Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SOLITARY HEARTED, by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: She was a queen of noble nature's Last Line: She glides along -- the solitary-hearted. Alternate Author Name(s): Coleridge, Hartley | ||||||||
SHE was a queen of noble Nature's crowning, A smile of hers was like an act of grace; She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, Like daily beauties of the vulgar race: But if she smiled, a light was on her face, A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam Of peaceful radiance, silvering o'er the stream Of human thought with unabiding glory; Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream, A visitation, bright and transitory. But she is changed, -- hath felt the touch of sorrow, No love hath she, no understanding friend; O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend. The tallest flower that skyward rears its head Grows from the common ground, and there must shed Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely, That they should find so base a bridal bed, Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely. She had a brother, and a tender father, And she was loved, but not as others are From whom we ask return of love, -- but rather As one might love a dream; a phantom fair Of something exquisitely strange and rare, Which all were glad to look on, men and maids, Yet no one claim'd -- as oft, in dewy glades, The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness, Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades; -- The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness. 'Tis vain to say -- her worst of grief is only The common lot, which all the world have known; To her 'tis more, because her heart is lonely, And yet she hath no strength to stand alone, -- Once she had playmates, fancies of her own, And she did love them. They are past away As Fairies vanish at the break of day; And like a spectre of an age departed, Or unsphered Angel wofully astray, She glides along -- the solitary-hearted. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE SONNET by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE TO SHAKESPEARE by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE ADDRESS TO CERTAIN GOLD-FISHES by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE DEATH-BED REFLECTIONS OF MICHAEL-ANGELO by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE DEDICATORY SONNET TO S. T. COLERIDGE by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE EARLY DEATH by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE FEAR by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE FRIENDSHIP by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE HAGAR by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE |
|