by Coleridge · Cluster: Birds · Music and Song · Nightingale
Abstract
A sonnet on music’s power to console at the hour of death and amid misfortune; themes of melancholy, mortality, friendship and the consolation of art, with the music motif.
Connections
Motifs: Music and Song Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Friendship, Melancholy Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
While my young cheek retains its healthful hues,
And I have many friends who hold me dear,
L —— ! methinks, I would not often hear
Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose
All memory of the wrongs and sore distress 5
For which my miserable brethren weep!
But should uncomforted misfortunes steep
My daily bread in tears and bitterness;
And if at Death’s dread moment I should lie
With no belovéd face at my bed-side, 10
To fix the last glance of my closing eye,
Methinks such strains, breathed by my angel-guide,
Would make me pass the cup of anguish by,
Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died!
1797.