by Coleridge · Cluster: Alienation · Outsider · Exile
Abstract
A lyric of exile written in Germany contrasting domestic and natural sweetnesses with the wasting pang of homesickness and longing for Albion’s shore.
Connections
Motifs: Wind Themes & Concepts: Exile, Nostalgia, Nationalism and Patriotism, Marriage and Fidelity Forms & Genres: Lyric Settings: Germany, Europe
Testo integrale / Full text
WRITTEN IN GERMANY
‘Tis sweet to him who all the week
Through city-crowds must push his way,
To stroll alone through fields and woods,
And hallow thus the Sabbath-day.
And sweet it is, in summer bower, 5
Sincere, affectionate and gay,
One’s own dear children feasting round,
To celebrate one’s marriage-day.
But what is all to his delight,
Who having long been doomed to roam, 10
Throws off the bundle from his back,
Before the door of his own home?
Home-sickness is a wasting pang;
This feel I hourly more and more:
There’s healing only in thy wings, 15
Thou breeze that play’st on Albion’s shore!
May 6, 1799.