Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Quotes

• “The Other Side of a Mirror
  
  I sat before my glass one day,
  And conjured up a vision bare,
  Unlike the aspects glad and gay,
  That erst were found reflected there -
  The vision of a woman, wild
  With more than womanly despair.
  Her hair stood back on either side
  A face bereft of loveliness.
  It had no envy now to hide
  What once no man on earth could guess.
  It formed the thorny aureole
  Of hard, unsanctified distress.
  
  Her lips were open - not a sound
  Came though the parted lines of red,
  Whate'er it was, the hideous wound
  In silence and secret bled.
  No sigh relieved her speechless woe,
  She had no voice to speak her dread.
  
  And in her lurid eyes there shone
  The dying flame of life's desire,
  Made mad because its hope was gone,
  And kindled at the leaping fire
  Of jealousy and fierce revenge,
  And strength that could not change nor tire.
  
  Shade of a shadow in the glass,
  O set the crystal surface free!
  Pass - as the fairer visions pass -
  Nor ever more return, to be
  The ghost of a distracted hour,
  That heard me whisper: - 'I am she!”

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

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• “My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His
  
  None ever was in love with me but grief.
  She wooed me from the day that I was born;
  She stole my playthings first, the jealous thief,
  And left me there forlorn.
  
  The birds that in my garden would have sung,
  She scared away with her unending moan;
  She slew my lovers too when I was young,
  And left me there alone.
  
  Grief, I have cursed thee often—now at last
  To hate thy name I am no longer free;
  Caught in thy bony arms and prisoned fast,
  I love no love but thee.”

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

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• “We Never Said Farewell
  
  We never said farewell, nor even looked
  Our last upon each other, for no sign
  Was made when we the linkèd chain unhooked
  And broke the level line.
  
  And here we dwell together, side by side,
  Our places fixed for life upon the chart.
  Two islands that the roaring seas divide
  Are not more far apart.”

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

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• “. . . The stormy sun was going down
  In a stormy sky.
  
  Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
  And hold your breath between?
  In all the ages this can never be
  As if it had not been.”

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

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• “Her lips were open ⎼⎼ not a sound
  came through the parted lines of red.
  Whatever it was, the hideous wound
  in silence and in secret bled.
  No sigh relieved her speechless woe,
  she had no voice to speak her dread.”

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

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• “WE were young, we were merry, we were very very wise,
  And the door stood open at our feast,
  When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,
  And a man with his back to the East.”

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

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