COLERIDGE The Vision of Sir Launfal Class ^R^^ili- Book f\ \ GopyiightN", COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER Facile credo, plures esse Natiiras invisibiles qnam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit, et gradiis et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum mimera ? Quid agunt ? quae loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, numquara attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tamquam in tabula, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari : ne mens assuefacta hodiernae vitae minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandura est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus. T. Burnet, Archceol. Phil., p. 68. Translation. I can readily believe that there are in the universe more Natures unseen than seen. But who shall explain to us their relation, their several ranks and degrees of consanguinity, their differences and their functions? What do they do? Where do they t ell? Man's skill has ever sought, but never attained, a knowledge of these things I cannot deny, however, that it is profitable at times to allow the mind to dwell on the contemplation of a larger and better world, as if seen on a map ; otherwise, accustomed as the mind is to the petty details of a daily routine, it may become depressed and sink utterly into trifling thoughts. Still a strict regard must be had for the truth, and moderation is to be observed that we may distinguish the definite and the doubtful between the day and the night. ■P^H ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^K^P~ 3& ^°^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^HksB^' "^-^^^^I^^^^^H ^^^^^^^MK^^v^^^^^^^^^^^^^m ^^^^^^^^^^^^i*^^ J^l^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^Hh^> .d^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^■■n^B ^^SSI^^^^H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^B^^^^^^BB^BffWl^ ^^^^^■HH^^^^H^^^^^^^^^^I ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^B^bc ^^ 'i^^'^^E^S^^^f^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^l ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^ -^-^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^K^^^H^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^^^■n!^^^ -^~ "^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Ib ^^I^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Hv^^^^N ^^^^I^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^^^^^^HH ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Mi > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Ib ^^^^^^^^■^g^H^^^^^^^H^^^^^m ^^^^^^^■f/ ^\ ^ii^^^l^^^^^^^l ^^^^^^^^^HH^^^Hi A. '<''' v^j<'''7 ^^^^^^^■^^^^^^^^^^■^^■^H H^^^^H^^H X'^ W",^ ^^^^^Hl^H^^^^^H ^^■^■%vi^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^^^^v^J^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE STANDARD LITERATURE SERIES THE EIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE AND THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL EDITED WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION BY H. G. PAUL, A.M. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OP ENGLISH LITEUATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OP ILLINOIS WITH EDITORIAL SUPERVISION BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Jr., Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, UNION COLLEGE UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK •:■ BOSTON •:• NEW ORLEANS 1966 Cc_ LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two CoDies Received APh 16 1906 Copyright Entry CLASS dy XXc. No, /V3 2.3 3 COPY B. Copyright, 1906, by UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY *** 2909 CONTENTS EDITORIAL NOTE INTRODUCTION Life of Coleridge Life of Lowell . The Romantic Movement The Ancient Mariner The Composition of the Poem The Ancient 3Iariner a Literary Ballad Suggestions for Teaching and Study The Metrical Form Questions for General Study and Review Bibliography The Vision of Sir Launfal Suggestions for Teaching and Study Questions for General Study and Revieio THE ANCIENT MARINER THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL . Page V ix ix xviii xxii xxvi xxvi xxviii xxviii . xxxi xxxiii xxxiv xxxvi xxxvii xxxix 1 . 35 EDITORIAL NOTE " The Ancient Mariner " and " The Vision of Sir Launfal " have for some time been among the books recom- mended for reading in the secondary schools. The two poems may well be studied together. They have things about them that are alike, and things that are different, and therefore may readily be compared so as to cultivate the literary taste by a definite, systematic method. This is, of course, not the only way of cultivating the taste ; in fact it is not the best way from a purely general standpoint. The best way to cultivate one's literary taste is, probably, to l)e much with people who love literature and to read much of the best literature one's self. lUit where one cannot do tbat, as in the class-room, the other plan, the plan of carefully cultivating the ta.ste by some definite method, seems to promise most. One well-understood method is that of comparison. By a careful comparison of two or more masterpieces, we may succeed in determining their essential characteristics, and having determined them, we shall be able to recognize them again when we meet them, and perhaps to feel their essential quality. If we put these poems together and ask. How are they alike and how do they differ ? we shall observe several things. In respect to substance each of the two poems has a story and an idea; and in each the story is a romantic one, some- thing that stirs our sense of wonder and beauty, and the idea one of deep moral significance, one that aims to get beneath the thoughts of everyday intercourse into the springs and secrets of life itself. Look a little into each. The story of the young knight who went out in golden VI EDITORIAL NOTE armor to seek for the Holy Grail, and returned broken with years and troubles to find at his own castle gate what he had sought so long, is such a tale as one might find in the medi- geval romances of King Arthur. The story of the sailor who brought a curse upon himself and his shipmates by killing a bird that had sought refuge on their ship, and who expiates that wrong by a strange and bitter experience, is an imagina- tive creation very different. Yet different as the stories are, they seem alike when we compare them with the story of Sir Roger de Coverley or the Vicar of Wakefield. These last are figures of the real world, though not of the world we know; the others are figures of romance.^ The two ideas are also of the same character. The concep- tion of heartfelt love as the true spirit of the Saviour of the world, and the conception of an all-embracing love as the true prayer, the true approach to God, are both ideas for the guid- ance of the practical life, and both are ideas that dip beneath the surface of life and get something that does not appear to every-day view. The precise connection of story and idea is one of the most difficult subjects for literary study. If one thinks of the story only as a means of conveying thought, one must lose much. So also if one thinks of the story only, without any idea at all. In each case, probably, the idea was one often in the poet's mind. With Lowell this was certainly the case;^ with Coleridge we cannot be so sure, although the idea has much in common with the poet's early thinking and with many thoughts of the time. It seems probable that in " Sir Launf al " the idea was really the moulding force, while with " The Ancient Mariner " it was less influential. Still in neither case is it the bare idea that has made the poem. In each the poetic imagination has given the idea a form which for the time 1 For further comment on the romantic movement, see p. xxii. 2 Compare " A Parable " noted on p. xxxviii and " The Search " printed on p. 49. EDITORIAL NOTE vii seems all-important. After the time of reading, when the original interest is less strongly in mind, one thinks of the idea which then perhaps takes something of a place by itself in our thoughts. As to the literary form of the poems there is more differ- ence. Both are written under the influence of the so-called ballad movement. In " The Ancient Mariner " the ballad spirit is everywhere prominent, as is pointed out on p. xxviii. Its directness of narrative, its repetitions, its language, its metrical form, all are fully in the spirit of the ballads that Coleridge found in Percy's Reliques. Lowell was farther away in time from the original inspiration, and his poem, therefore, has less of the ballad spirit. The subject of a knightly quest is full of the spirit of old popular poetry, and there are a few archaic words and phrases, but otherwise it has but little of the ballad about it. " Sir Launf al," however, though lacking the ballad element, has much else : it has a rather elaborate structure, it has the more figured form of literary poetry, the rich description of nature which one never finds in ballads. It is full of imagination which expresses itself richly and freely, as in the passages on nature, rather than in the suggestive manner of the ballad. If we read these two poems together we shall see how they are alike and yet different. That will call our attention to certain things : the farther we go in such comparisons, the more correctly shall we make them, the more sure will be our appreciation of the true things of interest in the poem. For one of the great things in poetic appreciation is to feel keenly each thing for itself, as different from others. We do not want to confuse these two poems, to think that they are much the same sort of thing without separate individuality or char- acter, any more than we should want to confuse our friends and think it was all the same which of them was with us. We want to know each for itself. Yet all poetry has some Viii EDITORIAL NOTE conimon qualities, and each, kind of poetry has some common qualities, and we certainly want to know what these qualities are. Some 2>eople feel such things instinctively; even if we do not, it is a very good thing to try to get at them by com- parison. Edward E. Hale^ Jr. s INTEODUCTION THE LIFE OF COLERIDGE Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on the 21st " of October, 1772, at the vicarage of Ottery St. Mary, in the county of Devonshire. His father, the vicar of the parish and the master of the Free Grammar School, was a visionary, eccentric man, well beloved by his people. By a rather aljun- dant use of quotations from the Hebrew he gained the un- bounded respect of many of his simple parishioners as using the language of the Holy Ghost. The poet's mother seems to have possessed some of the shrewdness her husband lacked. She was a plain woman, uneducated, a good housekeeper and manager, and possessed a great contempt for young ladies who played the harpsichord. Coleridge was a precocious child, and at three years of age he was sent to a dame's school. As the pet of his mother he gained the ill-will of his brother and his companions; he took little or no part in their sports and games, but gave himself over to his inordinate love of reading. He read all the children's books he could find as well as many beyond his age, lived in this land of imagination, and went about " cutting down weeds and nettles, as one of the ^ Seven Champions of Christendom.' " ^ In his sixth year the boy was stricken with a fever; and we may, perhaps, see something of the thought of the Ancient Mariner in his belief that four angels guarded the bed on which he lay, and that they kept away the armies of ugly things that were ready to burst in upon him. Another in- cident of this period should be mentioned. On one occasion, ^ Biog. Supplement to "Biographia Literaria," 1847. II, 330, X INTRODUCTION fearing a thoroughly merited punishment, he ran away from home. After wandering for several miles he fell asleep on the damp, cold bank of the river Otter. Here he was rescued the next morning by a neighbor, one of the searching party. It is doubtful whether Coleridge's system ever recovered from the exposure of that night. Coleridge's father died rather suddenly when the boy was about nine years of age ; and through the efforts of one of the pastor's old pupils. Sir Francis Buller, afterwards famous as a judge, the lad received a presentation to Christ's Hospital, a London charity school. The lot of the poet after he was enrolled among the blue-coated, yellow-stockinged, hatless students seems to have been anything but a happy one. The family, being proud, felt themselves disgraced by the boy's admission to a charity school. His brothers refused to permit him to visit them in the school garb, and Coleridge would not go in any other. " Oh, what a change," he wrote in after years to his friend, Thomas Poole, " from home to this city school; depressed, moping, friendless, a poor orphan, half starved." Charles Lamb, who as a student at Christ's Hos- pital during Coleridge's time became the life-long friend of the poet, has left us two pictures of the school in tAvo essays. Recollections of Christ's Hospital, and Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago. One famous passage from the latter essay, a passage often quoted, may be cited here as perhaps the best picture we have of Coleridge in his youth : " Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day- spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee — ^the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel Taylor Col- eridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard! How have I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion between the speech and the garh of the young ^Mirandula) to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jamblicus or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst THE LIFE OF COLERIDGE XI not pale at such pliilosopliic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pindar — while the walls of the old Gray Friars re-echoed with the accents of the inspired charity hoy/' On one occasion, when Coleridge was ahout thirteen, he went to a shoemaker and hegged to be taken as an apprentice. The shoemaker, Crispin by name, an honest fellow, took him to Boyer, then headmaster of the school, who got into a great rage, knocked down the boy, and pushed the shoemaker vio- lently out of the room. Upon the lad's declaring that he desired to learn the shoemaker's trade because he hated the thought of being a clergyman, and