by Coleridge · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
A short lyric epigram on the irreconcilable difference between love and friendship, arguing love unreturned grows ashamed of itself.
Connections
Archetypes: Lover Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love, Friendship, Unrequited Frustrated Love Forms & Genres: Lyric
Testo integrale / Full text
Her attachment may differ from yours in degree,
Provided they are both of one kind;
But Friendship, how tender so ever it be,
Gives no accord to Love, however refined.
Love, that meets not with Love, its true nature revealing, 5
Grows ashamed of itself, and demurs:
If you cannot lift hers up to your state of feeling,
You must lower down your state to hers.
? 1830.