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Title: The Day-Dream From An Emigrant To His Absent Wife
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge [
More Titles by Coleridge]
If thou wert here, these tears were tears of light!
But from as sweet a vision did I start
As ever made these eyes grow idly bright!
And though I weep, yet still around my heart
A sweet and playful tenderness doth linger, 5
Touching my heart as with an infant's finger.
My mouth half open, like a witless man,
I saw our couch, I saw our quiet room,
Its shadows heaving by the fire-light gloom;
And o'er my lips a subtle feeling ran, 10
All o'er my lips a soft and breeze-like feeling--
I know not what--but had the same been stealing
Upon a sleeping mother's lips, I guess
It would have made the loving mother dream
That she was softly bending down to kiss 15
Her babe, that something more than babe did seem,
A floating presence of its darling father,
And yet its own dear baby self far rather!
Across my chest there lay a weight, so warm!
As if some bird had taken shelter there; 20
And lo! I seemed to see a woman's form--
Thine, Sara, thine? O joy, if thine it were!
I gazed with stifled breath, and feared to stir it,
No deeper trance e'er wrapt a yearning spirit!
And now, when I seemed sure thy face to see, 25
Thy own dear self in our own quiet home;
There came an elfish laugh, and wakened me:
'Twas Frederic, who behind my chair had clomb,
And with his bright eyes at my face was peeping.
I blessed him, tried to laugh, and fell a-weeping! 30
1801-2.
FOOTNOTES:
[386:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, October 19, 1802. First
collected in _Poems_, 1852. A note (p. 384), was affixed:--'This little
poem first appeared in the _Morning Post_ in 1802, but was doubtless
composed in Germany. It seems to have been forgotten by its author, for
this was the only occasion on which it saw the light through him. The
Editors think that it will plead against parental neglect in the mind of
most readers.' Internal evidence seems to point to 1801 or 1802 as the
most probable date of composition.
LINENOTES:
[Below line 30] +ESTÊSE+.
[The end]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem: Day-Dream From An Emigrant To His Absent Wife
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