that he had become an infidel, Boyer administered to him a sound thrashing — the only just one, Coleridge afterwards remarked, he had ever received. The training Coleridge gained at Christ's Hospital was both severe and thorough. With all his faults Boyer was an admirable drillmaster; and Coleridge was chosen as one of the Grecians, that little band specially prepared under the severe master's own supervision for scholarships at the uni- versities. This master's labors did not end when he had trained the boys to be good Latin and Greek students — his most diffi- cult lessons were those in English ; and to his severe criticisms and repressions Coleridge was deeply indebted. About this time the young poet was attracted by the sonnets of Bowles, a writer long since forgotten. Bowles was by no means a great poet ; but he was a sincere one, and his sonnets show the influ- ence of the new forces active in the world of poetry. What little Coleridge had produced before this time bore the con- ventional marks of the eighteenth century. We have preserved several poems that he wrote in the Christ Hospital book, one of them an anthem for the children of the school — verses of little or no value except as specimens of his early handicraft. One poem. The Raven, written about the time he left Christ's Hospital, is interesting for the last two lines, in which we have in crude form the thought of the Ancient Mariner : xii INTRODUCTION " We must not think so; but forget and forgive, And what Heaven gives life to, we'll still let it live." In 1791, when Coleridge was nineteen years of age, he was appointed to an exhibition at Jesus College, Cambridge. Later in his course there he was further aided by certain fel- lowships. During the first portion of his residence he worked steadily and successfully, and gained the Browne gold medal for a sapphic Qde on the Slave Trade. One of Coleridge's college friends has left us an interesting account of how the poet's room became the rendezvous of a number of compan- ions, all eager to discuss the questions of the day, and how, when a new pamphlet appeared from the pen of Burke, Col- eridge would repeat for them whole pages verhatim. Stirring times were these, the earlier days of the French Eevolution, when new ideas of liberty and of the dawn of a better day were permeating the whole world, and when men felt that it was bliss even to be alive. Coleridge was one of the most radical of the many young men who gave their sympathy and their influence to what they conceived to be the cause of human liberty. The poet's enthusiasm, however, was tempo- rarily checked by his solicitude over some college debts and possibly over a love affair of the time. At any rate we find him drifting about in London, penniless and ready for what- ever might ofl'er. The recruiting office of the 15th Light Dragoons invites him, and he enlists under the name of Silas T. Comerback. A sorry soldier he made, not even able to jrroom his own horse. After two miserable months he dis- closed his whereabouts to his oldest brother, who secured his release and sent him back to the University. Upon his return to Cambridge, Coleridge was not satisfied. He fell off in his studies and left the University without tak- ing a degree. We soon find him enlisted with Eobert Southey, a young friend from Oxford, in an attempt to establish an idealistic colony. This community, which they called a Pan- tisocracy, was to consist of twelve men and their wives, and THE LIFE OF COLERIDGE xiii was to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna, reconi- jnended " for its excessive beauty and its security from hostile Indians and bisons." No one was to work very much — it was imagined that two hours a day of labor on the part of each man would be suihcient for their maintenance — and every one was to be supremely happy. Owing to a lack of funds neces- sary for its execution the project was finally abandoned; but not till Coleridge, in fulfilling one of the requisites of the society that each man should be accompanied by a wife, had become engaged to Sara Fricker and had married her. The wedding took place in October, 1795, in Bristol, at the old parish church of St. Mary Radcliffe, the church where Chat- terton had spent a large portion of his brief life. The young couple — Coleridge was but twenty-three at this time — -went to live in a tiny cottage on the outskirts of the village of Clivedon in Somersetshire; and we have left some beautiful lines about the tallest rose-tree which peeped in at the chamber window.^ Cottle, a Bristol publisher, had prom- ised the poet a guinea and a half for each hundred lines of verse; and with his usual optimism Coleridge thought that he would be abundantly al)le to supply all tlieir modest needs; but we soon find him resorting to various devices to keep the pot boiling. He undertook successively a number of plans, one of which was to estal^lish a journal called the Watchman. With his customary enthusiasm for each new scheme he made a tour of the middle counties and secured a large number of subscribers; but through a lack of business judgment and tact the enterprise soon failed. He tried preaching in the Unitarian chapels around Bristol. Of this period Hazlitt has left us an interesting account : ^ " Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text : ' And He de- parted again into a mountain. Himself alone.' As he gave out this text, his voice ^ rose like a stream of rich distilled > "Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement." 2 Hazlitt's " My First Acquaintance with Poets." XIV INTRODUCTION perfumes ' ; and when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if the prayer might have floated in a solemn silence through the universe. . . . The preacher then launched into his subject like an eagle dallying with the wind." The following pen picture gives us a good idea of the poet's personal appearance during this period of his life : ^ " In ]3erson he was a dark, tall, handsome young man, with long, black, flowing hair ; eyes not merely black, but black and keenly penetrating; a fine forehead; a deep-toned, harmonious voice; a manner never to be forgotten, full of life, vivacity and kindness; dignified in person; and, added to all these, exhibiting the elements of his future greatness.'^ But it is about this time that we first read in one of his letters of his having suffered from neuralgia of the face, and of his having alleviated the pain with laudanum — the first cloud of the many that were to darken his intellect, his will, and his life. With 1797 came the harvest year of Coleridge's poetical life. His faculties seemed to ripen almost as if by magic, and in twelve months he had produced nearly all his greatest poetry. " The Ancient Mariner,'' " Christabel," " The Ode to France," " Eemorse," and " Kubla Khan " were all the products of this year's labor. One cause, perhaps the main one, of this poetic fruitage is not far to seek. In the earlier part of the year Coleridge and his family had moved among the Quantock hills to the village of Nether Stowey ; and here the poet came in contact with two remarkable people, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. The friendship between the two poets meant much to both. To Wordsworth Coleridge supplied the en- thusiasm and the faith and courage necessary for carrying out 1 Smith's " Reminiscences of an Octogenarian," quoted in Coleridge's Letters. I, 181. THE LIFE OF COLERIDGE XV his poetic la1)ors; to Coleridge Wordsworth supj)lied a calm- ness and steadiness which the former, carried away by his tiimnltuoiis vitality, especially required; while Dorothy Wordsworth, with her quick, delicate perception and quiet en- couragement, stimulated him to his most artistic and most imaginative efforts. The results of the united work of these two poets appeared in the Spring of 1798, when the Lyrical Ballads w^ere published, a thin volume, to wdiich Wordsworth had contributed four or five times as much as had his less steady co-worker. This volume, which began with The An- cient Mariner, and also contained the Lines Written Above Tint em Ahhey, created little stir in the literary world, though we of to-day have come to regard it as the culmination of the revolt against the standards that prevailed through a large part of the eighteenth century. About this same time Coleridge received from the Wedg- wood brothers, the great English pottery makers, an annuity which, though not large, enabled him to devote his entire time to literature. In company with William and Dorothy Words- worth he visited Germany, where he busied himself with a study of Kant and the transcendental philosophy. " Instead of troubling others with my own crude notions and juvenile compositions," he writes, " I was thenceforward better em- ployed in attempting to store my head with the wisdom of others." ^ He passed the w^inter hard at work, and made con- siderable progress with the language ; though his letters of the time are filled with his homesickness and his yearning to see his wife and baby Hartley. Two results came from this winter thus spent : Coleridge became imbued with the German transcendental philosophy, and upon his return did more than any other man to propagate it in England. Another and more immediate result was the translation of Schiller's Wallenstein soon after his return — one of the best translations ever made of a foreign work into English. 1 "'Biographia Litciaria," I, 300. XVI INTRODUCTION UlDon the remainder of Coleridge's career we need dwell but briefly; for liis poetic life had practically closed. Under the influence of severe bodily pain he resorted to the use of opium; and his will-power, never very strong, was shattered by the use of the drug. The story of much of the remainder of his life^ especially of the succeeding decade when his powers should have been at their best, is the story of repeated failures. Coleridge's was a life of magnificent projects, destined never to be fulfilled. He undertook various employments, such as newspaper work, another magazine, along much the same lines as the Watchman, and lecturing. As a lecturer he was perhaps more successful than in any other line. His audiences certainly heard the finest critical lectures ever delivered in English. Yet he was notoriously untrustworthy in keeping these appointments, and depended upon the inspiration of the moment to carry him along. At last, after many troubles, he found a refuge under the care of Dr. Gillman, a London physician, whose famih;, as Leigh Hunt remarks, " had sense and kindness enough to know that they did themselves honor by looking after the comfort of such a man." Carl3de has left us a vivid description of the poet as he appeared in his last days : ^ " Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, looking down on London and its smoke tumult like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle; attracting toward him the thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there. His express contributions to poetr3\ philosoph}^ or any specific province of human literature or enlightenment, had been small and sadly intermittent; but he had, especially among young inquiring men, a higher than literar}^, a kind of prophetic or magician character. He was thought to hold, he alone in England, the key to German and other transcenden- talisms ; knew the sublime secret of believing by ^ the reason ' what ^ the understanding ' had been obliged to fling out as » Carlyle's " Life of John Sterling." THE LIFE OF COLERIDGE XVll incredible — a sublime man; who, alone in those dark days had saved his crown of spiritual manliood; escaping from the black materialisms, and revolutionary deluges, with God, Freedom, Immortality still his: a king of men. The prac- tical intellects of the world did not much heed him, or care- lessly reckoned him a metaphysical dreamer : but to the rising spirits of the younger generation he had this dusky, sublime character ; and sat there a kind of Magus girt in mystery and enigma. . . . The good man, he was now getting old, towards sixty, perhaps; and gave you the idea of a life that had been full of suffering ; a life heavy-laden, half -vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilderment. Brow and head were round, and of mas- sive weight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration ; confused pain looking mildly from them, as in a kind of mild astonishment — A lieavy-laden, high-aspiring, and surely much- suffering man." In some respects Coleridge resembles his own Ancient Mar- iner. Like the Mariner, he too knew the curse of Life-in- Death. We may well end this sketch of his life with the Epitaph he wrote shortly before his death, which came July 25, 1834: "Stop, Christian passer-by! Stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seemed he. 0, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C. ; That he who many a year with toil and breath Found death in life, may here find life in death; Mercy for praise — to be forgiven for fame He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same ! " XVll] INTRODUCTION THE LIFE OF LOWELL James Kussell Lowell, the youngest of six children, was born February 22, 1819, at Elm wood, the family home, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, the Ksv. Charles Lowell, was minister of one of the largest churches in Boston — a well-educated, kindly pastor whom his renowned son has characterized as " a Doctor Primrose in the comparative degree/^ The Lowell family had been among the early settlers of Massachusetts; many of them had gained distinction; and the gracious minister was " as proud of his pedigree as ever a Talbot or a Stanley could be." In his college days he had studied medicine as well as theology, so he went among his parishioners healing and carrying the Bible. The poet's mother, whose maiden name was Spence, loved to trace a fancied relation to Sir Patrick Spens of ballad fame and to claim the traditional family gift of second sight. She showed the us'ual mother fo^ndness for a yo«ungest child, and delighted to listen for the little fellow's cheery whistle announcing for her his return from school, or to receive the nosegays of wild white-weed and blue-eyed grass which he loved to bring her. At Elmwood, with its large, square, frame, colonial house, its noble elms, and its few acres half meadow and half farm, the poet passed his youth and early manhood. Fish Pond, a small lake not far from the home, was one of Lowell's favor- ite