Mest lästa ▸
Samuel Coleridge
The first seen in the season
Nitens et roboris expers
Turget et insolida est: et spe delectat.
Ovid, Metam. [xv.203].Thy smiles I note, sweet early Flower,
That peeping from thy rustic bower
The festive news to earth dost bring,
A fragrant messenger of Spring.
But, tender blossom, why so pale?
Dost hear stern Winter in the gale?
And didst thou tempt the ungentle sky
To catch one vernal glance and die?
Such the wan lustre Sickness wears
When Health's first feeble beam appears;
So languid are the smiles that seek
To settle on the care-worn cheek,
When timorous Hope the head uprears,
A SCALLOP shell, loosed by the lifting tide,
Had left a friendly shore, the seas to brave ;
Its lips of pink and snowy hollow shone
Pure in the sun, a pearl upon the wave.
It gleamed and passed — you burdened it with love,
With sweet long futures, new and dreamy days :
And named for me — because I held your hopes.
I bid you hush — not meriting your praise.
I pointed, as your vessel came to shore,
Wrecked where the tiny breakers rose and fell ;
And bid your voyagers not put to sea
So frail a craft as this poor scallop shell.
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead--
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute:--
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.