by Coleridge · Cluster: Satire of Society · Epigram · Satire
Abstract
Satirical landscape fragment of a dusty hot road and careering ‘Aristocracy’; sun, heat, sheep and a glance of class critique.
Connections
Motifs: Sun, Dust, Animals Themes & Concepts: Class Conflict, Satire of Society, Economics Forms & Genres: Fragment, Satire
Testo integrale / Full text
The dust flies smothering, as on clatt’ring wheel
Loath’d Aristocracy careers along;
The distant track quick vibrates to the eye,
And white and dazzling undulates with heat,
Where scorching to the unwary traveller’s touch, 5
The stone fence flings its narrow slip of shade;
Or, where the worn sides of the chalky road
Yield their scant excavations (sultry grots!),
Emblem of languid patience, we behold
The fleecy files faint-ruminating lie. 10
1794.