Francis T. Palgrave, ed. (1824–1897). The Golden Treasury. 1875.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge CLXVIII. LoveA
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruin’d tower.
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
The statue of the armèd knight;
She stood and listen’d to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene’er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo’d
The Lady of the Land.
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another’s love
Interpreted my own.
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he cross’d the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!
He leap’d amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;—
And how she tended him in vain;
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain;—
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay;—
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturb’d her soul with pity!
Had thrill’d my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherish’d long!
She blush’d with love and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
As conscious of my look she stept—
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.
She press’d me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look’d up,
And gazed upon my face.
And partly ’twas a bashful art
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.