haunts. Here he would sail in the summer, and in winter was happy when allowed, to help the ice-cutters gather their harvest. Many of the scenes of these early years live in his poems ; the line of heavy willows at the end of the 'New Eoad is commemorated first in " The Indian Summer Eeverie," and later in " Under the Willows." As might be expected Lowell entered Harvard College, where he says he read everything except the prescribed books. His letters written during these years are filled with a boyish enthusiasm for the English poets, and he tells with delight of THE LIFE OF LOWELL XIX each new book he has added to his precious library. In his senior year he served as one of the editors of Harvardiana, the college journal, and was elected class poet; but for his failure to attend chapel he was "^ rusticated '' — sent to Con- cord for several weeks before Commencement — and was not allowed to read his poem. After graduation he was long un- decided what profession to choose. He read law " with as good a grace and few Avry faces as possible/' gave it up, then resumed his study, and even received his degree from the Dane Law School of Harvard. But he never practised and soon decided to devote himself entirely to writing. His growing literary powers were stimulated by his interest in the great social problems of the day, especially the question of slavery, and by his love for Maria White, to whom, after an engagement of five years, he was married in ISi-i. She was an attractive, sympathetic woman of high ideals, who by the stimulating power of her love roused her husband to his best work both in furthering the reforms they held dear and in giving expression to his conceptions of beauty. The young couple spent the first winter of their married life in rhiladelphia, where Lowell contributed to the Pennsylvania Freeman, the anti-slavery journal of which Whittier had been editor. In one of his letters of this time Lowell writes to a friend:^ "We have a little room in the third story (back), with white muslin curtains trimmed with evergreen, and are as happy as two mortals can be. I think Maria is better, and I know I am — in health, I mean; in spirit we both are. She is gaining flesh and so am I, and my cheeks have grown so pre- posterously red that I look as if I had rubbed them against all the red brick walls in the city." After their return to Elmwood in the following June, Lowell wrote chiefly for the Anti-81averij Standard, con- tributing both prose and verse marked by their high ideals and convincing earnestness. 1 Letter to Robert Carter. Quoted in SciuWer's "Life of Lowell," I, 154. XX INTRODUCTION The seven years following the publication of his first vol- ume, "A Year's Life/' in 1841, show a wonderful development of his powers as a poet. We noted how Coleridge produced in one splendid year nearly all the poems on which his fame rests. Fifty years late, 1848, Lowell, too, had his remarkable harvest. As he himself expressed it, his brain required a long brooding time before it could hatch anything; but that time had now come. In this one year he wrote the first series of the " Biglow Papers," the best of American satires, " A Fable for Critics," and " The Vision of Sir Launfal." In 1857 Lowell succeeded Longfellow at Harvard as Smith Professor of Modern Languages, a position which he held for about twenty years. He was not a methodical teacher; but the students soon came to love the keen, thoughtful professor, wearing a rather shabby sack coat, who gave them some of the finest literary comment ever heard in an American college class-room. Despite his popularity in later j^ears, Lowell loved the life of the student and was happy in sitting for hours with his book and pipe among his well-filled book- shelves, whose worn volumes, the margins crowded with com- ments and notes, bore witness of his industry and scholarship. In addition to his teaching he soon assumed the responsible position of editor of the newly-founded Atlantic Monthly. When he accepted he made it a condition precedent that Holmes should be the first contributor engaged, and the wis- dom of this demand was amply justified by the " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," Avhich appeared in serial form. Almost all of our great American writers contributed to these first volumes of the Atlantic, which under LowelFs management became one of the best magazines published in English. Later he was associated with Charles Eliot Norton in edit- ing the North American Review. In his younger days he had declared that if he had a vocation it was the making of verse, and that he found waiting prose difficult; but later he did his best work in prose, contributing to the Review both the de- THE LIFE OF LOWELL Xxi lightful essays on out-door life and his penetrating, suggestive studies of authors and their books which have marked him as America's foremost literary critic. Xor must we forget his Political Essays of the years of the Civil War and the Eecon- struction. Lowell failed, as did most of his friends, to appre- ciate Lincoln at the beginning of his administration, and wished that Seward had been chosen as the party leader. But his impatience at Lincoln's cautious policy gradually gave way to admiration for the far-seeing statesmanship, and in 1864 he warmly championed the president's re-election. In the " Commemoration Ode," recited at the Harvard memorial service in honor of her sons who had fallen in tlie Civil War, Lowell pays a beautiful tribute to the dead president — " Xew birth of our new soil, the first American." Late in life Lowell entered a new field of labor. In 1877 he was appointed minister to Spain. Though he possessed a very fair knowledge of Spanish, he set himself to master the language, and wrote about this time : ^ "I am working now at Spanish as I used to work at Old French — that is, all the time and with all my might; I mean to know it better than tliey do themselves, which is not saying much." He loved to spend his brief vacations prowling around the book-stores, especially in Paris, and was pleased to purchase rare sets, consoling him- self after every extravagance with the thought that upon his death these works should go to the library of his beloved Har- vard. So well did he perform his duties at the Spanish court that in 1880 he was made Minister to England, the highest position in the American diplomatic service. Here he became in truth " The American embassador to the court of Shake- speare." It has been said that no other American has ever been w^elcomed to so many English homes, and that, too, in spite of Lowell's patriotism which made him more than will- ing to defend his country. In these years he gained many new friends and was drawn closer to some old ones, especially J Hale"s " James Ruegell Lowell and his Friends," p. 229. Xxii INTRODUCTION to Leslie Stephen and to Thomas Hughes, whom he addresses affectionately as " My dear Tom Brown." Toward the close of his life Lowell suffered a (^Teat deal; but he bore it all cheerfully, and his letters to his friends are bright and hopeful. He died August 12, 1891, at Elmwood, the home where he had been born and had passed the greater part of his life. His remains lie in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge, not far from those of his friends Longfellow and Holmes. England has honored Lowell by placing in West- minster Abbey his bust and a memorial window. In the centre of this great window is the figure of Sir Launf al ; be- neath stands an angel bearing the Holy Grail; while in the lowest compartment is represented the story of Sir Launfal and the leper. THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT When John Dryden assumed the literary dictatorship of England toward the close of the seventeenth century, there began what has been termed the Classical Age of English literature. Literary history, like all other history for that matter, shows the influence of two forces, the assertion of the individual as opposed to established standards, and the main- tenance of a set authority, a law to which all must conform. Sometimes one tendency is stronger in literature, sometimes the other. The age of Elizabeth had been one in which free play had been given to the imagination ; it was but natural that there should be a reaction in favor of some definite standards of authority, and such a reaction came in the time of Dryden and his successor. Pope. This Classical Age, then, is marked by the suppression of the individual and the recognition of authority. A great deal of attention was paid to the form of expression ; literature became a matter of " what oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed''; the heroic couplet reigned as the proper verse form. Interest in literature was THE ROMANHC MOVEMENT XXlll confined largely to the Greek and Roman classics ; and because this period took these writings as its models, it has gained the name of the Classical Age. The age is characterized by its lack of mystery and of aspiration: all display of anything emotional was rigorously repressed^ and interest was centred in the intellectual side of things. Practically the range of literary interests and themes was the very narrow one of the fashionable life of London. A distaste for the wild and grand in Nature prevailed. Mountains and the rugged aspects of the sea were regarded as hostile to man; and the landscape gardening of the age attempted to force Nature to conform to rule and square. The poverty of the times in lyrical verse is especially significant. Naturally the best work of the period was in satire, burlesque, and travesty. But we must not con- demn the age too severely; it passed away in due season, but it left with English writers a regard for form that has been of inestimable value to our literature. The Classical Age with its respect for authority finally brought a reaction which for the want of a better name is called the Romantic Movement. This movement arose from the desire of men to escape from the conventional, the formal, the established. It w^as not confined to literature alone : in the Church we find this tendency manifesting itself in the great religious movement headed by the Wesleys; in politics and philosophy we find it culminating in the assertion of the in- dividual, " All men are created free and equal," and finally in the great French Revolution. Critics generally date the l^eginning of the Romantic Movement from 1726, when Thomson's "Winter" was published. In this poem we note an increased interest in Nature, which is no longer regarded as hostile toward man. Here, too, we discern the distinguish- ing mark of all romanticism — a freer play of the imagina- tion, and an increased sympathy with and interest in things appealing to it. This greater sympathy with Nature finds its manifestation in nearly all the poets of the time — Gray, Xxiv INTRODUCTION Cowper, Crabbe, and Blake. Another mark of the Eomantic Movement is the increased interest in things remote. Mc- Pherson^ a Scotchman, brought forth the " Ossian," which he declared was a translation of the old Celtic stories, and the volume was received with unbounded enthusiasm. Coleridge alludes to this work in the preface of his first collection of poems, and in this collection gives two verses in imitation of the Ossian. Chatterton, too, the boy poet who passed his own poems as the work of the mediaeval monk Eowley, did much toward rousing not only Coleridge's interest, but that of the whole land, in the ages past. It would be difficult to prove that the Eowley poems exerted much influence in shaping Coleridge's style; but we catch the strain of The Ancient Mariner in such j)assages as : "Before him went the council men, In scarlet robes and gold, And tassels spangling in the sun, Most glorious to behold."' But it is probably to Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry more than to any one other source that we owe the increased interest in the past. In the Eeliques were published for the first time many of the old English ballads; and after this publication interest in English ballad poetry grew rapidly. Wordsworth said that English poexry had been " absolutely redeemed " by them. He adds, " I do not think that there is a writer of verse of the present day who would not be proud to acknowledge his obligations to the Eeliques; I know that it is so with my friends; and for myself I am happy on this occasion to make a public avowal of my own.'^ ^ We can- not help believing that without Percy's Eeliques The An- cient Mariner would have been far different from what it is. Still another characteristic of this movement is a height- ened interest in things strange and mysterious. Walpole's * Appendix to the Preface to the 3d edition of "Lyrical Ballads." THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT XXV Castle of Oinuito is a good illustration; a tale of gliost- hauiited castles, secret passages, unnatural deeds, and mys- teriously waving helmets. This same tendency finds its best manifestation in the works of a novelist of the last of the century, " Monk " Lewis. The hermit, a solitary figure ap- pealing to the imagination, becomes a common character appearing in much of the poetry and romance of the time. The imagination finds its freer play not alone in the realm of the mysterious, but also in the things of every-day life. Crabbe describes with photographic minuteness the life of the simple village; the conception that all men are brothers, and that the affairs of the humblest were fit subjects for poetry gained ground; and the interest thus excited did much to better the condition of the poor. Nor was this interest con- fined to mankind alone. All through the century we note protests against cruelty to dumb animals, as in the works of Beattie, who objected strongly to the English field sports. This spirit grew till it found its best expression in Coleridge, who asks, in his Religious Musings: " Are not cattle and plants permeated through and through with the divinity who has created things to form one harmonious whole? Does not the same great heart beat in the lowest as well as in the high- est creature ? " But it is in Tlie Ancient Mariner that this feeling for animals finds its best expression. The poem is in many re- spects the perfect flower of the Eomantic Movement. It is romantic in its aspiration, and in its symbolism and mysti- cism, as in its use of mystical numbers, " seven days and seven nights," " nine fathoms,'' " one of three '' guests. More than any other poem, possibly, it exemplifies what we have designated as the distinguishing mark of romanticism — the free play of the imagination and an interest in things ap- pealing to it. Lowell was of the second generation of Eomanticists, or per- haps the third. At any rate he was aroused, like other young XXvi INTRODUCTION men of his time, not only by the poetry of Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, but by the literature which had given them ideas, notably the ballad poetry and the Elizabethan drama. It is the former that gives the chief suggestion to " Sir Launfal " in the matter of form as it had also to "The Ancient Mariner." Note.