Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772–1834
English poet, critic, and philosopher 

1. The river Rhine, it is well known,
   Doth wash your city of Cologne;
   But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
   Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
   
    
   ‘Cologne’ (1834)
2. O Lady! we receive but what we give,
   And in our life alone does Nature live.
   
    
   ‘Dejection: an Ode’ (1802) st. 4
3. But oh! each visitation
   Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
   My shaping spirit of imagination.
   
    
   ‘Dejection: an Ode’ (1802) st. 6
4. And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
   Is pride that apes humility.
   
    
   ‘The Devil's Thoughts’ (1799)
5. What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole,
   Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
   
    
   ‘Epigram’ (1809)
6. The frost performs its secret ministry,
   Unhelped by any wind.
   
    
   ‘Frost at Midnight’ (1798) l. 1
7. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock.
   ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816) preliminary note
8. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
   A stately pleasure-dome decree:
   Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
   Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea.
   
    
   ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816)
9. A savage place! as holy and enchanted
   As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
   By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
   
    
   ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816)
10. It was a miracle of rare device,
    A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.
    
     
    ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816)
11. And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
    Ancestral voices prophesying war!
    
     
    ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816)
12. A damsel with a dulcimer
    In a vision once I saw:
    It was an Abyssinian maid,
    And on her dulcimer she played,
    Singing of Mount Abora.
    
     
    ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816)
13. And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
    His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
    Weave a circle round him thrice,
    And close your eyes with holy dread,
    For he on honey-dew hath fed,
    And drunk the milk of Paradise.
    
     
    ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816)
14. All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
    Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
    All are but ministers of Love,
    And feed his sacred flame.
    
     
    ‘Love’ (1800)
15. With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
    Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots.
    
     
    ‘On Donne's Poetry’ (1818)
16. It is an ancient Mariner,
    And he stoppeth one of three.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 1
17. He holds him with his glittering eye—
    The Wedding-Guest stood still.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 1
18. And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
    As green as emerald.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 1
19. ‘Why look'st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
    I shot the Albatross.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 1
20. We were the first that ever burst
    Into that silent sea.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 2
21. As idle as a painted ship
    Upon a painted ocean.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 2
22. Water, water, everywhere,
    And all the boards did shrink;
    Water, water, everywhere,
    Nor any drop to drink.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 2
23. The Night-mare life-in-death was she,
    Who thicks man's blood with cold.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 3
24. The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;
    At one stride comes the dark.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 3
25. The hornèd Moon, with one bright star
    Within the nether tip.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 3; see Wordsworth
26. And a thousand thousand slimy things
    Lived on; and so did I.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 4
27. Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing,
    Beloved from pole to pole.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 5
28. Like one, that on a lonesome road
    Doth walk in fear and dread,
    And having once turned round walks on,
    And turns no more his head;
    Because he knows, a frightful fiend
    Doth close behind him tread.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 6
29. No voice; but oh! the silence sank
    Like music on my heart.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 6
30. He prayeth well, who loveth well
    Both man and bird and beast.
    
     
    He prayeth best, who loveth best
    All things both great and small.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 7
31. A sadder and a wiser man,
    He rose the morrow morn.
    
     
    ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798) pt. 7
32. Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
    And hope without an object cannot live.
    
     
    ‘Work without Hope’ (1828)
33. He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all.
    Aids to Reflection (1825) ‘Moral and Religious Aphorisms’ no. 25
34. The primary imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am.
    Biographia Literaria (1817) ch. 13
35. That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
    Biographia Literaria (1817) ch. 14
36. Iago's soliloquy— the motive-hunting of motiveless malignity.
    The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836) bk. 2 ‘Notes on the Tragedies of Shakespeare: Othello’
37. To see him act, is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.
    of Edmund Kean
    Table Talk (1835) 27 April 1823
38. Prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.
    Table Talk (1835) 12 July 1827
39. The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.
    Table Talk (1835) 23 July 1827
40. In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
    Table Talk (1835) 5 October 1830
41. The light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!
    Table Talk (1835) 18 December 1831
42. Summer has set in with its usual severity.
    letter from Charles Lamb to Vincent Novello, 9 May 1826