Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/705

 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Her bosom heaved she stepped aside, As conscious of my look she stept Then suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms, She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

565 Youth and Age

VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee Both were mine' Life went a-maymg With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,

When I was young'

When I was young ? Ah, woful When' Ah' for the change 'twixt Now and Then^ This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong, O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, How lightly then it flash'd along Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,

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