Samuel Taylor Coleridge

On a Ruined House in a Romantic Country

Coleridge's accompanying note when he republished it in his Biographia Literaria

And this reft house is that the which he built,
Lamented Jack ! And here his malt he pil'd,
Cautious in vain ! These rats that squeak so wild,
Squeak, not unconscious of their father's guilt.
Did ye not see her gleaming thro' the glade ?
Belike, 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn.
What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn,
Yet aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd ;
And aye beside her stalks her amorous knight !
Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn,
And thro' those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn,
His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white ;
As when thro' broken clouds at night's high noon
Peeps in fair fragments forth the full-orb'd harvest-moon !

1797, published 1797, 1803, 1805, 1817

(proofed against E. H. Coleridge's 1927 edition of STC's poems)

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