by Coleridge · Cluster: Dreams · Moon
Abstract
A tender lyric of separation written in Germany, wishing for a bird’s wings to fly to the beloved and finding union only in dreams and sleep.
Connections
Motifs: Dreams, Sleep, Birds Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love, Exile Forms & Genres: Lyric Settings: Germany, Europe
Testo integrale / Full text
WRITTEN IN GERMANY
If I had but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I’d fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here. 5
But in my sleep to you I fly:
I’m always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one’s own.
But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone. 10
Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while ‘tis dark, one shuts one’s lids,
And still dreams on. 15
April 23, 1799.