I've just seen that 19 September is Hartley Coleridge's birthday. He's been in his father's shadow somewhat and hasn't been a weekly/fortnightly pick for a little while, so I'd like to propose two of his sonnets:
Sonnet IX
Long time a child, and still a child, when years
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I,–
For yet I lived like one not born to die;
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking,
I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking
The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
For I have lost the race I never ran:
A rathe December blights my lagging May;
And still I am a child, tho’ I be old,
Time is my debtor for my years untold.
https://archive.org/details/poemscolerid1coleuoft/page/12/mode/2up
Sonnet IV
Let me not deem that I was made in vain,
Or that my Being was an accident,
Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,
Not wish’d to be, to hinder would not deign.
Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain
Hath its own mission, and is duly sent
To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent
‘Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main.
The very shadow of an insect’s wing,
For which the violet cared not while it stay’d,
Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,
Proved that the sun was shining by its shade:
Then can a drop of the eternal spring,
Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?
https://archive.org/details/poemscoleridge02cole/page/6/mode/2up
Erin