This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison 
by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,  
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost  
Such beauties and such feelings, as had been  
Most sweet to have remembrance, even when age  
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,  
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,  
On springy heath, along the hilltop edge,  
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,  
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;  
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, 
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;  
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock  
Flings arching like a bridge; —that branchless ash,  
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves  
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,  
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends  
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,  
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)  
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge  
Of the blue clay-stone.

 Now my friends emerge  
Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again  
The many-steepled tract magnificent  
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,  
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up 
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles  
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on  
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,  
My gentle-hearted Charles! For thou hast pined  
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,  
In the great City pent, winning thy way  30
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain  
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink  
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!  
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,  
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!  
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!  
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend,  
Struck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood,  
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round  
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem  
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues  
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when he makes  
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight  
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad  
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,  
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd  
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze  
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd  
Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see  
The shadow of the leaf and stem above  
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree  
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay  
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps  
Those fronting elms, and now with blackest mass  
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue  
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat  
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,  
Yet still the solitary humble-bee  
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know  
That nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;  
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there  
No waste so vacant, but may well employ  
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart  
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes  
'Tis well to be bereft of promised good,  
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate  
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.  
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook  
Beat its straight path along the dusky air  
Homewards, I blessed it! deeming its black wing  
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)  
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory  
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,  
Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm  
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom  
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.