by Coleridge · Cluster: Poet as Prophet · Prophet · Romantic Movement (Sensibility)
Abstract
A sonnet on the shaping power of fancy that makes cloud-shapes at will and ends with blind Homer beholding the Iliad in the voice of the sea. Themes: imagination, the poet-as-prophet, wonder.
Connections
Topoi: Poet as Prophet Archetypes: Prophet Motifs: Sea Themes & Concepts: Imagination, Wonder and Gratitude Forms & Genres: Sonnet Historical References: Greek Mythology
Testo integrale / Full text
O! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes
Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould 5
Of a friend’s fancy; or with head bent low
And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold
‘Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go
From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!
Or list’ning to the tide, with closéd sight, 10
Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand
By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.
1817.