by Coleridge · Cluster: Transience · Decay · Carpe Diem
Abstract
Sonnet on a plucked withered flower as melancholy emblem of a ruined woman (Abra) destroyed by selfish love; flowers, decay, the fallen woman, transience.
Connections
Topoi: Fall from Innocence Archetypes: (Reputed) Fallen Woman Motifs: Flowers, Decay, Grave Themes & Concepts: Transience, Melancholy Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
Ungrateful he, who pluck’d thee from thy stalk,
Poor faded flow’ret! on his careless way;
Inhal’d awhile thy odours on his walk,
Then onward pass’d and left thee to decay.
Ah! melancholy emblem! had I seen 5
Thy modest beauties dew’d with Evening’s gem,
I had not rudely cropp’d thy parent stem,
But left thee, blushing, ‘mid the enliven’d green
And now I bend me o’er thy wither’d bloom,
And drop the tear — as Fancy, at my side, 10
Deep-sighing, points the fair frail Abra’s tomb —
‘Like thine, sad Flower, was that poor wanderer’s pride!
Oh! lost to Love and Truth, whose selfish joy
Tasted her vernal sweets, but tasted to destroy!’
1794.