— The student will be interested in examining for himself the literature of the period here discussed. The fourth volume of Ward's " English Poets " contains represen- tative extracts from most of the authors cited. Pope's "Essay on Criticism" and his "Essay on Man" are good illustrations of the w^ork of the Classical Age. Various phases of the Romantic Movement are illustrated in Gray's "Elegy," Goldsmith's " Deserted Village," parts of Cowper's "Task," the first book of Crabbe's "Village," Chatterton's "An Excellent Ballad of Charity," and Blake's " To an Evening Star." THE ANCIENT MARINER The Composition of the Poem Both Wordsworth and Coleridge have left us interesting accounts of the genesis of Tlie Ancient Mariner. In the autumn of 1797, Coleridge's w^onderful year, the poet, in company with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, started on a tramp through the beautiful Quantock Hills. To meet the expenses of the trip, it was proposed that the two young men conjointly write a poem to be sent to the New Monthly Magazine. From this work they hoped to realize at least five pounds. As the two walked along the hills they planned the poem. Most of the story was Coleridge's ; he proposed to base the poem upon the dream of a friend, a certain Mr. Cruik- shank, a dream " of a skeleton ship with figures in it." Wordsworth suggested that some crime be committed, bring- ing with it persecution; and, as he had just been reading Shelvocke's Voyages, with its account of the albatrosses of the region round Cape Horn, proposed that the sailor should be represented as killing one of the birds and then being THE ANCIENT MARINER XXvil pursued by the spirits of the region. The two poets began the composition together; but their styles were so different, Wordsworth's more human genius was so ill-adapted to co- operate with Coleridge's Ariel-like invention, that the former soon withdrew from the project. He did, however, furnish certain lines, for example, '*' And listened like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will." The poem grew beyond expectation, and it was decided to make it one of a volume of poems to be written conjointly by the two young men. In due time this volume was published under the title, Lyrical Ballads. To this little collection Wordsworth l)rought nearly five times as much as did Col- eridge, the best of his j)oems here contributed being " Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey." " The Ancient Mariner," however, stood first in the collection. Coleridge tells us ^ that the poets proposed for themselves two objects ; and these two methods represent two extremes of romanticism. Coleridge was to take subjects concerned with romantic or supernatural characters, and by showing their truth to our inner life was '^'' to procure for these shadows of the imagination that willing suspension of misbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith." Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to take the experiences and personages of every-day life and give an interest to these subjects by call- ing attention to the wonder and beauty which surround us, but for which, from long and careless association, we have lost our appreciation. " The Ancient Mariner " underwent a number of changes in the subsequent editions of 1800 and 1817. Many of the more j^ronounced archaisms in spelling and in the use of words and phrases disappeared. Some few stanzas of the original text were either altered or dropped, and the sub- 1 "Biographia Literaria," Chap. xiv. XXVlll INTRODUCTION title, " A Poet's Eeverie," was added. This was wisely dis- carded in the edition of 1817 when the pruning process was continued — resulting in almost every instance in an improve- ment of the poem. At this time, too, was added the beautiful gloss. " The Ancient Mariner " a Literary Ballad We may class " The Ancient Mariner " as a literary ballad : literary as opposed to the folk song-stories which grew up among the people; a ballad as possessing many of the char- acteristics of that primitive form of literature. It is true that most of the older ballads tell a story without attempt- ing to enforce a moral, and that this poem embodies the lesson of the redemption of the Mariner; but the alle- gorical aspect of this masterpiece is not the thing of great- est importance. Just as in the folk songs, the chief in- terest lies in the story itself and in the manner of telling. One finds in this poem but few questions and answers, a characteristic of the older ballads, though there are frequent instances of lines repeated entire or with but slight variation. In its directness of narration, too, " The Ancient Mariner " is akin to the old-time song-stories. The language of the poem is quaint, and while not so archaic as to be unintelligible — gives an impression of time that is past and blends well with the indefinite setting in an earlier age, when all lands had not been explored, and there were still undiscovered seas w^iere such adventures as those of the Ancient ^lariner niiglit happen. Occasionally, too, the last syllable of a word is accented in old ballad fashion, also, mariner, and countree. Suggestions for Teaching and Study Generally speaking, the w^ork in literature should be in- tensive and extensive. The teacher in the secondary school should aim to acquaint the student with, as many good books as possible, but the large majority of his students must plead THE ANCIENT MARINER XXIX ignorance of any knowledge of better literature outside of the few prescribed books. There is much to be gained simply from the careful reading of the masterpieces of the ver- nacular. The teacher makes a mistake who does not set aside two or three days of each month when students shall report upon their reading of some of the great works of English literature. Then certain books should be studied carefully and thoroughly. Too often^ it is true, such a study has been made mechanical and deadening; in noting the details there is a danger of losing the spirit of the entire poem. In spite of a good deal of valid objection to closely analytic methods of study, a certain amount of such work is absolutely essen- tial to any intelligent enjoyment of literature ; and such work may be highly disciplinary and thoroughly delightful. No other poem, perhaps, offers a better field for such analysis of the poet's art than does " The Ancient Mariner,'' and one's enjoyment and appreciation are greatly heightened in study- ing its wonderful beauty and perfection of form. In taking up the study of the poem, the teacher should see that the students read and re-read it, not only till they are thoroughly acquainted with the story, but till they have suc- ceeded in entering into its spirit and in feeling the beauty, the quaintness of style, and the simple directness of the nar- rative. It is not well at first to emphasize the moral of the poem. True, there is woven into the warp of the story the lesson of the redemption of the Ancient Mariner — ^how he violates the law of love, and how he is punished by being given over to the power of Life-in-Death. But this lesson is by no means the most important part of the poem. If beauty is its own excuse for being, the existence of " The Ancient Mar- iner" is certainly justified. Try, above all else, to help the student to enter into this Coleridge-land, this region of the silent sea, of the vast, dead calm with its intense heat, of weird moonlight, and of the mysterious, beautiful figures that conduct the Mariner home. XXX INTRODUCTION The verse of " The Ancient Mariner ^' is marked by the haunting quality that distinguishes the best of Poe's poems. The swing of the rhythm impresses the lines upon the mem- ory, so that most students will find it an easy and pleasant task to commit to memory many stanzas. The teacher should encourage the pupils to select and to commit those portions of the poem that impress them for the beauty and vividness of the scene presented, for the musical flow of the verse, for the sweet, simple moral, for the quaint archaic diction, or for whatever reason the stanzas may appeal as of special w^orth. In almost every class seven students will be willing each to commit one of the parts of the poem, and thus by each repeat- ing his portion in turn, to recite the whole in a single class hour. Naturally the teacher must pay a certain amount of atten- tion to the grammatical structure and the allusions, not so much as valuable in themselves as helpful in grasping the meaning and beauty of the whole. The questions, too, aim primarily to emphasize the wonderful art of the poet in the composition of " The Ancient Mariner,'^ and of his mar- vellous ability to paint beautiful word pictures. The teacher must impress upon the student that when he has grasped all the notes and answered all the questions he will not have gained all from the poem. To each pupil will come thoughts, suggestions, and comparisons that will be worth more to him than the contributions of either teacher or editor. As these ideas arise, it is well to jot them along the margin of the page or in a special notebook. While students are studying " The Ancient Mariner," they should be encouraged to read other poems by the same author. Some of the best of Coleridge's poems are " Christabel," " Kubla Khan,'' " Ballad of the Dark Ladie," "Fears in Solitude," "Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni," "Frost at Midnight," " Dejection," and "The Pains of Sleep." After the student has studied the poem thoroughly, he THE ANCIENT MARINER XXXi should re-read it once or twice to enjoy it; for here, after all, lies its value — to enjoy it with the added ability for apprecia- tion which study has brought. The Metrical Form The normal stanza of " The Ancient Mariner " is made up of four lines, the first and the third consisting of four feet, the second and fourth of three. The normal line we may say consists of four iambic feet, that is four feet each containing one unaccented and one accented syllable : I closed I my eyes | and kept | them closed. A number of exceptions are to be noted. For example, when the poet wishes to give a rapidity of movement to the line, he frequently employs the trochaic foot, consisting of one accented and one unaccented syllable. Occasionally in these trochaic lines the last foot is incomplete: Swiftfy I swfftly | flew the | sMp; Four times | fifty | living | men; Softly I she was | going | up. Sometimes the anapaestic foot — two unaccented and one accented syllables — is used : For the sky | and the sea | and the sea | and the sky. In a few instances we find several successive lines beginning with an anap^stic foot as in Stanza LXIII. Almost always, though, the anapaestic and the trochaic feet are employed in combination with the iambic foot. Now and then all of the three different kinds of metre are used in the same line: /v. w/ wv. /v-/ Lay like | a load | on my wea | ry eye XXXll INTRODUCTION We have just noted how some trochaic lines are incomplete. Occasionally, partly for the sake of variety and partly in imi- tation of the old ballads, Coleridge has employed an extra unaccented syllable: But no I sweet bird | did fol | low. Eapidity or slowness of movement is sometimes secured not through any variation of the metre, but by the choice of short, rapid words, or their opposites, as the case demands, and by their repetition. Coleridge is especially happy in his com- bination of vowel sounds to produce any given effect: Alone, alone, all, all alone. Most of the rhymes of the poem are good ones ; the number of imperfect rhymes is comparatively small. There are a few illustrations of shifting the accent to the last syllable of a word for the sake of the rhyme, as was done in the old ballads. Now and then the use of the medial rhyme adds beauty and force to the stanza: Around, around, flew each siveet sound. While the normal stanza consists of four lines, we find fre- quent variations; sometimes the stanza is composed of five, six, or even in one instance of nine lines. Usually this varia- tion occurs in the stanzas which contain striking portions of the story, such stanzas, for example, as those that mark im- portant transitions: the entrance of the ship into the mys- terious region in Stanza XII, and its return in Stanza CIT. Occasionally by this variation is enhanced the beauty of some musical or picturesque passage, as in Stanza LXXXIV. Xow and then, as in Stanza XXXV, the increased number of the lines emphasizes the monotony of the situation. THE ANCIENT MARINER XXxili Questions for General Study and Review Would the poem be as effective if written in some other metre, e.g., the dactylic hexametre of Longfellow's " Evan- geline/' or the blanlc verse of Bryant's " Thanatopsis " ? Give as many reasons as you can for your answer. Do you find any imperfect rhymes in the poem? Select three illustrations of where the sound of the line reflects the sense. Why are we not told anything more definite regarding the time and place of the story? What dilferent indications are there in the poem that the Ancient Mariner was a Eoman Catholic? Describe the typical sailor as you imagine him. Make out a description of the Ancient Mariner from the poem. Com- pare the two pictures. In what different ways does the poet secure our faith in his story ? Is the punishment of the Ancient Mariner and of his mess- mates out of proportion to their offence? Trace the different steps in the spiritual developme^it of the Ancient Mariner. Is the moral of the story too evident? Try to select titles for each of the divisions of the poem. Such titles should be brief and should not suggest more than each division actually contains. When you have selected these titles, see if they contain in miniature the entire story of the Ancient Mariner. Wli at would have been the effect if there had been employed in this poem a homely, peasant-like style, as Wordsworth wished ? Could any stanzas be omitted without materially affecting the poem ? XXxiv INTRODUCTION Select several passages that seem to you good ones for an artist to illustrate. Give reasons for your choice. Are there any passages where the interest in the descrip- tion is more powerful than in the story itself? Are any lines of the poem suggestive of the Scriptures ? Where is the movement of the story very rapid? Where very slow? Account for the changes. Select five figures that seem especially apt or especially beautiful, and try to determine the source of their effective- ness. Can you form any idea of the writer's character from the poem ? Would the poem be better if it " had more in it of the air and savor of the sea ? '' What elements characteristic of romanticism do you find in the Ancient Mariner? External nature may be employed in a poem (1) as a set- ting for the story; (2) to contrast with the spirit of the poem; (3) to harmonize with the spirit of the poem and to enforce it. Which of these uses do we find in this poem ? Coleridge's Methods of Description: (a) Epithets. A single vivid word is given; (b) Description by Effect; (c) Description brought out incidentally by the use of narrative. Can you find illustrations of these different methods of description ? What does Coleridge gain by the use of the gloss ? Does it ever serve to explain the course of events? Does it add to the l)eauty of the scene? Does it add to the quaintness of the poem ? Which do you consider the most beautiful of all the glosses, and why? Bibliography The " Poetical Works " of Coleridge, edited by Campbell ; Macmillan, 1893. This is the standard edition of Coleridge's THE ANCIENT MARINER XXXV work, and contains as an introduction the most satisfactory of the biographies of Coleridge. The biograpliy has been reissued in separate form by the Macmillans as " Samuel Taylor Coleridge : a Narrative of the Events of his Life," 1894. "Biographia Literaria (etc.)