quote · Legacy record
O never rudely will I blame his faith In the might of stars and angels!... ... For the stricken heart of Love This visible nature, and this common world, Is all too narrow: yea, a deeper import Lurks in the legend told my infant years Than lies upon that truth, we live to learn, For fable is Love’s world, his home, his birth-place: Delightedly dwells he ’mong fays and talismans, And spirits; and delightedly believes Divinities, being himself divine. The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and wat’ry depths; all these have vanished. They live no longer in the faith of reason! But still the heart doth need a language, still Doth the old instinct bring back the old names, And to yon starry world they now are gone, Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth With man as with their friend; and to the lover Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky Shoot influence down: and even at this day ’Tis Jupiter who brings whate’er is great, And Venus who brings everything that’s fair.
O never rudely will I blame his faith In the might of stars and angels!... ... For the stricken heart of Love This visible nature, and this common world, Is all too narrow: yea, a deeper import Lurks in the legend told my infant years Than lies upon that truth, we live to learn, For fable is Love’s world, his home, his birth-place: Delightedly dwells he ’mong fays and talismans, And spirits; and delightedly believes Divinities, being himself divine. The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and wat’ry depths; all these have vanished. They live no longer in the faith of reason! But still the heart doth need a language, still Doth the old instinct bring back the old names, And to yon starry world they now are gone, Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth With man as with their friend; and to the lover Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky Shoot influence down: and even at this day ’Tis Jupiter who brings whate’er is great, And Venus who brings everything that’s fair.
Approximate author period: c. 1803 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1803 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1772–1834)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921) (1921 AD)
Page 30 · printed citation: S. T. Coleridge (Wallenstein—The Piccolomini). · compiler notes excluded
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