Page:Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge).djvu/149

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

127

O beauteous Birds! 'tis such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the Moon,
1 would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies.
When silent night has closed her eyes—
It is a breezy jasmine-bower.
The Nightingale sings o'er her head:
Voice of the Night! had I the power
That leafy labyrinth to thread,
And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,
I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,
As these two swans together heave
On the gently swelling wave.

Oh! that she saw me in a dream,
And dreamt that I had died for care!
All pale and wasted I would seem,
Yet fair withal, as spirits are!
I'd die indeed, if I might see
Her bosom heave, and heave for me!
Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind!
To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

(From the Morning Post, 1795.)