Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE, by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe
Last Line: A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.
Subject(s): Idleness; Melancholy; Laziness; Sloth; Indolence; Dejection


Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,
Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave Life's common-weal
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.





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