Samuel Taylor Coleridge

HIS Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove

The father-songster plies the hour-long quest),

To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest;

But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above

Their callow fledgling progeny still hove

With tented roof of wings and fostering breast

Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest

From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human Love.

Yet ah! Like desert pools that show the stars

Once in long leagues,—even such the scarce-snatched hours

Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers:—

Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars.

Six years, from sixty saved! Yet kindling skies

Own them, a beacon to our centuries.