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Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Love`s Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance
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Like a lone Arab, old and blind, 
    Some caravan had left behind,
    Who sits beside a ruin`d well,
    Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
    And now he hangs his ag{`e}d head aslant,
    And listens for a human sound—in vain!
    And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
    Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;—
    Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
   Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
   With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
   I sate upon the couch of camomile;
   And—whether `twas a transient sleep, perchance,
   Flitted across the idle brain, the while
   I watch`d the sickly calm with aimless scope,
   In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
   Turn`d my eye inward—thee, O genial Hope,
   Love`s elder sister! thee did I behold
   Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
   With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
       Lie lifeless at my feet!
   And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
       And stood beside my seat;
   She bent, and kiss`d her sister`s lips,
       As she was wont to do;—
   Alas! `twas but a chilling breath
   Woke just enough of life in death
       To make Hope die anew.
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