by Coleridge · Cluster: Time · Tempus Fugit · Clock
Abstract
A meditative inscription on fleeting hours, each parting hour yielding a ghost to dwell within as an ‘eternal Now’, with attached squibs on Tom Hill and on tears as the eye’s language; time, transience, and silence.
Connections
Topoi: Tempus Fugit Motifs: Time, Clock, Ghosts, Silence, Eyes and Sight Themes & Concepts: Transience Forms & Genres: Epigram
Testo integrale / Full text
Now! It is gone — Our brief hours travel post,
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How: —
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost
To dwell within thee — an eternal Now!
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 60. First collected in 1844.
ON THE MOST VERACIOUS ANECDOTIST
AND
SMALL-TALK MAN, THOMAS HILL, ESQ
Tom Hill, who laughs at Cares and Woes,
As nauci — nili — pili —
What is he like, as I suppose?
Why, to be sure, a Rose — a Rose.
At least, no soul that Tom Hill knows
Could e’er recall a Li-ly.
Now first published from an MS.
Nothing speaks our mind so well
As to speak Nothing. Come then, tell
Thy Mind in Tears, whoe’er thou be
That ow’st a name to Misery:
None can fluency deny
To Tears, the Language of the Eye.
Now first published from an MS. in the British Museum.