Poem of the Day

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.

Talk about living in your father’s shadow…

Full well I know—my friends—ye look on me
By Hartley Coleridge

Full well I know—my friends—ye look on me
A living specter of my Father dead—
Had I not bourne his name, had I not fed
On him, as one leaf trembling on a tree,
A woeful waste had been my minstrelsy—
Yet have I sung of maidens newly wed
And I have wished that hearts too sharply bled
Should throb with less of pain, and heave more free
By my endeavor. Still alone I sit
Counting each thought as miser counts a penny,
Wishing to spend my pennyworth of wit
On antic wheel of fortune like a zany:
You love me for my sire, to you unknown,
Revere me for his sake, and love me for my own.

Current Tea: Clarksville cordial (Indian Korakundah Estate black tea with ginger, orange, & peach)

Oops! I guess I missed posting one yesterday. I didn’t turn on my computer before I left for school and then spent a little too long at the bar celebrating a friend’s (successful) dissertation defense. Now I’m back on track.

Long time a child, and still a child, when years
By Hartley Coleridge

Long time a child, and still a child, when years
   Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I;
   For yet I lived like one not born to die;
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
   But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep; and waking,
   I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking
The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
   Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
For I have lost the race I never ran:
   A rathe December blights my lagging May;
And still I am a child, though I be old:
Time is my debtor for my years untold.