Friendship by Hartley Coleridge
When she was in her early 20s, Charlotte Brontë sent some of her work (now part of her juvenilia) to Hartley Coleridge. His response was not overly favorable and she was quite displeased.
Friendship
By Hartley Coleridge
When we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted:
Our love was nature; and the peace that floated
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:
One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
That, wisely doting, ask’d not why it doted,
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
But now I find how dear thou wert to me;
That man is more than half of nature’s treasure,
Of that fair beauty which no eye can see,
Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
And now the streams may sing for others’ pleasure,
The hills sleep on in their eternity.
I think I like Hartley Coleridge’s sonnets better than (much of) the work of his famous father. Many thanks for posting this!
My pleasure! I’ve posted a couple of the younger Coleridge’s sonnets, but I’d like to read more.