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Title: To Fortune
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge [
More Titles by Coleridge]
To the editor of the 'Morning Chronicle'
SIR,--The following poem you may perhaps deem admissible into your journal--if not, you will commit it åἰò ἱåñὸí ìέíïò Ἡöáίóôïéï.--I am, with more respect and gratitude than I ordinarily feel for Editors of Papers, your obliged, &c.,
CANTAB.--S. T. C.
To Fortune
On buying a Ticket in the Irish Lottery
Composed during a walk to and from the Queen's Head, Gray's
Inn Lane, Holborn, and Hornsby's and Co., Cornhill.
Promptress of unnumber'd sighs,
O snatch that circling bandage from thine eyes!
O look, and smile! No common prayer
Solicits, Fortune! thy propitious care!
For, not a silken son of dress,
I clink the gilded chains of _politesse_,
Nor ask thy boon what time I scheme
Unholy Pleasure's frail and feverish dream;
Nor yet my view life's _dazzle_ blinds--
Pomp!--Grandeur! Power!--I give you to the winds!
Let the little bosom cold
Melt only at the sunbeam ray of gold--
My pale cheeks glow--the big drops start--
The rebel _Feeling_ riots at my heart!
And if in lonely durance pent,
Thy poor mite mourn a brief imprisonment--
That mite at Sorrow's faintest sound
Leaps from its scrip with an elastic bound!
But oh! if ever song thine ear
Might soothe, O haste with fost'ring hand to rear
One Flower of Hope! At Love's behest,
Trembling, I plac'd it in my secret breast:
And thrice I've view'd the vernal gleam,
Since oft mine eye, with Joy's electric beam,
Illum'd it--and its sadder hue
Oft moisten'd with the Tear's ambrosial dew!
Poor wither'd floweret! on its head
Has dark Despair his sickly mildew shed!
But thou, O Fortune! canst relume
Its deaden'd tints--and thou with hardier bloom
May'st haply tinge its beauties pale,
And yield the unsunn'd stranger to the western gale!
1793.
[The end]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem: To Fortune
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