S.--S. C.]
[Footnote 2: See Dykes-Campbell's edition of Coleridge's "Poems", p.
572.]
LETTER 43. To MR. POOLE
5, November, 1796.
Thanks, my heart's warm thanks to you, my beloved Friend, for your
tender letter! Indeed I did not deserve so kind a one; but by this time
you have received my last. To live in a beautiful country, and to enure
myself as much as possible to the labours of the field, have been for
this year past my dream of the day, my sigh at midnight. But to enjoy
these blessings near you, to see you daily, to tell you all my thoughts
in their first birth, and to hear yours, to be mingling identities with
you, as it were!--the vision-weaving Fancy has indeed often pictured
such things, but Hope never dared whisper a promise. Disappointment!
Disappointment! dash not from my trembling hand this bowl, which almost
touches my lips. Envy me not this immortal draught, and I will forgive
thee all thy persecutions! Forgive thee! Impious! I will bless thee,
black-vested minister of Optimism, stern pioneer of happiness! Thou hast
been the cloud before me from the day that I left the flesh-pots of
Egypt, and was led through the way of a wilderness--the cloud that had
been guiding me to a land flowing with milk and honey--the milk of
innocence, the honey of friendship!
I wanted such a letter as yours, for I am very unwell.
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