Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Hartley Coleridge 1796–1849

Ideality

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THE VALE of Tempe had in vain been fair,

Green Ida never deem’d the nurse of Jove;

Each fabled stream, beneath its covert grove,

Had idly murmur’d to the idle air;

The shaggy wolf had kept his horrid lair

In Delphi’s cell, and old Trophonius’ cave,

And the wild wailing of the Ionian wave

Had never blended with the sweet despair

Of Sappho’s death-song: if the sight inspir’d

Saw only what the visual organs show,

If heaven-born phantasy no more requir’d

Than what within the sphere of sense may grow.

The beauty to perceive of earthly things,

The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.