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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
IDEALITY, by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: The vale of tempe had in vain been fair
Last Line: The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.
Alternate Author Name(s): Coleridge, Hartley
Subject(s): Imagination; Fancy
First Line: The vale of tempe had in vain been fair
Last Line: The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.
Alternate Author Name(s): Coleridge, Hartley
Subject(s): Imagination; Fancy
The vale of Tempe had in vain been fair,
Green Ida never deemed the nurse of Jove;
Each fabled stream, beneath its covert grove,
Had idly murmured to the idle air;
The shaggy wolf had kept his horrid lair
In Delphi's cell, and old Trophonius' cave,
And the wild wailing of the Ionian wave
Had never blended with the sweet despair
Of Sappho's death-song: if the sight inspired
Saw only what the visual organs show,
If heaven-born phantasy no more required
Than what within the sphere of sense may grow.
The beauty to perceive of earthly things,
The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.
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