A Complaint
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
Of its own bounty, or my need.
What happy moments did I count!
Blest was I then all bliss above!
Now, for that consecrated fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,
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
In silence and obscurity.
—Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.
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Who wrote the poem "A Complaint"?
William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850)
William Wordsworth was an English poet who pioneered the Romantic Movement with his close friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He famously defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Using the ordinary language “really used by men,” he wrote beautiful poetry with sweet imagery, often based around the natural world. He suffered from depression, which was reflected in somber undertones in his poems. He was the Poet Laureate for Queen Victoria from 1843 until his death from pleurisy in 1850.
"A Complaint" explanation
In the poem, the speaker talks about loss
of love or friendship toward an unspecified person (his lover or friend). Some
scholars believe that the poem was about the poet’s friend, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, who pioneered the Romantic Movement in England with Wordsworth.
Coleridge suffered from various mental and physical illnesses including
anxiety, depression, possibly bipolar disorder, and rheumatic fever. He was
treated with laudanum, which made him a lifelong opium addict.
