As far as I am aware I have not yet looked at any of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poetry. I have briefly met him during a course on Wordsworth, his good friend, but know that he was a great writer in his own right.
That said, the title of this post might seem a little demeaning but ah! the things I will do for an alliteration. Plus, he admits himself in the title of this particular poem that his pondering is not of higher thought.
This is a little love poem; I cannot state about whom it was that he was thinking when he wrote this because he was married but unhappily. It therefore may not be about anyone in particular, showing how the poet can imitate and simulate emotions without feeling them at that very moment, either from memory or sympathetic observance.
Something Childish, but Very Natural
Written in Germany
If I had but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.
But in my sleep to you I fly:
I'm always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one's own.
But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone.
Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,
And still dreams on.
The poem begins on that wondrous conjunction 'if'', used to give the immediate impression of childhood hope and imagination. By using left branching, Coleridge has allowed this word to have poetic prominence, framing the whole piece with a positive, hopeful outlook on love. This is closed off in the same way in the final line with the use of the verb 'dreams', again a supposedly childish lexeme that really should not be seen as such; people continue to dream throughout the whole of their lives. As I see it, being called childish is just another way for saying someone is happy. This is why he also calls it 'natural'.
Hope appears to diminish in the first stanza with the adversative 'but', but then another 'but' contradicts that one in the next stanza, returning to the positive outlook of the child. The constant to and fro that these buts create is like the flow of the lover's emotions, at one moment positive, the next negative. The mix of exclamations and questions also aids this portrayal. The final positive resolution comes with the fresh conjunction 'yet' to rid the narrator of the past 'but[s]'.
Imagination is the final indication of a childish nature in this poem. The first stanza speaks of transfiguration, then the second of imaginative play in dreams. The life of the adult is outside of these things and thus leaves one 'all, all alone'. I feel I share this outlook on life, for anything supposedly 'adult' appears a more negative outlook on life than that of the child. His victory comes when he is awake and yet still manages to 'dream', without the aid of sleep. The inner hopeful and happy child has overcome the lonely adult in the 'dark'.
Overall, I see this poem as more of a comment upon life and imagination than love, and I think the title shows Coleridge would have agreed.
That said, the title of this post might seem a little demeaning but ah! the things I will do for an alliteration. Plus, he admits himself in the title of this particular poem that his pondering is not of higher thought.
This is a little love poem; I cannot state about whom it was that he was thinking when he wrote this because he was married but unhappily. It therefore may not be about anyone in particular, showing how the poet can imitate and simulate emotions without feeling them at that very moment, either from memory or sympathetic observance.
Written in Germany
If I had but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.
But in my sleep to you I fly:
I'm always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one's own.
But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone.
Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,
And still dreams on.
The poem begins on that wondrous conjunction 'if'', used to give the immediate impression of childhood hope and imagination. By using left branching, Coleridge has allowed this word to have poetic prominence, framing the whole piece with a positive, hopeful outlook on love. This is closed off in the same way in the final line with the use of the verb 'dreams', again a supposedly childish lexeme that really should not be seen as such; people continue to dream throughout the whole of their lives. As I see it, being called childish is just another way for saying someone is happy. This is why he also calls it 'natural'.
Hope appears to diminish in the first stanza with the adversative 'but', but then another 'but' contradicts that one in the next stanza, returning to the positive outlook of the child. The constant to and fro that these buts create is like the flow of the lover's emotions, at one moment positive, the next negative. The mix of exclamations and questions also aids this portrayal. The final positive resolution comes with the fresh conjunction 'yet' to rid the narrator of the past 'but[s]'.
Imagination is the final indication of a childish nature in this poem. The first stanza speaks of transfiguration, then the second of imaginative play in dreams. The life of the adult is outside of these things and thus leaves one 'all, all alone'. I feel I share this outlook on life, for anything supposedly 'adult' appears a more negative outlook on life than that of the child. His victory comes when he is awake and yet still manages to 'dream', without the aid of sleep. The inner hopeful and happy child has overcome the lonely adult in the 'dark'.
Overall, I see this poem as more of a comment upon life and imagination than love, and I think the title shows Coleridge would have agreed.
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