"Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth / A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud / Enveloping the Earth--"
— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)
Work Title
Date
October 4, 1802
Metaphor
"Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth / A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud / Enveloping the Earth--"
Metaphor in Context
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth--
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
(ll. 47-58)
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth--
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
(ll. 47-58)
Categories
Provenance
Reading at RPO
Citation
Written in April 1802; first published, October 4, 1802, in the Morning Post.
Text from Representative Poetry Online <Link>.
Text from Representative Poetry Online <Link>.
Date of Entry
08/20/2013
