A COMPLAINT
Reading edition
Composed 1806.—Published 1807
[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Suggested by a change in the manner of a friend.—I. F.]
Classed among the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.
There is a change—and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart's door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed 5 Of its own bounty, or my need. What happy moments did I count! Blest was I then all bliss above! Now, for that[1] consecrated fount Of murmuring, sparkling, living love, 10 What have I? shall I dare to tell? A comfortless and hidden well. A well of love—it may be deep— I trust it is,—and never dry: What matter? if the waters sleep 15 In silence and obscurity. —Such change, and at the very door Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.
It is highly probable that the friend was S. T. Coleridge. See the Life of Wordsworth (1889), vol. ii. pp. 166, 167.—Ed.
VARIANTS: