Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Love’s Apparition and Evanishment: an Allegoric Romance

Like a lone Arab, old and blind,
  Some caravan had left behind,
  Who sits beside a ruin’d well,
  Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
  And now he hangs his ag{'e}d head aslant,
  And listens for a human sound—in vain!
  And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
  Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;—
  Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
 Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
 With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
 I sate upon the couch of camomile;
 And—whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
 Flitted across the idle brain, the while
 I watch’d the sickly calm with aimless scope,
 In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
 Turn’d my eye inward—thee, O genial Hope,
 Love’s elder sister! thee did I behold
 Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
 With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
     Lie lifeless at my feet!
 And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
     And stood beside my seat;
 She bent, and kiss’d her sister’s lips,
     As she was wont to do;—
 Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath
 Woke just enough of life in death
     To make Hope die anew.

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