Page:Poems on Various Subjects - Coleridge (1796).djvu/84



HOU bleedest, my poor ! and thy distress Reas'ning I ponder with a scornful smile And probe thy sore wound sternly, tho' the while Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness. Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland? Or, list'ning, why forget the healing tale, When Jealousy with fev'rish fancies pale Jarr'd thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand? Faint was that, and rayless!—Yet 'twas fair And sooth'd with many a dream the hour of rest: Thou should'st have lov'd it most, when most opprest, And nurs'd it with an agony of Care, Ev'n as a Mother her sweet infant heir That wan and sickly droops upon her breast!