HIS Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove <br />The father-songster plies the hour-long quest), <br />To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest; <br />But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above <br />Their callow fledgling progeny still hove <br />With tented roof of wings and fostering breast <br />Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest <br />From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human Love. <br />Yet ah! Like desert pools that show the stars <br />Once in long leagues,—even such the scarce-snatched hours <br />Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers:— <br />Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars. <br />Six years, from sixty saved! Yet kindling skies <br />Own them, a beacon to our centuries.<br /><br />Dante Gabriel Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/samuel-taylor-coleridge/
