Day 26 - Affection - by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, a great grandniece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was also friends with Robert Browning, and Lord Tennyson. She wrote hundreds of poems, and various novels and essays, some of which are still unpublished. Mary was born Sep 23, 1861 in London, UK, and taught college literature classes for twelve years. She traveled extensively, but succumbed to an appendicitis in 1907. Her students were so distraught, they refused to accept another teacher and disbanded. She must have been an outstanding teacher and person.

She wrote her first poem when she was thirteen.

Mary appeals to me for two reasons: she published her poems under a pseudonym (Anodos) and she enjoyed 'being in love with the moment', which seems so contradictory. A free spirit limited by social pressure. She didn't want to embarrass her family with her poetry.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/affection

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The Affection

The earth that made the rose,
She also is thy mother, and not I.
The flame wherewith thy maiden spirit glows
Was lighted at no hearth that I sit by.
I am as far below as heaven above thee.
Were I thine angel, more I could not love thee.

Bid me defend thee!
Thy danger over-human strength shall lend me,
A hand of iron and a heart of steel,
To strike, to wound, to slay, and not to feel.
But if you chide me,
I am a weak, defenceless child beside thee.

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