Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell; And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint For improving his prisons in Hell.

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility; And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility.

He saw a Lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel.

His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through.

And backward and forward he switched his long tail As a gentleman switches his cane.

From his brimstone bed at break of day, A walking the Devil is gone, To look at his snug little farm the earth, And see how his stock goes on.

Lingering he raised his latch at eve, Though tired in heart and limb: He loved no other place, and yet Home was no home to him.

‘Alas!’ said she, ‘we ne’er can be Made happy by compulsion.’

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place (Portentous-sight!) the owlet Atheism, Sailing an obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringèd lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, "Where …

Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams!

The frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind.

Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, And shot my being through earth, sea, and air, Possessing all things with intensest love, O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.

Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea! every thing that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, whereso'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.

In nature there is nothing melancholy.

So for the mother’s sake the child was dear, And dearer was the mother for the child.

And this reft house is that the which he built, Lamented Jack!

O! I do love thee, meek Simplicity!

And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversly fram'd, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of All?

O! the one Life, within us and abroad, Which meets all Motion, and becomes its soul, A Light in Sound, a sound-like power in Light, Rhythm in all Thought, and Joyance every where.

Blest hour! it was a luxury — to be!

Poor little foal of an oppressèd race! I love the languid patience of thy face.

Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care; The opening bud to heaven conveyed, And bade it blossom there.