ST Coleridge read by Classic Poetry Aloud:

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Giving voice to the poetry of the past.

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Broken Friendship

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)

Alas! they had been friends in youth,

But whispering tongues can poison truth!

And constancy lives in realms above!

And life is thorny, and Youth is vain!

And to be wroth with one we love,

Doth work like madness in the brain!

They parted -- ne'er to meet again!

But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining!

They stood aloof, the scars remaining;

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder!

A dreary sea now flows between;

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,

Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once had been.

First aired: 25 March 2008

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