| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Phantasmion. A Fairy Tale (1837)
XII. “Full oft before some Gorgeous Fane” | | By Sarah Coleridge (1802–1850) |
| | (From Chapter XXXIX.)
FULL oft before some gorgeous fane | |
| The youngling heifer bleeds and dies; | |
| Her life-blood issuing forth amain, | |
| While wreaths of incense climb the skies. | |
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| The mother wanders all around, | 5 |
| Through shadowy grove and lightsome glade; | |
| Her foot-marks on the yielding ground | |
| Will prove what anxious quest she made. | |
| |
| The stall where late her darling lay | |
| She visits oft with eager look: | 10 |
| In restless movements wastes the day, | |
| And fills with cries each neighbouring nook. | |
| |
| She roams along the willowy copse, | |
| Where purest waters softly gleam: | |
| But ne’er a leaf or blade she crops, | 15 |
| Nor crouches by the gliding stream. | |
| |
| No youthful kine, though fresh and fair, | |
| Her vainly searching eyes engage; | |
| No pleasant fields relieve her care, | |
| No murmuring streams her grief assuage. | 20 | | | |
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