stardust

"The Snow-Drop." (Poem). Author: S. Taylor Coleridge.

1.-
Fear no more, thou timid flower!!
Fear thou no more the Winter´s might;
The whelming thaw; the ponderous shower;
The silence of the freezing night!!
Since Laura murmured over thy leaves
The potent sorceries of song,
To thee, meek flow´ret!! gentler gales
And cloudless skies belong.

2.-
On thee with feelings unreproved
Her eye with tearful meanings fraught,
She gazed till all the body moved
Interpreting the spirit´s thought:
Now trembled with thy trembling stem;
And, while thou droope´st over thy bed,
With imitative sympathy
Inclined the drooping head.

3.-
She drooped her head, she stretched her arm,
She whispered low her witching rhymes;
FAME unrebellious heard the CHARM,
And bore thee to Pierian climes.
FEAR thou no more the matin frost
That sparkled on thy bed of snow:
For there, mid laurels ever green,
IMMORTAL thou shalt blow.

4.-
Thy petals boast a white more soft
The spell hath so perfumed thee,
That careless LOVE shall deem thee oft
A Blossom from his myrtle-tree;
Then laughing at the fair deceit
Shall race with some Etesian wind
To seek the woven arboret,
Where Laura lies reclined!!

5.-
For them, whom LOVE and FANCY grace,
When human eyes are closed in sleep,
Them oft the spirits of the place
Waft up that strange unpathwayed steep;
On whose vast summit, smooth and broad,
His nest the phoenix bird conceals,
And where by cypresses overhung
A Heavenly Lethe steals.

6.-
A sea-like sound the branches breathe,
Stirred by the breeze that loiters there;
And all, who stretch their limbs beneath,
Forget the coil of mortal care.
Such mists along the margin rise,
As heal the guests, who thither come;
And fit the soul to re-endure
Its EARTHLY MARTYRDOM.

7.-
That marge, how dear moonlight elves!!
There zephyr-trembling lilies blow,
And bend to kiss their softer selves
That tremble in the stream below!!
There, nightly borne, does Laura lie-
A magic slumber heaves her breast!!
Her arm, white wanderer of the harp,
Beneath her cheek is prest!!

8.-
The harp, uphung by golden chains,
Of that low wind which whispers round,
With coy reproachfulness complains
In snatches of reluctant sound!!
The music hovers half-perceived,
And only moulds the slumberer´s dreams;
Remembered loves light up her cheek
With youth´s returning gleams.

9.-
The LOVE trip round her all the night;
And PITY hates the morning´s birth,
That rudely warns the lingering sprite
Whose plumes must waft her back to Earth!!
Meek PITY, that foreruns relief,
Yet still assumes the hues of woe;
Pale promiser of rosy Spring,
A SNOW-DROP mid the snow.

Author: S. Taylor Coleridge.