Pensive at Eve

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Pensive at eve on the hard world I mus'd,
And my poor heart was sad: so at the moon
I gaz'd—and sigh'd, and sigh'd!—for, ah! how soon
Eve darkens into night. Mine eye perus'd
With tearful vacancy the dampy grass
Which wept and glitter'd in the paly ray;
And I did pause me on my lonely way,
And mused me on those wretched ones, who pass
O'er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas!
Most of Myself I thought: when it befell,
That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood
Breath'd in mine ear—"All this is very well;
But much of one thing is for no thing good."
Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell!