Shakespeare

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849)

THE SOUL of man is larger than the sky,

Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark

Of the unfathomed centre. Like that ark,

Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,

O’er the drowned hills, the human family,

And stock reserved of every living kind,

So, in the compass of the single mind,

The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,

That make all worlds. Great poet, ’t was thy art

To know thyself, and in thyself to be

Whate’er love, hate, ambition, destiny,

Or the firm fatal purpose of the heart

Can make of man. Yet thou wert still the same,

Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.