Sarah Coleridge (1802–1850)

(From Chapter XVIII.)

I TREMBLE when with look benign

Thou tak’st my offer’d hand in thine,

Lest passion-breathing words of mine

The charm should break:

And friendly smiles be forced to fly,

Like soft reflections of the sky,

Which, when rude gales are sweeping by,

Desert the lake.

Of late I saw thee in a dream;

The day-star pour’d his hottest beam,

And thou, a cool refreshing stream,

Did’st brightly run:

The trees where thou wert pleased to flow,

Threw out their flowers, a glorious show,

While I, too distant doomed to grow,

Pined in the sun.

By no life-giving moisture fed,

A wasted tree, I bow’d my head,

My sallow leaves and blossoms shed

On earth’s green breast:

And silent pray’d the slumbering wind,

The lake, thy tarrying place, might find,

And waft my leaves, with breathings kind,

There, there, to rest.