Lines——

By Hartley Coleridge 1796–1849 Hartley Coleridge

I have been cherish’d and forgiven

By many tender-hearted,

’Twas for the sake of one in Heaven

Of him that is departed.

Because I bear my Father’s name

I am not quite despised,

My little legacy of fame

I’ve not yet realized.

And yet if you should praise myself

I’ll tell you, I had rather

You’d give your love to me, poor elf,

Your praise to my great father.

Source: Poets of the English Language (Viking Press, 1950)

Biography

Hartley Coleridge was the oldest son of Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Although he was the subject of two of his father’s poems—“Frost at Midnight” and “The Nightingale”—Coleridge was nonetheless estranged from his parents in his youth and raised by the poet Robert Southey. Coleridge attended Oxford and received a fellowship to Oriel College. A bright student who was expected to excel, he struggled with alcoholism and . . .

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