How long will ye round me be swelling,
O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor beneath the cold blast of the tree.
Thro' the high-sounding halls of Cathlóma
In the steps of my beauty I stray'd;
The warriors beheld Ninathóma,
And they blessèd the white-bosomed maid!
A ghost! by my cavern it darted!
In moon-beams the spirit was drest--
For lovely appear the departed
When they visit the dreams of my rest!
But disturbed by the tempest's commotion
Fleet the shadowy forms of delight--
Ah, cease, thou shrill blast of the ocean!
To howl through my cavern by night.
More verses by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- To A Young Ass, Its Mother Being Tethered Near It
- Monody On The Death Of Chatterton
- Hymn Before Sun-Rise, In The Vale Of Chamouni
- Sonnet Vii. To Burke
- Elegy, Imitated From One Of Akenside's Blank-Verse Inscriptions