Coleridge: Apologia Pro Vita Sua

Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Oct. 21, 1772-July 25, 1834

                        Apologia Pro Vita Sua

               The poet in his lone yet genial hour
               Gives to his eyes a magnifying power:
               Or rather he emancipates his eyes
               From the black shapeless accidents of size--
               In unctuous cones of kindling coal,
               Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim bole,
                     His gifted ken can see
                     Phantoms of sublimity.

                                                         --Samuel Taylor Coleridge