Now it is in this self-delineative species of poetry that, in our judgment, Hartley Coleridge has attained to nearly, if not quite the highest excellence; it pervades his writings everywhere. But a few sonnets may be quoted to exemplify it:— ‘We parted on the mountains, as two streams From one clear spring pursue their several ways; And thy fleet course hath been through many a maze In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams Brightened the tresses that old poets praise, Where Petrarch’s patient love and artful lays, And Ariosto’s song of many themes, Moved the soft air.—But I, a lazy brook, As close pent up within my native dell, Have crept along from nook to shady nook, Where flow’rets blow and whispering Naiads dwell. Yet now we meet that parted were so wide, For rough and smooth to travel side by side. ‘Once I was young, and fancy was my all, My love, my joy, my grief, my hope, my fear, And ever ready as an infant’s tear, Whate’er in Fancy’s kingdom might befall, Some quaint device had Fancy still at call, With seemly verse to greet the coming cheer; Such grief to soothe, such airy hope to rear, To sing the birth-song, or the funeral Of such light love, it was a pleasant task; But ill accord the quirks of wayward glee That wears affliction for a wanton mask, With woes that bear not Fancy’s livery; With Hope that scorns of Fate its fate to ask, But is itself its own sure destiny. ‘Too true it is my time of power was spent In idly watering weeds of casual growth That wasted energy to desperate sloth Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent; That the huge debt for all that nature lent I sought to cancel,—and was nothing loth, To deem myself an outlaw, severed both From duty and from hope,—yea, blindly sent Without an errand where I would to stray:— Too true it is, that knowing now my state, I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate, Nor love the law I yet would fain obey: But true it is, above all law and fate Is Faith, abiding the appointed day. ‘Long time a child, and still a child when years Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I: For yet I lived like one not born to die, A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears; No hope I needed, and I knew no fears. But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking, I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking The vanguard of my age, with all arrears Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man, Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey, For I have lost the race I never ran; A rathe December blights my lagging May; And still I am a child, tho’ I be old, Time is my debtor for my years untold.’