28 



THE FIRST SOUND EVER HEARD BY 

 HUMAN EAR 



WHAT was't awakened first the untried ear 



Of that sole man who was all human kind ? 



Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind 

 Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere 1 ? 

 The four mellifluous streams which flowed so near, 



Their lulling murmurs all in one combined? 



The note of bird unnamed ? The startled hind 

 Bursting the brake in wonder (not in fear) 

 Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground 



Send forth mysterious melody to greet 10 



The gracious pressure of immaculate feet ? 

 Did viewless seraphs rustle all around 



Making sweet music out of air as sweet? 

 Or his own voice awake him with its sound ? 



HAKTLEY COLERIDGE. 



[Hartley Coleridge, born 1796, died 1849. He was the son of 

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the famous author of The Rime of the 

 Ancient Mariner; but his Sonnets, upon which his poetical 

 reputation rests, show the influence rather of Wordsworth than 

 of his father. He died the year before Wordsworth : both are 

 buried in Grasmere churchyard.] 



EXERCISES 



1. Give a plain prose version of this Sonnet. 



2. Describe its structure, metre and rime. 



3. Annotate the poem so as to explain every difficulty or 

 obscurity in phrase or allusion. [E. gr., Whose feet are alluded 

 to in the eleventh line ?] 



