The Mind

Fragment: I have experienced

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772–1834

From Complete Poetical Works, ed. E. H. Coleridge (1912)

The Mind

I have experienced
The worst the world can wreak on me--the worst
That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb
With whisper'd discontent the dying prayer--
I have beheld the whole of all, wherein
My heart had any interest in this life
To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes
That nothing now is left. Why then live on?
That hostage that the world had in its keeping
Given by me as a pledge that I would live--
That hope of Her, say rather that pure Faith
In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce
With the tyranny of Life--is gone, ah! whither?
What boots it to reply? 'tis gone! and now
Well may I break this Pact, this league of Blood
That ties me to myself--and break I shall.

✦ ✦ ✦

1810

MLA

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Fragment: I have experienced.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/coleridge/468/.

Chicago

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Fragment: I have experienced.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/coleridge/468/.

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