Samuel Taylor Coleridge
This Lime Tree Bower My Prison
from Annual Anthology, 1800
[Addressed to Charles Lamb, of the India House, London]
In July 1797, Coleridge was visited by Charles Lamb at his cottage in Somerset. Lamb was a school friend of Coleridge, prominent essayist, critic and occasional poet. A slight injury prevented his joining Lamb and the Wordsworths on a country walk. Left behind, he composed this poem.
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, | ||
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost | ||
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been | ||
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age | ||
5 | Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, | |
Friends, whom I never more may meet again, | ||
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, | ||
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, | ||
To that still roaring dell, of which I told; | ||
10 | The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, | |
And only speckled by the mid-day sun; | ||
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock | ||
Flings arching like a bridge; - that branchless ash, | ||
Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves | ||
15 | Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, | |
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends | ||
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, | ||
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) | ||
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge | ||
20 | Of the blue clay-stone. | |
Now, my friends emerge | ||
Beneath the wide wide Heaven - and view again | ||
The many-steepled tract magnificent | ||
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, | ||
25 | With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up | |
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles | ||
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on | ||
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, | ||
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined | ||
30 | And hungered after Nature, many a year, | |
In the great City pent, winning thy way | ||
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain | ||
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink | ||
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! | ||
35 | Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, | |
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! | ||
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! | ||
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend | ||
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, | ||
40 | Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round | |
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem | ||
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues | ||
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes | ||
Spirits perceive his presence. | ||
45 | A delight | |
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad | ||
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, | ||
This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked | ||
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze | ||
50 | Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd | |
Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see | ||
The shadow of the leaf and stem above | ||
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree | ||
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay | ||
55 | Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps | |
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass | ||
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue | ||
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat | ||
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, | ||
60 | Yet still the solitary humble bee | |
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know | ||
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure; | ||
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, | ||
No waste so vacant, but may well employ | ||
65 | Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart | |
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes | ||
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good, | ||
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate | ||
With lively joy the joys we cannot share. | ||
70 | My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook | |
Beat its straight path across the dusky air | ||
Homewards, I blessed it! deeming its black wing | ||
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) | ||
Had crossed the mighty Orb's dilated glory, | ||
75 | While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still, | |
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm | ||
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom | ||
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. |
First published 1800
Robert Clark