Page:Poems on Various Subjects - Coleridge (1796).djvu/177

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157

To float before them, when, the Summer noon,
Beneath some arch'd romantic rock reclin'd
They felt the sea-breeze lift their youthful locks,270
Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve,
Wandering with desultory feet inhal'd
The wafted perfumes, and the flocks and woods
And many-tinted streams and setting Sun
With all his gorgeous company of clouds275
Extatic gaz'd! then homeward as they stray'd
Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mus'd
Why there was Misery in a world so fair.

Ah far remov'd from all that glads the sense,
From all that softens or ennobles Man,280
The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads
They gape at pageant Power, nor recognize
Their cots' transmuted plunder! From the tree