The Best Poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Coleridge Samuel Taylor

Author:Coleridge, Samuel Taylor [Taylor, Coleridge Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
Published: 2012-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

THE OLD MAN OF THE ALPS [1798]

STRANGER! whose eyes a look of pity shew,

Say, will you listen to a tale of woe?

A tale in no unwonted horrors drest;

But sweet is pity to an agéd breast.

This voice did falter with old age before;

Sad recollections make it falter more.

Beside the torrent and beneath a wood,

High in these Alps my summer cottage stood;

One daughter still remain'd to cheer my way,

The evening-star of life's declining day:

Duly she hied to fill her milking-pail,

Ere shout of herdsmen rang from cliff or vale;

When she return'd, before the summer shiel,

On the fresh grass she spread the dairy meal;

Just as the snowy peaks began to lose

In glittering silver lights their rosy hues.

Singing in woods or bounding o'er the lawn,

No blither creature hail'd the early dawn;

And if I spoke of hearts by pain oppress'd,

When every friend is gone to them that rest;

Or of old men that leave, when they expire,

Daughters, that should have perish'd with their sire—

Leave them to toil all day through paths unknown,

And house at night behind some sheltering stone;

Impatient of the thought, with lively cheer

She broke half-closed the tasteless tale severe.

She play'd with fancies of a gayer hue,

Enamour'd of the scenes her wishes drew;

And oft she prattled with an eager tongue

Of promised joys that would not loiter long,

Till with her tearless, eyes so bright and fair,

She seem'd to see them realis'd in air!

In fancy oft, within some sunny dell,

Where never wolf should howl or tempest yell,

She built a little home of joy and rest,

And fill'd it with the friends whom she lov'd best:

She named the inmates of her fancied cot,

And gave to each his own peculiar lot;

Which with our little herd abroad should roam,

And which should tend the dairy's toil at home,

And now the hour approach'd, which should restore

Her lover from the wars, to part no more.

Her whole frame fluttered with uneasy joy;

I long'd myself to clasp the valiant boy;

And though I strove to calm her eager mood,

It was my own sole thought in solitude.

I told it to the Saints amid my hymns—

For O! you know not, on an old man's limbs

How thrillingly the pleasant sun-beams play,

That shine upon his daughter's wedding-day.

I hoped, that those fierce tempests, soon to rave

Unheard, unfelt, around my mountain grave,

Not undelightfully would break her rest,

While she lay pillow'd on her lover's breast;

Or join'd his pious prayer for pilgrims driven

Out to the mercy of the winds of heaven.

Yes! now the hour approach'd that should restore

Her lover from the wars to part no more.

Her thoughts were wild, her soul was in her eye,

She wept and laugh'd as if she knew not why;

And she had made a song about the wars,

And sang it to the sun and to the stars!

But while she look'd and listen'd, stood and ran,

And saw him plain in every distant man,

By treachery stabbed, on NANSY'S murderous day,

A senseless corse th' expected husband lay.

A wounded man, who met us in the wood,

Heavily ask'd her where my cottage stood,

And told us all: she cast her eyes around

As if his words had been but empty sound.

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