The poem "Love" was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was first published in 1799 as part of "Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie." Later, it appeared in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800.

Publication

The poem was first published in the Morning Post on December 21, 1799, as the Introduction to The Tale of the Dark Ladie. It included four opening stanzas and three closing stanzas. The poem was also included in Lyrical Ballads in 1800, 1802, and 1805, where it was titled Love. In 1810, the poem was reprinted in English Minstrelsy with a note stating that the stanzas originally appeared in a London newspaper and were later changed in Lyrical Ballads. The poet seems to have abandoned his plan to complete The Tale of the Dark Ladie. The poem was also included in Sibylline Leaves in 1828, 1829, and 1834. The four opening and three closing stanzas, along with the note, were published again in Literary Remains in 1836 and first collected in 1844. A copy of the original manuscript from Lyrical Ballads (1800) can be found in Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS., edited by W. Hale White in 1897. A comparison of the Introduction to The Tale of the Dark Ladie with two manuscripts in the British Library is included in Coleridge's Poems. A Facsimile Reproduction, edited by James Dykes Campbell in 1899.

It is likely that most of the Introduction to The Tale of the Dark Ladie was written during or shortly after a visit Coleridge made to George and Mary, and Sarah Hutchinson, friends of the Wordsworths, at Sockburn, a farmhouse near the Tees River in November 1799. In the first draft, lines 13–16, "She leaned, &c.," were written differently.

Influences

In the church at Sockburn, there was a statue of an "armed knight" from the Conyers family as of 1912. Near the farmhouse, there was a "Grey-Stone" that was said to mark the place where a knight killed a large creature called a wyverne or "worm." Ernest Hartley Coleridge believed that the "armed knight" and "Grey-Stone" in early writings were inspired by the statue in the church and the stone in the nearby field. Some people argue that the Ballad of the Dark Ladié, which only has a small part left, was written after Coleridge returned from Germany. The Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie, which includes the poem "Love," was written in 1797 or 1798 at Stowey. However, when Coleridge described the plan for the Lyrical Ballads of 1798, he mentioned writing "The Ancient Mariner" and preparing "The Dark Ladie" and "Christabel," but he did not mention "Love." Coleridge likely meant the unfinished Ballad of the Dark Ladié, which had 190 lines at one time, not the Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie, which was later called "Love" and published in the Lyrical Ballads of 1800, 1802, and 1805.

In Sibylline Leaves (1828, 1829, and 1834), the poem "Love," which was the first in a group of poems titled "Love Poems," was introduced with this motto:

"You read about the worries I had when I was young, written by my humble pen. You see here tears and how a boy wounded me with a sharp point. Time slowly takes everything, and as we live, we die. As we rest, we move forward. If I compare myself to myself, I am not the same. My face has changed, my ways have changed, and I think differently now. My voice sounds different. Now, with a cold heart, I feel pity for lovers who are passionate, and I am ashamed of how I once burned with emotion. The calm mind shudders at past chaos, and when I read again, I think someone else wrote these words."

Coleridge wrote the following to the editor of the Morning Post: