"O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me / What this strong music in the soul may be!"
— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)
Work Title
Date
October 4, 1802
Metaphor
"O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me / What this strong music in the soul may be!"
Metaphor in Context
O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud--
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud--
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
(ll. 59-75)
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud--
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud--
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
(ll. 59-75)
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
