| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| The Birth of Speech |
| | | Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) |
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| WHAT was’t awaken’d first the untried ear | |
| Of that sole man who was all human kind? | |
| Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind, | |
| Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere? | |
| The four mellifluous streams which flow’d so near, | 5 |
| Their lulling murmurs all in one combin’d? | |
| The note of bird unnam’d? The startled hind | |
| Bursting the brake—in wonder, not in fear, | |
| Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground | |
| Send forth mysterious melody to greet | 10 |
| The gracious pressure of immaculate feet? | |
| Did viewless seraphs rustle all around, | |
| Making sweet music out of air as sweet, | |
| Or his own voice awake him with its sound? | |
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