Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Books and Quotes Collection
To a Young Ass
1794Christabel
1797
And hence the custom and law began /
That still at dawn the sacristan, /
Who duly pulls the heavy bell, /
Five and forty beads must tell /
Between each stroke
Five warriors seiz'd me yestermorn, / Me, even me, a maid forlorn: / They choked my cries with force and fright, / And tied me on a palfrey white. / The palfrey was as fleet as wind, / And they rode furiously behind.
And to be wroth with one we love, / Doth work like madness in the brain.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind, /
And they rode furiously behind. /
They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white; /
And once we cross'd the shade of night.