." By S. T. Coleridge. Second edition, prepared for publication in part by the late H. N. Coleridge; completed and published by his widow; 2 volumes, 1847. " Select Poems of Coleridge," by A. J. George. D. C. Heath and Company, 1902. " Coleridge " ; biography by H. D. Traill in the English '' Men of Letter Series." A well written, comprehensive biography. " Coleridge," biography by Hall Caine in the " Great Writers Series." Less satisfactory than the preceding biog- raphies, but brilliant in places and containing an admirable bibliography. Among Coleridge's poems possessing an autobiographical interest are " On Keceiving an Account That His Only Sister^s Death was Inevitable," " Absence," " Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement," " To the Rev. George Coleridge," " The Lime Tree Bower My Prison," " Frost at Midnight," '^ Dejection." Valuable reminiscences of Coleridge have been left us by Lamb, DeQuincey, Wordsworth, Hunt, and Carlyle. Pater's " Appreciations "; Macmillan, 1894. If the student is to read any critical comment, he will find this a most pene- trating and suggestive essay. Brooke's " Theology in the English Poets," Appleton, gives an interesting presentation of the moral significance of the story. Dowden's " New Studies in Literature " contains some delightful and very sane criticisms. XXXVl INTRODUCTION THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL In considering the theme of " The Vision of Sir Launfal/' we need add little to the prefatory note Lowell has left us. Though the name, Sir Launfal, is not original, having been used before in a few obscure poems, Lowell has made the kriight peeuliarW his own. We must credit the poet both with the invention of the plot and with the extension of the significance of the quest. In the older stories of the Grail only the chaste could hope to catch sight of it; Lowell has l)roadened the requisite to the love of one's fellow-men. Into the poem, too, Lowell has put much of the life he was then living; the landscape described is essentially that of New England. In a letter written about the time he composed the poem he says : " Last night I walked to Watertown over the snow, with the new moon before me. Orion was rising before me, the still- ness of the fields around me was delicious, broken only by the people, of the little brook which runs too swiftly for Frost to catch* My picture of the brook in Sw Launfal was drawn from it." The mode of writing the poem is characteristic of Lowell. Forty years after its composition he commented thus in one of his letters : " — how easily I used to write ! too easily I think now. But I couldn't help it. Everything came at a jump and all of a piece." The first of the " Biglow Papers," "A Fable for Critics," " The Vision of Sir Launfal," and the " Commemoration Ode," not to mention others, were all writ- ten under such inspirations. Lowell often commented on his dependence upon moods for producing any satisfactory work. In judging " Sir Launfal," then, we must remember that it was written in a few hours, and that it shows the advantages and the disadvantages of such a mode of composition. Lowell disliked exceedingly to revise and to polish his work. Poe, a far less prolific artist, returned time and time again to his THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL XXXVll poems, and at each revision he usually improved them. Per- haps the very ease with which Lowell wrote when in the mood made him careless of correcting. Moreover, despite his pro- test that he is a good versifier, we cannot help feeling that many lines in " Sir Launf al," such, for example, as " And the wanderer is welcomed to the hall," are unjustifiably rough, and that Lowell did not possess the firmness or the delicacy of touch so marked in the great melodists. Then, too, like Tennyson's *' Princess," the poem is wanting in marked structural unity. The parts are beautiful ; and we can see, when we think, what they have to do with each other ; but they do not so grow together into one, that we feel that every part is absolutely necessary to the rest of the poem. We may, however, recognize these defects, but maintain that the poem is great in spite of them. If " The Vision of Sir Launfal" has lost anything from the rapidity of its com- position, it has gained more. It has caught in a manner per- haps unequalled by any other writer the spirit of " the higb tide of the year." It fairly throbs with the vitality so infec- tious as to carry us along with a delight few poems can in- spire. Again, if we accept Lowell's belief that " the proof of poetry is that it reduces to a single line the vague philosophy which is floating in all men's minds," we must accord a high place to " The Vision of Sir Launfal." The poem is the flower of the strong conviction of young manhood, a power making for righteousness. Lastly, if Lowell possessed the double nature he so often claimed, and the " Biglow Papers " show the humorous side at its finest, " The Vision of Sir Launfal " best represents the other ; it is the work of Lowell the enthusi- ast with his slight touch of mysticism. Suggestions for Teaching and Study In studying " The Vision of Sir Launfal," it is well first of all to note carefully the significance of the opening stanza. XXXVIU INTRODUCTION 1£ wc take the poem from what this stanza would have us, as an improvisation, and as such permitted the liberty allowed in such composition, we shall more thoroughly catch its spirit and understand its structure. A teacher must use his own judgment in determining just \iow much study is called for by the text, just how much study of the meaning of words, of allusions, and of constructions. We must recognize that Lowell is not easy reading, and at the outset the teacher must see that the class have a fair understanding of the meaning of the more difficult lines. All definitions of words to be found in the usual dictionaries have been omitted, as have also, in most instances, the explanation of the numerous lines requiring class discussion and comment. Many passages to be committed so readily present them- selves as to require practically no suggestions. Again, each teacher must decide for himself what emphasis he will place on the moral of the Vision ; he nuiy well realize that the lesson is an integral part of the poem and has a distinct ethical value. Even as a lesson to be learned by heart, if it can be remem- bered, it is worth having; but if the student can actually realize a small part of what the poet felt in conceiving these face-to-face words with Christ, not to speak of what such a vision actually could be to one so privileged as to have it, if one's spirit actually is vitalized by such a thing as this, then other matters will seem of much less importance. A few books and poems for collateral reading may be sug- gested. Tennyson has treated the story of the search for the Holy Grail in his '' Sir Galahad " and " The Holy Grail." Chatterton's ^'^ An Excellent Balade of Charity," Longfellow's '^The Legend of the Beautiful Gate" and William Vaughn Moody's " Good Friday Night " offer some interesting points of comparison with " Sir Launfal." Lowell's " A Parable " gives us another presentation of the false and the true worship and love of Christ ; while the beginning of " Under the Wil- lows " and " Al Fresco " present two delightful descriptions THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL XXxix of June. Throiigli his poems Lowell has commemorated many of the events of his life. " She Came and Went," " The Changeling," and " The First Snowfall " are among the best of his autobiographic verses. Scudder's " Life of Lowell " (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is the best biography. Charles Eliot Norton has edited two volumes of Lowell's letters (Harper & Bros.). Lowell ranks among the best of letter writers in English. Edward Everett Hale's " James Eussell Lowell and His Friends" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is also to be recommended. Questions for General Study and Review Why is it usually considered that the scene of the story is laid in England ? What do we learn from the poem of tJie customs of chivalry ? What lines sum up the lesson of the poem ? Make a list of the archaic words in the poem. Try to ex- plain in each instance why the poet chose the older form. What marked changes in the movement of the poem do you note? Try to discover in each instance how Lowell's mood shows itself in these variations. Study Lowell's use of contrasts. How has he employed it in the structure of the poem ? in its spirit ? in the movement ? Has the poet drawn many of his comparisons from nature ? Why? Compare the attitude shown toward nature in " The An- cient Mariner '' with that in " The A^ision of Sir Laiunfal." Compare this description of June with Eiley's '^ Knee-deep in June." How does the spirit of the one differ from that of the other? What things are of common interest to the two poets ? THE EIME^ OF THE ANCIENT MARINER IN SEVEN PARTS Part I. I. It is 2 an ancient Mariner,^ And he stoppeth one of three.^ " By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? ^ II. An ancient Mariner meet- eth three gal- lants bidden to a wedding feast, and detaineth one. 5 " The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ; ® The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din." III. He holds him with his skinny hand, 10 « There was a ship," quoth he."^ '' Hold off ! unhand me, graybeard loon ! " Eftsoons his hand dropt he. » Rime.— hoo^ up the derivation of the word. 2 What is gained by such an abrupt beginning of the story? 3 Some one has said that the reader of the poem is the Wedding Guest. What does the statement mean, and is it true? Would anything be lost by referring through the poem to the Ancient Mariner as the old sail&rf * There are several artistic reasons for Coleridge's introducing the Wedding Guest instead of telling the story directly to the reader. Can you name three such reasons? 6 Who utters lines 3 and 4? « How is the effect of abruptness produced in lines 6 and 7? 7 What is gained by having the Ancient Mariner tell the story as happening to him- self rather than to some one else? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINEB IV. The wedding- guest is spell- bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrain- ed to hear his tale. The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line. He holds him with his glittering eye ^ — - The wedding-guest stood still;, 15 And listens like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will. ' V. The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone; He cannot choose hut hear ; And thus spake on that ancient man. 20 The bright-eyed - Mariner. VI. " The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top." VII. 25 The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he ! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea.* VIII. Higher and higher every day, 30 Till over the mast at noon "— The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon.^ * Such a line as this, repeating with a slight variation a preceding line, is called a repetend. What is gained by means of this device? Find other illustrations of its use in this poem. Compate 1. 13 with 1. 9. W^hich force indicates the greater power? 2 Which is the better epithet as applied to the Ancient Mariner's eyes, gliffaing or bright f Why? '^ 3 Why at this point in his narrative should the Poet hurry so? What does the word "kirk " imply as to the piaceir * A poetical way of telling us what about the course of the vessel ? fi Bassoon. " During Coleridge''8 residence in Stowey his friend Poole reformed the church choir and added a bsi&sOon to its resourcfeiJ. Mrs. Stanford (" T. Poole and his THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER IX. The bride hath paced into the hall, Eed as a rose is she ; 35 Nodding their heads before her goes ^ The merry minstrelsy. X. The Wedding- Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner contiuueth his tale. The ship drawn by a storm toward the south pole. The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast. Yet he cannot clioose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, 40 The bright-eyed Mariner.- XI. " And now the Storm-blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong : He struck with his overtaking wings. And chased us south along.