Part I - Defining Value
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
…
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth –
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
…
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Dejection: An Ode,” 1802.- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- In Defense of HumanismValue in the Arts and Letters, pp. 1 - 2Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996