Page:Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge).djvu/263


 * We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
 * All melodies the echoes of that voice,

All colours a suffusion from that light.

There was a time when, though my path was rough,
 * This joy within me dallied with distress,

And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
 * Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:

For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seem'd mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,
 * But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
 * My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,
 * But to be still and patient, all I can;

And haply by abstruse research to steal
 * From my own nature all the natural Man—
 * This was my sole resource, my only plan:

Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my Soul. VOL. II.