Love

My little Children are a Joy, a Love,
A good Gift from above!
But what is Bliss, that still calls up a Woe,
And makes it doubly keen
Compelling me to feel, as well as know,
What a most blessed Lot mine might have been,
Those little Angel Children (woe is me!)
There have been hours when feeling how they bind
And pluck out the Wing-feathers of my mind,
Turning my Error to Necessity,
I have half-wish'd they never had been born!
That seldom! but sad Thoughts they always bring,
And like the Poet's Philomel, I sing
My Love-song, with my breast against a Thorn.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
From Dejection - A Letter