SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL[313:1]
WRITTEN IN GERMANY
If I had but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here. [5]
But in my sleep to you I fly:
I'm always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one's own.
But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone. 10
Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,
And still dreams on. 15
April 23, 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[313:1] First published in the Annual Anthology (1800), with the signature 'Cordomi': included in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The lines, without title or heading, were sent in a letter from Coleridge to his wife, dated Göttingen, April 23, 1799 (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i. 294-5). They are an imitation (see F. Freiligrath's Biographical Memoir to the Tauchnitz edition of 1852) of the German Folk-song Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär. For the original see Appendices of this edition. The title 'Something Childish', &c., was prefixed in the Annual Anthology, 1800.