A Tombless Epitaph by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane! / (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise / And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, / Masking his birth-name, wont to character / His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal) / 'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, / And honouring with religious love the Great / Of older times, he hated to excess, / With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, / The hollow puppets of an hollow age, / Ever idolatrous, and changing ever / Its worthless idols! Learning, power, and time, / (Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war / Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, / Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, / Even to the gates and inlets of his life! / But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, / And with a natural gladness, he maintained / The citadel unconquered, and in joy / Was strong to follow the delightful Muse.

For not a hidden path, that to the shades / Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads, / Lurked undiscovered by him; not a rill / There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, / But he had traced it upward to its source, / Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell, / Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled / Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone, / Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, / The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, / He bade with lifted torch its starry walls / Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame / Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. / O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts! / O studious Poet, eloquent for truth! / Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, / Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love! / Here, rather than on monumental stone, / This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, / Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.