Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

From Piccolomini; trans. from Schiller

O NEVER rudely will I blame his faith

In the might of stars and angels! ’Tis not merely

The human being’s Pride that peoples space

With life and mystical predominance;

Since likewise for the stricken heart of Love

This visible nature, and this common world,

Is all too narrow: yea, a deeper import

Lurks in the legend told my infant years

Than lies upon that truth we live to learn.

For fable is Love’s world, his home, his birthplace:

Delightedly dwells he ’mong fays and talismans,

And spirits; and delightedly believes

Divinities, being himself divine.

The intelligible forms of ancient poets,

The fair humanities of old religion,

The power, the beauty, and the majesty,

That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,

Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,

Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;

They live no longer in the faith of reason.

But still the heart doth need a language, still

Doth the old instinct bring back the old names,

And to yon starry world they now are gone,

Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth

With man as with their friend; and to the lover

Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky

Shoot influence down; and even at this day

’Tis Jupiter who brings whate’er is great,

And Venus who brings every thing that’s fair!