646. Friendship. Hartley Coleridge. The Oxford Book of English Verse

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Hartley Coleridge. 1796–1849

646. Friendship

WHEN we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted:
Our love was nature; and the peace that floated
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:	5
One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
That, wisely doting, ask'd not why it doted,
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
But now I find how dear thou wert to me;
That man is more than half of nature's treasure,	10
Of that fair beauty which no eye can see,
Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure,
The hills sleep on in their eternity.