Love's Apparition And Evanishment - By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE


      Like a lone Arab, old and blind,
      Some caravan had left behind,
      Who sits beside a ruin'd well,
      Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
  And now he hangs his aged head aslant,
  And listens for a human sound--in vain!
  And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
  Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;--
  Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
  Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
  With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
  I sate upon the couch of camomile;
  And--whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
  Flitted across the idle brain, the while
  I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,
  In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
  Turn'd my eye inward--thee, O genial Hope,
  Love's elder sister! thee did I behold,
  Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
  With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
    Lie lifeless at my feet!
  And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
    And stood beside my seat;
  She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,
    As she was wont to do;--
  Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath
  Woke just enough of life in death
    To make Hope die anew.