GIPSIES
Composed 1807.—Published 1807
[Composed at Coleorton. I had observed them, as here described, near Castle Donnington, on my way to and from Derby.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
Yet are they here the same unbroken knot
Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!
Men, women, children, yea the frame
Of the whole spectacle the same!
Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light, 5
Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,
Their bed of straw and blanket-walls.
—Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I
Have been a traveller under open sky, 10
Much witnessing of change and cheer,
Yet as I left I find them here!
The weary Sun betook himself to rest;—
Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
Outshining like a visible God 15
The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour
And one night's diminution of her power,
Behold the mighty Moon! this way
She looks as if at them—but they 20
Regard not her:—oh better wrong and strife
(By nature transient) than this torpid life;
Life which the very stars reprove[A]
As on their silent tasks they move![1][B]
Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or[2] earth! 25
In scorn I speak not;—they are what their birth
And breeding suffer[3] them to be;
Wild outcasts of society![4]
See S. T. Coleridge's criticism of this poem in his Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 156 (edition 1847).—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[1] 1836.
Regard not her:—oh better wrong and strife
Better vain deeds or evil than such life!
The silent Heavens have goings on;[C]
The stars have tasks—but these have none. 1807.