| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Coleridge | | By Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) |
| | | I SEE thee pine like her in golden story | |
| Who, in her prison, woke and saw, one day, | |
| The gates thrown open—saw the sunbeams play, | |
| With only a web ’tween her and summer’s glory; | |
| Who, when that web—so frail, so transitory, | 5 |
| It broke before her breath—had fallen away, | |
| Saw other webs and others rise for aye, | |
| Which kept her prisoned till her hair was hoary. | |
| Those songs half-sung that yet were all divine— | |
| That woke Romance, the queen, to reign afresh— | 10 |
| Had been but preludes from that lyre of thine, | |
| Could thy rare spirit’s wings have pierced the mesh | |
| Spun by the wizard who compels the flesh, | |
| But lets the poet see how heav’n can shine. | | | | |
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