By:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(composed 21st February 1825)
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair --
The bees are stirring -- birds are on the wing --
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.
Obsessive & delusional, as usual, but Mensa smart, as usual. For a window into his soul, read "Hexameters."
ReplyDeletei WONDERED WHY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE WROTE SUCH A CONTRASTING POEM IT'S TRUE THAT HOPE DEFERRED MAKES THE HEART SICK.
ReplyDeleteIN A QUEST TO UNDERSTAND, I EXAMINED MR. COLERIDGE'S LIFE STORY AND FOUND THAT THIS POEM MIRRORS HIS OWN LIFE OF DELUSION. MR. COLERIDGE HAS SUFFERED FROM PERHAPS BEING BIPOLAR AND HE IS OPIUM DRUG ADDICTED.
THIS POEM APPEARS TO BE A CRY FOR HAPPINESS AND THE CHANCE TO SMILE AGAIN AMID A EPISODE OR SEASON OF COLD OVERFLOWING DEPRESSION.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge realized (painfully) that we humans are creatures of duality - nature and spirit, body and soul, meat and mind. These two dualities do not always (ever?) meet, and stand in anguished opposition. Do not reduce the great insight of this poem to "delusion" and "bipolar disease." The poem makes a stunningly insightful statement about the difficulty of being human.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, Delusional, Opium Addict, Bi Polar...I wondered why I so wanted to have written this myself.
ReplyDeleteThough my tastes only included opium, preferring ethanol instead.
I've left that false lover with no regrets.
Still I embrace the other two.
Sometimes unwillingly but such is life.