^ XII. 45 With sloping masts and dipping prow. As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe. And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 50 And southward aye we fled'.* Friends,"" i, 247) happily suggests that this ' was the veiy original and prototype of the " loud bassoon " whose sound moved the wedding guest to beat his I)rea8t! ' " Camp- bell's Note. 1 Why is the movement of 1. 35 especially good? Cf. "Christabel,'" 1. 65 : "The lonely maid and the lady tall are pacing both into the hall." Cf. also "The Ballad of the Dark Ladie" : *'But first the nodding minstrels go." What words in this stainza are especially suggestive and picturesque ? ■\ , ; 2 Of what Btanza is this nearly a repetitioiff? Wbat is the Poet's purpose in such repetition?" ■''■■ " '' - ' - '■ ■■- ■■•" ■'■^■■■•■- - •:..:.■--...■ ^' - 3 What poetic device adds greatly to the vividness of this stanza ? An earlier version (1798) reads:— - ' ^^ ;; : ;- . ' ' " Listen, Stranger ! Storm and Wind, ' A Wind and Tempest strong ! - ■" s .\f.& s.:KCli2i; f?.-,' i;,:Eor days and weeks it play'd us f reaks.— liike Chaff we droye along," 4 How does the Poet secure a rapidity'6f'ihovenierlt"reflectiilg-the speed of the shipr? 6 THE lilME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER XIII. The land of ice, and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen. Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was re- ceived with great joy and ospitality. And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by. As green as emerald/ XIV. 55 And through the drifts - the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen :^ Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken — The ice was all between. XV. The ice was here, the ice was there, fi^ The ice was all around : It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound ! * XVI. At length did cross an Albatross ; Thorough the fog it came ; 65 As if it had been a Christian soul. We hailed it in God's name. XVII. It ate the food it ne'er had eat,^ And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; 70 The helmsman steered us through ! This stanza implies perhaps as much as it expresses. What are some of the emotions it suggests ? " treads the shadow of his foe " .• what do you understand by this expression ? 1 Read aloud this stanza, and determine what is its most significant word. Why ? 2 " Drifts " probably means banks or clouds of mist. Would some such verb as cast be as effective as send ? • Sheen. What difference between the use of the word here and that in line 314? * What suggestion in this comparison, "like noises in a swound," makes it very effective ? ' How does the reception of the albatross by the mariners and its actions during the flucceeding days increase the guilt of killing the bird ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER XVIII. And a good south wind ^ sprung up behind ; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariners' hollo ! XIX. 75 In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine ; - Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moon-shine." XX. And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen , andfolloweth the ship as it returned northward, through fog and floating The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the " God save thee, ancient Mariner ! 80 From the fiends, that plague thee thus ! — Why look'st thou so ? " ^— " With my cross-bow PJ,«od omen!"^ I shot the Albatross. Part II. XXI. ^ The Sun now rose upon the right : Out of the sea came he, 85 Still hid in mist, and on the left Went down into the sea. XXII.* And the good south wind still blew behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play 90 Came to the mariners' hollo! ,. .; .,;^" 1 Note how the change in the direction of sailing is indicated. ■.■. j, ,^., 2 What do you understand by " vesj)ers nine " ? 3 What caused the Wedding Guest to interrupt the Ancient Mariner at this point ? Should the Mariner have told us more about the death of the bird ? What induced him to kill the albatross? Keep the last few lines in mind; you will have occasion to use them later. * Of what preceding lines are the four of this stanza repetends ? Why does tt^e poet lay such emphasis on the fog and mist ? 8 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER His ship- inates cry out against the ancient Mari- ner, for killing the bird of good luck. But when the fog cleared off, they jus- tify the same, and thus make themselTes accomplices in the crime. Thefairbreeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even until it reaches the Line. The ship hath been suddenly becalmed. XXIII. And I had done an lu^llish thing. And it wonld work 'oni woe: ' For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. 9^ Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow ! XXIV. Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorions Snn nprist: ^ Then all averred, I had killed the bird 100 That bronght the fog and mist. 'T was right, said they, such birds to slay. That bring the fog and mist." XXV. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free ; * 105 \Ye ^ere the first that ever burst '' Into that silent sea.^ XXVI. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'T was sad as sad oould be ; 1 What considerations induced the sailors to blame or to praise the Ancient Mariner for killing the bird ? ' What other beautiful descriptions of sunrise do you find in poetry ? Compare this description with that given in Shakespeare's 33d Sonnet, and with that in "L' Allegro." • In thus excusing the death of the albatross, have the sailors done a greater or a less wrong than the Ancient Mariner ? • *' The furrow folloived free.'''' " In the Sibylline Leaves the line was printed ' The furrow stream'd off free.' And Coleridge puts this footnote: ' In a former edition the line was "The furrow followed free"; but I had not been long on board the ship before I perceived that this was the image as seen by a spectator from the shore, or from another vessel. From the ship itself the Wake appears like a brook flowing off from the stern,' But in 1828 and after the old line was restored." Campbell's Note. ' Why is the word burst as used in this connection especially expressive ? Describe this " silent sea," as you imagine it. • Point out some other stanzas that have a rapid movement given by the rush of the rhythm. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 9 And we did speak only to break IJO Tlio silonce of the sea! ' XXVII. All in a hot and copper - sky. The blood}^ Sun, at noon, Eight np above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. XXVIII. 115 Day after da}^, day after day,'"^ We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. XXIX. Water, water, everywhere. And the an 120 And all the boards did shrink; to be avenged. Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. XXX. The very deep did rot: Christ! That ever this should be ! 125 Yea, slimy ^ things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea. XXXI. About, about, in reel and rout ^ The death-fires danced at night; 1 How is the movement in this stanza retarded ? What is the effect of the alliteration in this stanza ? 2 W^hat qualities of the sky are implied in " copper " ? 3 What is suggested by the repetition ? Can you find other passages in the poem where the same effect is produced by this same device ? What are the two most forceful words in this stanza ? What parts of speech are most powerful in giving life to a description ? * Why does the Poet dwell upon the rather disagreeable word " slimy" ? 6 Compare with 1. 354. How is rapidity of movement secured in these lines ? Can you select any one adjective to express the impression made by this stanza ? 10 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER The water, like a witch's oils, 130 Burnt green, and blue, and white. XXXII. A spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither de- parted souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Pselius, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more. 2 And some in dreams assured were Of the Spirit that plagued us so : Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow.^ XXXIII. 135 And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root ; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. XXXIV. Ah ! well-a-da}^ ! what evil looks 140 Had I from old and young ! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.^ Part III. XXXV. There passed a weary time. Each throat Was parched, and glazed each eye. 145 A weary time ! a weary time ! * The. ancient How glazed each weary eye, hSdSh^as'ign When lookiug westward, I beheld ifar^ofl!''"'^''* A something in the sky.^ 1 Why should the spirit be angered at the death of the albatross ? Why nine fathoms, instead of eight or ten fathoms ? 2 What is the Poet's purpose in naming the authorities he cites in the gloss ? ' Is there any other reason, besides the desire of his companions to fix the guilt on the Ancient Mariner, for hanging the albatross about his neck ? ■• What is the purpose of the repetitions in this stanza ? Is the same device used elsewhere in the poem for producing a similar effect ? * Why are we not told at once what the Mariner gees ? The ship- mates in their sore distress would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner; in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 11 XXXVI. At first it seemed a little speck, 150 And then it seemed a mist; It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. xxxvii. A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist ! ^ And still it neared and neared : 155 As if it dodged a water-sprite. It plunged and tacked and veered. XXXVIII. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. We could not laugh nor wail ; Through utter drought all dumb we stood ! 160 I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail ! a sail ! - 1 XXXIX. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. Agape they heard me call: Gramercy ! ^ they for joy did grin,* 165 And all at once their breath drew in. As they were drinking all. XL. See! see (I cried) she tacks no more! Hither to work us weal ; Without a breeze, without a tide, 170 She steadies with upright keel ! At its nearer approach, it Bcemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth his gpeech from the bonds of thirst. A flash of joy And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide ? 1 What is the Poet's purpose in thus gathering the content of the preceding stanza into a single line? How are we made aware of the supernatural character of the approaching ship ? .^ , « 2 Which is the more poetic, this stanza or the gloss ? 3 Derivation and meaning ? . ^ . r -o ++!„ 4 For joy did grin. "I took the thought of grinning for joy from poor Burnett s rPtnark to me when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimraon and were nearly dead with h'st We co."d not speak for the constriction till we found a little puddle under a stone He said to me. ^ You grinned like an idiot.' He had done the same." Coleridge, ''Table-talk." May 31, 1830 (second edition), 11. 185-189. 12 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER XLI. The western wave was all a-flame. The day was well-nigh done ! ^ Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun; 175 When that strange shape drove - suddenly Betwixt us and the Sun. It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship. And its ribB are seen as bars on the face of the eet- ting Sun. The Spectre- Woman and her Death- mate, and no other on board the skeleton- ship. Like vessel, like crew! XLII. And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, (Heaven^s Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered, 180 With broad and burning face.^ XLIII.* Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) How fast she nears and nears ! Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, Like restless gossameres ? ^ XLIV. 185 Are those her ribs through which the Sun Did peer as through a grate? And is that Woman all her crew ? Is that a Death? and are there two? Is Death that Woman's mate ? XLV. 190 Her lips were red, her looks were free. Her locks were yellow as gold : ^ * Why is it especially effective to have the ship appear at sunset ? 2 What is the significance of the drove ? Can you substitute a better word ? 3 Describe the sight the Ancient Mariner witnessed. * What device through this stanza and the next makes more vivid the growing terror of the Ancient Mariner ? * Look up the derivation of goftsameres. * Is anything gained by making Life-in-Death partially beautiful ? Cf. with Lady Geraldine in "Christabel." lAff-in- Death. Cf. Tennyson's " Tears, Idle Tears ": "O THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 13 Her skin was white as leprosy, The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's hlood with cold. XLVI.^ 1*^^ The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice ; - ' The game is done ! I've won, I've won ! ' Quoth she, and whistles thrice. XLVII. The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out : 200 At one stride comes the dark ; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, Olt' shot the spectre-bark." XLVllI. We listened and looked sideways up ! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 205 My life-blood seemed to sip ! The stars were dim, and thick the niglit. Death and Life-in- Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter)winneth the ancient Mariner. No twilight within the courts of the Sun. At the rising of the Moon. \ Death in Life, the days that are no more." Cf. also Coleridge's Epitaph at the end of the biography. The version of 1798 reads thus : "Are those her naked ribs, which fleck'd The sun that did behind them peer ? And are those two all, all the crew, That woman and her fleshlees Pheere ? IBs bones were black with many a crack, All black and bare, I ween; Jet-black and bare, save where the rust Of mouldy damps and charnel crust They're patch'd with purple and green. Her lips are red, her looks are free, He7'\ocks are yellow as gold : Her skin is as white as leprosy, And she is far liker Death than he : The flesh makes the still air cold. The naked Hulk alongside came And the twain were casting dice; ' The Game is done! Ive won, I've won! ' Quoth she and whistled thrice. A gust of wind starts up behind And whistled thro' his bones: Thro' the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth Half-whistles and half-groans. With never a whisper in the Sea Off darts the Spectre-ship; While clombe above the Eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright Star Almost atween the tips. One after one by the horned moon (Listen, O Strangerl to me)." 