Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

MY heart has thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains,

Whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring

Of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring!

For hence, not callous to the mourner’s pains

Through youth’s gay prime and thornless paths I went:

And when the mightier throes of mind began,

And drove me forth, a thought-bewildered man!

Their mild and manliest melancholy lent

A mingled charm, such as the pang consigned

To slumber, though the big tear it renewed;

Bidding a strange, mysterious pleasure brood

Over the wavy and tumultuous mind,

As the great Spirit erst with plastic sweep

Moved on the darkness of the unformed deep.