Chapter M: W. B

_Coleridge and Plato._--Without becoming "a piddler in minute plagiarisms" (as Gifford called Warton), I think the following coincidence worth noting. S. T. Coleridge, in his "Lines on an Autumnal Evening," has these lines:

"On seraph wing I'd float a dream by night,
To soothe my love with shadows of delight;
Or soar aloft to be the spangled skies.
And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes."

Plato had written ("To Stella," in _Anthol. Palat._):

Ἀστέρας εἰσαθρεῖς Ἀστὴρ ἐμός· εἴθε γενοίμην
Οὐρανὸς ὡς μυρίοις ὄμμασιν εἴς σε βλέπω.

I cannot withhold Shelley's exquisite version:

"Fair star of life and love, my soul's delight!
Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?
O that my spirit were yon heaven of night,
Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!"

_Revolt of Islam_, c. ix. st. 36.

Dr. Wellesley's _Anthologia Polyglotta_ contains several versions of Plato's lines. There is also one by Swynfen Jervis, in Lewis's _Biographical History of Philosophy_, s. v. Plato.