1 Notice how much the gloss adds in explaining this stanza. 2 What was to be the fate of the Ancient Mariner ? 3 What is the effect of so many one-syllabled words in this stanza ? What else con- tributes to the rapidity of motion ? Compare this stanza with stanza xxxv. Explain the gloss. 14 THE KIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER One after another, His shipmates drop down dead; But Life-in- Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner. The steersman^s face by his lamp gleamed white ; From the sails the dew did drip — Till clomb above the eastern bar 210 The horned Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip.^ XLIX. One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, 215 And cursed - me with his eye. L. Four times fifty living men, (And I heard nor sigh nor groan) With heavy thump, a lifeless lump/ They dropped down one by one. LI. 220 The souls did from their bodies fly, — They fled to bliss or Avoe ! And every soul, it passed me by. Like the whizz of my cross-bow ! " Part IV. LII. ■? 4 The wedding- > " J fear thcc, ancicut Mariner . guest feareth that a spirit is 225 J fear thv skiuny hand ! taJlimgtohini; And thou art long, and lank, and brown. As is the ribbed sea-sand.^ * Can you see any reason for the Poefs making this the longest stanza of the poem ? What feeling is delicately suggested in the first line ? Notice carefully the details used in this stanza, and then describe the night. Does the moon add brightness to the scene? The meaning of bar ? It has been objected that a star could not be within the tips of the moon. Should Coleridge have changed these lines to accord with facts ? ' Where later in the poem is the curse again referred to ? Does it become more or less terrible to the Ancient Mariner ? ' Does the Poet gain or lose by using the rather ordinary words rhymed in 1. 218 ? ^ What causes the Wedding Guest to fear ? 5 LI. 226-?37 were suggested by Wordsworth. Is the comparison a happy one ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 15 LIII. I fear thee and tliy glittering eye, And thy skinny hand so brown."— 230 « Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! This body dropped not down. LIV. Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea ! ' And never a saint took pity on 235 My soul in agony. LV. 1 -t;^!,! t 2 He deepiseth The many men, so neautiiui i the creatures n T T Ti A-^. of the calm. And they all dead did lie : And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on ; and so did I. LVI. And envieth 240 I looked upon the rotting sea, thatfhey And drew my eyes away ; InTso many I looked upon the rotting deck, "edead. And there the dead men lay. LVII. I looked to Heaven and tried to pray; 245 But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust.^ 1 Can you conceive of any punishment more terrible for the Mariner tb^n toJ,e ^^ut np alone with these dead men ' What is the effect of the repetition of the word aloner How thl" eling of tolation of the Ancient Mariner preserved throughout the w^ole poem v .Why sLuld he call the men beautiful ? The student will be "^^^^^^^^ ^ ^^f ^^, ing threxperiences of the Ancient Mariner with those of Christian in the first por ion of Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's Progress,'' especially wnen Christian sees the Cross. Notice the adjectives used in describing the scene. ,, , k , f^ui «7hat thp wicked 3 Would the effect have been more terrible if we had been told what the wicKea whisper was ? 16 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER LVIII. I closed my lids, and kept them close. And the balls like" pulses beat ; .250 YoT the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet.^ LIX. nJeVh'foTMm The cold sweat melted from their limbs, in the eye of ^or rot nor rcck did they : the dead men. -^ 255 The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away. LX. An orphan's curse would drag to Hell A spirit from on high; But oh ! more horrible than that 260 Is a curse in a dead man's eye ! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die. LXI.- The moving Moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide: 265 Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside — In his loneli- ness and fixed- ness he yearn- eth towards the journey- ing Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival. LXII.- Her beams bemocked the -sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread ; > Compare with "Macbeth," Act I, Sc. Ill, 1. 19, sq. Note how Coleridge fills out the suggestions made by Shakespeare. If you have ever hiid a severe fever, recall how your eyes and temples throbbed. How does the movement of the third line reflect the suffering of the Ancient Mariner ? 2 Which is more beautiful, these two stanzas or the accompanying gloss ? Defend your answers. Does any word suggest the possibility of coming relief ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 17 By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's crea- tures of the great calm. But where the ship's huge shadow la}^ 270 The charmed^ water l)urnt alwa}' A still and awful red. LXIII. Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes : They moved in tracks of shining white, 275 And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes.- LXIV. Within the shadow of the ship, I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet hlack, 280 They coiled and swam ; and every track Was a flash of golden fire. LXV. happy living things ! '^ no tongue Their beauty might declare : 284 A spring of love gushed from my heart,* And I blessed them unaware : Sure my kind saint took pity on me. And I blessed them unaware. LXVI. The selfsame moment I could pray; And from my neck so free 290 The x\lbatross fell off and sank Like lead into the sea.^ 1 Charmed has an interesting and significant derivation. ^ ^ , . ,, ^ How do the contrasting colors of the water within and without the shadow of the ship reflect the Mariner's spiritual condition ? What words in this description hint at the supernatural in the scene ? Compare the appearance of the snakes within the shadow of the ship with that of those beyond. Which are the more beautiful ? 3 How has he spoken of the water snakes before ? What induces him now to regard them differently ? * With what preceding line may we contrast 1. 284? s Would this division have been more effective if the punishment of the Manner had Their beauty and their hap- piness. He blcpseth them in his heart. The spell be- gins to break. 18 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mari- ner is re- freshed with rain. He heareth sounds, and seeth strange eights and commotions in the sky and the element. Part V. LXVII. sleep ! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole ! To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 295 She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, That slid into my soul.^ LXVIII. The silly - buckets on the deck, That had so long remained, 1 dreamt that they were filled with dew ; 300 And when I awoke, it rained.^ LXIX. My lij^s were wet, my throat was cold. My garments all were dank ; Sure I had drunken in my dreams. And still my body drank."* LXX. 305 I moved, and could not feel my limbs : I was so light — almost I thought that I had died in sleep. And was a blessed ghost.^ LXXI. And soon I heard a roaring wind : 310 It did not come anear ; been described more fully ? Can you find other illustrations in literature or in life where men by blessing others have blessed themselves ? Is there any reason for having the release of the Ancient Mariner come in the middle division of the poem ? > How has Coleridge spoken of sleep in " Christabel " ? How has Shakespeare, in the second act of " Macbeth " ? What is the effect of the alliteration in the last line ? Do you note in this part any other cases of effective alliteration ? 2 Trace in the dictionary the changes in meaning of silly. • How long has his torture from thirst lasted ? * Is any word of this stanza employed in an unusual manner ? 5 Is this change of feeling due to more than one cause ? What is the exact sig- nificance of a blessed ghost ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 19 But with its sound it shook the sails, That were so thin and sere.^ LXXII. The upper air burst into life ! And a hundred fire-flags sheen,- 315 To and fro they were hurried about ! And to and fro, and in and out," The wan stars danced between.^ r LXXIII. ^ And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge ; ^ 320 And the rain poured down from one black cloud ; The Moon was at its edge. LXXIV. The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side : Like waters shot from some high crag, 325 The lightning fell with never a jag/' A river steep and wide.'' LXXV. The loud wind never reached the ship, K?p4^' ""^ Yet now the ship moved on ! spired's'ind Beneath the lightning and the Moon theshipmoves 330 The dead men gave a groan. 1 Why are the adjectives used in describing the sails especially good ones ? 2 What must we supply in 1. 314 to complete the sentence ? 3 What is the effect of the additional line in this stanza ? * Compare this scene with that described in stanza xxxi. Which is the more vivid, and why ? Would the picture have been more effective if the stars had been hidden from view ? 5 Why does the Poet refer so repeatedly to the sound made by the sails ? « What previous illustrations have we noted of Coleridge's use of strong, homely words ? 7 Describe this scene in your own words. 8 Can you discover later in the poem the force that causes the ship to move on ? What is the Poet's purpose in representing the ship's crew as '* inspired'' ? 20 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MAHTNER LXXVI. They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose Nor sj^oke, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. LXXVII. 335 Tiie helmsman steered, the ship moved on ; Yet never a breeze up blew ; The mariners all ^gan work the ropes. Where they were wont to do ; They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 340 wtq were a ghastly crew/ LXXVTII. The body of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee : The body and I pulled at one rope, 344 But he said nought to me.'^ LXXIX But not bythe " X fear thee, ancient Mariner ! " - souls of the men, nor by " Be calm, thou Wcddiuo^-Guest ! demons of . the earth or 'T was not thosc souls that fled in pain, middle air, but . , , . . by a blessed Which to their corscs came again, geiic spirits, But a troop of Spirits blest : ^ sent down by the invocation of the guar- LXXX. dian saint. 350 For when it dawned — they dropped their arms. And clustered round the mast; > Wordsworth suggested that the dead men sail the ship. What word in this stanza well represents the feelings of the Ancient Mariner ? How does this stanza accord with the fate allotted to the Mariner ? 2 The last interruption of the Wedding Guest. Does his fear seem as great as at the preceding interruptions ? ' Where later in the poem are these spirits again mentioned ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 21 Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed. LXXXI. Around, around, flew each sweet sound, ^^^ Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one. LXXXII. Sometimes a-dropping from the sky T heard the skylark sing; 360 Sometimes all little birds that are. How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning! ^ LXXXIII. And now 't was like all instruments, N"ow like a lonely iiute ; 365 And now it is an angel's song. That makes the Heavens be mute. LXXXIV. It ceased; 5^et still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook 370 In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.- 1 Does the Ancient Mariner really hear these birds sing, or do the sounds made by the spirits resemble the songs of the different birds ? The conception of the skylark as singing at a great height is a favorite one with poets. Cf. Shelley's " Skylark," the first stanza; Shakespeare's 29th Sonnet; "L'Allegro," 1. 49, sq. What is the exact meaning of jargoning .^ 2 A certain critic has regarded this as the most beautiful stanza of the poem. Should you agree with him ? What musical words and what pictures suggested contribute to 22 THE fllME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER The lonesome spirit from the south pole car- ries on the ship as far as the line, in obedi- ence to the an- gelic troop, but still requireth vengeance. LXXXV. Till noon we quietly sailed on. Yet never a breeze did breathe : 375 Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath. LXXXVl/ Under the keel nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow. The spirit slid : and it was he 380 That made the ship to go. The sails at noon left off their tune. And the ship stood still also. LXXXVII. • The Sun, right up above the mast. Had fixed her to the ocean : 385 But in a minute she 'gan stir,- With a short uneasy motion — Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. LXXXVIII. Then like a pawing horse let go, 390 She made a sudden bound : It flung the blood into my head, And I fell down in a swound. the beauty of the stanza ? Why do you imagine the poet chose to drop these four stanzas which followed stanza lxxxiv in the version of 1798 ? " Listen, O listen, thou Wedding-guest! " Never sadder tale was heard " Marinere! thou hast thy will: By a man of woman born: For that which comes out of thine eye, The Marineres all return'd to work doth make As silent as beforne. My body and soul to be still." " Never sadder tale was told To a man of woman born : Sadder and wiser than wedding-guest Thou 'It rise to-morrow morn. The Marineres all 'gan pull the ropes. But look on me they n' old : Thought I, I am as thin as air — They cannot me behold." 