Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE; SIX YEARS OLD, by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE; SIX YEARS OLD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: O thou whose fancies from afar are brought
Last Line: Slips in a moment out of life.
Variant Title(s): To H. C.; Six Years Old
Subject(s): Children; Coleridge, Hartley (1796-1849); Poetry & Poets; Childhood


O THOU whose fancies from afar are brought;
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought
The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol,
Thou fairy voyager! that dost float
In such clear water, that thy boat
May rather seem
To brood on air than on an earthly stream --
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,
Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;
O blessed vision! happy child!
Thou art so exquisitely wild,
I think of thee with many fears
For what may be thy lot in future years.
I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality;
And Grief, uneasy lover, never rest
But when she sat within the touch of thee.
O too industrious folly!
O vain and causeless melancholy !
Nature will either end thee quite;
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,
Or the injuries of to-morrow?
Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,
Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;
A gem that glitters while it lives,
And no forewarning gives,
But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife,
Slips in a moment out of life.




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