Coleridge
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who was born in Ottery St Mary, wrote this poem entitled Sonnet to the River Otter.
- Dear native brook! wild streamlet to the West!
- How many various-fated years have past,
- What happy, and what mournful hours since last
- I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
- Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest
- Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
- I never shut amid the sunny ray,
- But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
- Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
- And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,
- Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,
- Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
- Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
- Ah! that once more I were a careless child!
At Ottery St Mary the river is spanned by a 95-metre foot and cycle bridge named Coleridge Bridge; built at a cost approaching £1m this was officially opened on 29 August 2011. A small area of land at one end of the bridge was sold to the local authorities by Lord Coleridge, a descendant of the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Read more about this topic: River Otter
Famous quotes containing the word coleridge:
“Five miles meandering with a mazy motion”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise,
And the door stood open at our feast,
When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.”
—Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907)
“Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)