Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO FORTUNE: ON BUYING A TICKET IN THE IRISH LOTTERY, by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO FORTUNE: ON BUYING A TICKET IN THE IRISH LOTTERY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Promptress of unnumber'd sighs
Last Line: And yield the unsunn'd stranger to the western gale!
Subject(s): Lotteries


Composed during a walk to and from the Queen's Head, Gray's Inn
Lane, Holborn, and Hornsby's and Co., Cornhill.

Promptress of unnumber'd sighs,
O snatch that circling bandage from thine eyes!
O look, and smile! No common prayer
Solicits, Fortune! thy propitious care!
For,not a silken son of dress
I clink the gilded chains of politesse,
Nor ask thy boon what time I scheme
Unholy Pleasure's frail and feverish dream;
Nor yet my view life's dazzle blinds --
Pomp! -- Grandeur! Power! -- I give you to the winds!
Let the little bosom cold
Melt only at the sunbeam ray of gold --
My pale cheeks glow -- the big drops start --
The rebel Feeling riots at my heart!
And if in lonely durance pent,
Thy poor mite mourn a brief imprisonment --
That mite at Sorrow's faintest sound
Leaps from its scrip with an elastic bound!
But oh! if ever song thine ear
Might soothe, O haste with fost'ring hand to rear
One Flower of Hope! At Love's behest,
Trembling, I plac'd it in my secret breast:
And thrice I've view'd the vernal gleam,
Since oft mine eye, with Joy's electric beam,
Illum'd it -- and its sadder hue
Oft moisten'd with the Tear's ambrosial dew!
Poor wither'd floweret! on its head
Has dark Despair his sickly mildew shed!
But thou, O Fortune! canst relume
Its deaden'd tints -- and thou with hardier bloom
May'st haply tinge its beauties pale,
And yield the unsunn'd stranger to the western gale!





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