Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,
Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave Life's commonweal
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,
Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave Life's commonweal
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.
This poem by Coleridge has an interesting difference from the normal poems. It doesn't follow the appreciation of nature that most of his do, nor does it contain the want to pass the appreciation to someone else. At first glance this seems to just be Coleridge shouting insults at someone who seems to not appreciate the wealth that he has gained, nor the way that he lives. He decides that this person is basically running around shouting insults to those who are far less fortunate than he is. However we can see Coleridge's character shows a bit of loss for the young man, and the ideas that we had looked at in many others of his poems. the longing in nature, particularly in wanting more notice from it. as well as the attempts to past it on to another person in this case with the young man. this links it all back into a single idea, which is played through in all of Coleridge poems. The lost beauty of Nature, the longing it leaves, and the want to pass it to the next generation. all easily in place in this poem.
