stream along, I haste to urge the learned toil That sternly chides my love-lorn song: Ah me! too mindful of the days Illumed by Passion’s orient rays, When peace, and Cheerfulness, and Health Enriched me with the best of wealth. Ah fair Delights! that […]
A Soliloquy Of The Full Moon, She Being In A Mad Passion by Samuel Coleridge
Now as Heaven is my Lot, they’re the Pests of the Nation! Wherever they can come With clankum and blankum ‘Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation, With fun, jeering Conjuring Sky-staring, Loungering, And still to the tune of Transmogrification– Those muttering Spluttering Ventriloquogusty Poets With no Hats Or Hats that are rusty. They’re my […]
With his venom by Sappho
With his venom irresistible and bittersweet that loosener of limbs, Love reptile-like strikes me down ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original […]