To Hartley Coleridge

Six Years Old O THOU whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol, Thou fairy voyager! that dost float In such clear water, that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream— Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; O blessèd vision! happy child! Thou art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And Grief, uneasy lover, never rest But when she sat within the touch of thee. O too industrious folly! O vain and causeless melancholy! Nature will either end thee quite; Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee, by individual right, A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow, Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks, Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, And no forewarning gives, But, at the touch of wrongs, without a strife, Slips in a moment out of life.