by Coleridge · Cluster: Imagination · Fragment · Heroic Couplet

Abstract

A set of metrical experiments — weeping into sleep beneath shade, a willow-and-absent-love song, and rustic roundelays of gods following the hare; prosody, pastoral and melancholy.

Connections

Topoi: Pastoral Retreat Motifs: River Themes & Concepts: Melancholy, Unrequited Frustrated Love Forms & Genres: Fragment, Comic Verse Song Historical References: Greek Mythology

Testo integrale / Full text

There in some darksome shade
Methinks I’d weep
Myself asleep,
And there forgotten fade.
First published from an MS. in 1893.
Once again, sweet Willow, wave thee!
Why stays my Love?
Bend, and in yon streamlet — lave thee!
Why stays my Love?
Oft have I at evening straying,
Stood, thy branches long surveying,
Graceful in the light breeze playing, —
Why stays my Love?

  1. Four Trochees /.
  2. One spondee, Iambic .
  3. Four Trochees 1.
  4. Repeated from 2. 5, 6, 7. A triplet of 4 Trochees — 8 repeated.
    First published from an MS. in 1893.
    ¯ Ø, ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø Ø
    ¯ Ø, ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø Ø,
    ¯ Ø, ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø Ø
    Ø ¯ Ø, ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø Ø, ¯
    ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø
    Ø ¯ Ø Ø, ¯ Ø etc.
    Songs of Shepherds and rustical Roundelays,
    Forms of Fancies and whistled on Reeds,
    Songs to solace young Nymphs upon Holidays
    Are too unworthy for wonderful deeds —
    Round about, hornéd
    Lucinda they swarméd,
    And her they informéd,
    How minded they were,
    Each God and Goddess,
    To take human Bodies
    As Lords and Ladies to follow the Hare.
    Now first published from an MS.