Encinctured with a twine of leaves, That leafy twine his only dress! A lovely Boy was plucking fruits, By moonlight, in a wilderness. (In a moonlight wilderness _Aids to Reflection, 1825_.) The moon was bright, the air was free, And fruits and flowers together grew On many a shrub and many a tree: And all put on a gentle hue, Hanging in the shadowy air Like a picture rich and rare. It was a climate where, they say, The night is more belov'd than day. But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd, That beauteous Boy to linger here? Alone, by night, a little child, In place so silent and so wild-- Has he no friend, no loving mother near? I have here given the birth, parentage, and premature decease of the 'Wanderings of Cain, a poem',--intreating, however, my Readers, not to think so meanly of my judgment as to suppose that I either regard or offer it as any excuse for the publication of the following fragment (and I may add, of one or two others in its neighbourhood) in its primitive crudity. But I should find still greater difficulty in forgiving myself were I to record pro _taedio_ publico a set of petty mishaps and annoyances which I myself wish to forget. I must be content therefore with assuring the friendly Reader, that the less he attributes its appearance to the Author's will, choice, or judgment, the nearer to the truth he will be. S. T. COLERIDGE (1828). THE WANDERINGS OF CAIN CANTO II 'A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open moonlight.' Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the moonlight and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, 5 and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern. 'It is dark, O my father!' said Enos, 'but the path under 10 our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight.'