On the Death of Henry Nelson Coleridge: Addressed to a Friend

Great joy was mine to hear a second hope,
Another little maid, was born to thee.
On whom your elder darling needs must look
With some surprise, as on a legacy
From some old miser uncle never seen.
And when I learn'd that, on the self-same day
That gave that pure ideal of new life,
A softly-breathing infant, to the air,
The vow confirm'd had made among thy kindred
A serious matron of a maiden gay,
I did design a furious gush of song,
A merry multiplicity of rhymes,
Where little sense were needed, save the sense
That one delight is in a score of souls.
But death had struck me ; God had call'd away
One whom the world, and I among the world,
Had augur'd to an honest course of glory ;
Whose earliest youth was crown'd with laureate wreath
On the proud banks of Isis and of Cam ;
Eton's prime scholar, and the youth adroit
To turn the nicest phrases of the Greeks,
The very quintessence of Roman speech,
To modern meanings and to modish arts.
Which neither Greek nor Roman ever knew.
Vain knowledge this, unprofitable skill,
So may you think, and truly would you say,
But that the mind thus curiously train'd
In the pure beauty of Hellenic art,
And grandeur elegant of gorgeous Rome,
Becomes to beauty feelingly awake,
Nice to perceive, glad to believe and love
Whate'er of beautiful abides in forms.
Hues, sounds, emotions of the moral heart.
Feeling a universal harmony
Of all good things seen, or surpassing sense : —
And for the love of all that lovely is,
And for a dauntless spirit unsubdued
By a too general lack of sympathy
Fighting for truth, — my sister loved him well !
She was a maid — alas ! a widow now —
Not easily beguiled by loving words,
Nor quick to love ; but, when she loved, the fate
Of her affection was a stern religion.
Admitting nought less holy than itself.
Seven years of patience, and a late consent
Won for the pair their all of hope. I saw
My sweetest sister in her honeymoon,
And then she was so pensive and so meek
That now I know there was an angel with her
That cried, Beware !

But he is gone, and all
The fondest passages of wedded life
And mutual fondling of their progeny,
And hopes together felt, and prayers when both
Blended their precious incenses, and the wish
That they together might behold the growth
And early fruit, most holy and approved.
Of their two darlings, sinks in viewless night
And is no more.

Thus ever in this world are joy and woe ;
The one before, the other hurrying after,
And " cadent tears " are ever prone to flow
In the quaint channels that are made by laughter.