1 Compare the gloss with that of stanza xxv. Are they contradictory ? Have we any hint given as to the subsequent course of the vessel ? " What purpose is served by the shifting of accents in this line and 387 ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 23 LXXXIX. How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; 395 But ere my living life ^ returned, I heard and in my soul discerned Two voices in the air. XC.2 ^ Is it he? ' quoth one, ^ Is this the man? By him who died on cross, 400 With his cruel how he laid full low The harmless Albatross. The Polar Spirit's fel- low-demons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth Bouthward. XCI. The spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man 405 Who shot him with his bow.' ^ XCII. The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew : Quoth he, ' The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.' * 1 Would conscious life express all Coleridge would imply in living life? 2 What does the Poet mean by speaking in the gloss of these spirits as demons? Reread the motto at the beginning of the poem. Compare the nature of these spirits with that of the witches of " Macbeth." What motive is represented by each of these voices ? Why are these special two chogen ? Is there any significance in the kind of bow used by the Mariner ? 'Where does the Ancient Mariner himself lay emphasis on the value of love ? * Why not shall do instead of will do? Trace through the remainder of the poem the fulfilment of the spirit's prophecy of the further penance of the Ancient Mariner. Is the penance shown in the rest of the poem as severe as that of the past ? 24 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER Pakt VI. XCIII. First Voice.^ 410 ^ But tell me, tell me ! speak again, Thy soft response renewing — What makes that ship drive on so fast ? What is the Ocean doing ? ' xciv. Second Voice. ^ Still as a slave before his lord, 415 The Ocean hath no blast; His great bright eye most silently Up to the Moon is cast — - xcv. If he may know which way to go ; For she guides him smooth or grim. 420 See, brother, see ! how graciously She looketh down on him.^ XOVI. First Voice. hath^een^cast ^ But why drivcs ou that ship so fast, forthe^angS Without or wave or wind ? ' power caueeth the vessel to SeCOND VoICE. drive north- tTan hSman ' The air is cut away before, enduT^*^ *2^ And closes from behind. XCVII. Fly, brother, fly ! more high, more high ! Or we shall be belated : * Why does the Poet resort to the device of introducing these two voices ? Why not begin this part with 1. 430 ? a State in your own language the central thought of this stanza. Do you find any other instances of the Poet's stating common facts in very beautiful language ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 25 For slow and slow that ship will go,^ When the Mariner's trance is abated/ XCVIII. .,. The supernat- 430 I woke, and we were sailing on urai motion is ^ ' , retarded; the As in a gentle weather: Mariner 'T was night, calm night, the Moon was high; JJ^^JIJ^^c^ ^ , T , ,1 begins anew. The dead men stood together. XCIX. All stood together on the deck, 435 For a charnel-dnngeon fitter : All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in the Moon did glitter. c. The pang, the curse, with which they died, Had never passed away: 440 I could not draw my eyes from theirs, Nor turn them up to pray.^ CI. Th(* cursG IS And now this spell was snapt : once more g^aiiy expi- , , ated. I viewed the ocean green. And looked far forth, yet little saw 445 Of what had else been seen — CII. Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread. And having once turned round walks on And turns no more his head ; 450 Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.^ 1 Why cannot the Mariner pray ? m what sense are they ^ What causes the Mariner'8 fear ? Cf. with stanza xii. In what sense tney . corresponding stanzas ? 26 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER cm. But soon there breathed a wind on me. Nor sound nor motion made : Its path was not upon the sea, 455 In ripple or in shade.^ CIV. It raised my ha^'r, it fanned my cheek Like a meadow-gale of spring — It mingled strangely with my fears. Yet it felt like a welcoming. cv. 460 Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too : Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — On me alone it blew. cvi. d?nt Ma?£er ^^ ' ^^^am of joy ! is this indeed behoideth his 465 The liffht-house top I see ? native ^ ^ country jg -^his the hill ? is this the kirk ? Is this mine own countree ? ^ CVII. We drifted o'er the harbor-bar. And I with sobs did pray — 470 let me be awake, my God ! Or let me sleep alway.^ » Where do we receive the first intimation that the voyage is about to end ? Would this portion of the poem have been more effective if we had been told more in detail of the return of the ship ? Where have we noted a similar rapidity in the movement of the story ? 2 In what preceding passage has strong emotion been indicated by the use of the interrogation ? Compare with stanza vi. Of. also with Longfellow's " Lighthouse" : " The mariner remembers when a child On his first voyage he saw it fade and sink; And when returning from adventures wild, He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink." » Why is it natural the Mariner should fear this sight is but a dream ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 27 CVIII. The harbor-bay was clear as ghiss, So smoothly it was strewn ! And on the bay the moonlight lay, ^75 And the shadow ^ of the moon. cix. The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, That stands above the rock : The moonlight steeped in silentness - The steady weathercock.^ ex. 480 And the bay was white with silent light. Till rising from the same. Full many shapes, that shadows were. In crimson colors came. CXI. A little distance from the prow 485 Those crimson shadows were: I turned my eyes upon the deck — Oh, Christ ! what saw I there ! * * Is shadow here used in its ordinary sense ? 2 Suggestive of Remorse^ iv, 3. " The many clouds, the sea, the rocks, the sands Lie in the silent moonshine." s Which is the more impressive, the departure of the ship amid cheers or its return in silence ? Here were inserted in the edition of 1798 five stanzas : The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies, And appear in their own forms of light. The moonlight bay was white all o'er Till rising from the same, Full many shapes, that shadows were, Like as of torches came. A little distance from the prow Those dark-red shadows were; But soon I saw that my own flesh Was red as in a glare. They lifted up their stiff white arms, They held them straight and tight ; And each right arm burnt like a torch, A torch that's borne upright, Their stony eyeballs glittered on In the red and smoky light. I pray'd and turn'd my head away Forth looking as before. There was no breeze upon the bay, No wave against the shore. I turn'd my head in fear and dread. And by the holy rood. The bodies had advanced and now Before the mast they stood. * Why had the Ancient Mariner failed to notice this spectacle before ? 28 THE KIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER CXII. Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, And, by the holy rood ! 490 A man all light, a seraph-man. On every corse there stood. CXIII. This seraph-band, each waved his hand ; It was a heavenly sight ! They stood as signals to the land, 495 Each one a lovely light ; ^ CXIV. This seraph-band, each waved his hand. No voice did they impart — No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank Like music on my heart. cxv. 500 But soon I heard the dash of oars, I heard the Pilot's cheer; My head was turned perforce away. And I saw a boat appear.- cxvi. The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy, 505 I heard them coming fast : Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy The dead men could not blast.^ > Compare this scene with that of stanza lxxix. ' After this stanza appeared in the 1798 version the following : Then vanished all the lovely lights ; The bodies rose anew: With silent pace, each to his place. Came back the ghastly crew. The wind that shade nor motion made. On me alone it blew, 8 The meaning of blast ? THE KIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 29 CXVII. 1 saw a third — I heard his voice : It is the Hermit good ! 510 He singeth loud his godly hymns That he makes in the wood. He'll shrive my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.^ Part VII. CXVIII. This Hermit s^ood lives in that wood^ The Hermit of ° the Wood. 515 Which slopes down to the sea. How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! He loves to talk with marineres That come from a far countree. cxix. •He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — 520 He hath a cushion plump : It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump.^ cxx. The skiff -boat neared : I heard them talk, " Why, this is strange, I trow ! 525 Where are those lights so many and fair, That signal made but now ? " cxxi. '' Strange, by my faith ! " the Hermit said— ^hSp wUh " And they answered not our cheer ! wonder. ' Do the last two lines serve any purpose beyond portraying the feelings of the Ancient Mariner ? Does the hermit " wash away the Albatross's blood " ? 2 How does this man differ from the ordinary conception of a hermit ? Where have we found countree' similarly spelled and accented ? Has the poet any justification, besides that of producing a rhyme, for thus changing the accent ? 8 Would anything be lost to the poem by the omission of this stanza ? 80 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER The planks looked warped ! and see those sails, 530 How thin they are and sere ! ^ I never saw aught like to them, Unless p0Tchanee it were CXXII. Brown skeletons of leaves that lag My forest-brook along; 535 When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf's young." ^ CXXIII. '^ Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look — (The Pilot made reply) 540 I am a-feared " — " Push on, push on ! " Said the Hermit cheerily. cxxiv. The boat came closer to the ship. But I nor spake nor stirred ; The boat came close beneath the ship, 545 And straight a sound was heard. cxxv.^ The ship sud- Under the water it rumbled on, en y siu -e . ^ii\\ louder and more dread : It reached the ship, it split the bay; The ship went down like lead.* CXXVI. 550 Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, Which sky and ocean smote, * What adjectives liave been used before in describing the appearance of the sails ? 2 With what feelings does the hermit regard the ship ? 3 What is the effect of the irregularity in the metrical structure of the first line of this statiza ? * Where has the comparison in this line been usea before ? In which place is the comparison the more appropriate ? THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MAKINER 81 Like one that hatli been seven days drowned My body lay afloat; But swift as dreams, myself I found 555 Within the Pilot's boat. CXXVII. Upon the whirl, where sank the ship. The boat spun round and round ; And all was still, save that the hill Was telling of the sound. CXXVIII. 560 I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked And fell down in a fit; The Holy Hermit raised his eyes. And T3rayed where he did sit. CXXIX. I took the oars : the Pilot's boy, 5G5 Who now doth crazy go. Laughed loud and long, and all the while His eyes went to and fro. ^ Ha ! ha ! ^ quoth he, ' full plain I see,' The Devil knows how to row.^ ^ cxxx. 570 And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land ! The Hermit stepped forth from the boat. And scarcely he could stand. CXXXI. ^ shrive me, shrive me, holy man ! ' ^ 575 The Hermit crossed his brow. The ancient Mariner earnestly en- treateth the Hermit to shrive him; and the pen- ance of life falls on him. 1 What, besides the mysterious disappearance of the ship, induces the pilot's boy to mistake the Ancient Mariner for the Devil, and the hermit to ask, " What manner of mafi art thou? " ' What added idea of the Ancient Mariner's penance do we get from the gloss ? 82 THE KIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER ^ Say quick/ quoth he, ' I bid thee say — What manner of man art thou ? ^ CXXXII. Foithwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a wof ul agony, 580 Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free. CXXXIII. ^mmthrougif Sincc then, at an uncertain hour, H?e an att7 That agony returns ; h?m to1?avei ^^^ *^^^ ^^ ghastly tale is told, from land to 585 This heart within me burns. land. CXXXIV. I pass, like night, from land to land ; ^ I have strange power of speech ; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me : 590 To him my tale I teach. cxxxv. What loud uproar bursts from that door ! The wedding-guests are there: But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are: ^ 595 And hark the little vesper-bell. Which biddeth me to prayer ! ^ CXXXVI. Wedding-Guest ! this soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: > '■'I pass, like night. '^ "What different ideas are implied in this comparison ? Should this explanation of the spell exerted by the Ancient Mariner have been given ns at the beginning of the poem ? " Coleridge had the striking thought that possibly the punish- ment of a future life may consist in bringing back the consciousness of the Past." Eobinson's Diary: ii, 129. 2 To what preceding stanza are we here brought back ? How do the last two lines prepare us for the rest of the poem ? THE KIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 33 So lonely H was, that God himself 600 Scarce seemed there to he. CXXXVII. sweeter than the marriage-feast, 'T is sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company ! — ^ CXXXVITI. 605 To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father hends. Old men, and hahes, and loving friends, And youths and maidens gay ! CXXXIX.^ J j_i • T 4^ 11 And to teach 610 "Farewell, farewell I hut this i teii by Mb own itiicvv^i, example, love To thee thou Wedding-brUest I and reverence 10 Lliec, txiuu , , ,1 11 to all things He nraveth well, who lovetn weii thatGodmade r J ^ , . T T 1 i. and loveth. Both man and bird and beast. CXL. He prayeth best, who loveth best 615 All things both great and small ; For the dear God who loveth us. He made and loveth all." CXLI. The Mariner, whose eye is bright. Whose beard with age is hoar, , ^^ru .Honlcl the Marhier now love to walk to the kirk with a goodly company ? 1 \V hy should the Marnier now gucceeding stanza ? Has this same word 2 What is the key word of this and the encceeai k -Religious served a similar purpose in any preceding portion of the poem ? Cf . witn Musings " : ,^- a " There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mina, Omnific, His most holy name is Love, Views all creation : and He loves it all, And blesses it and calls it very good." 34 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER ^-^ Is gone : ^ and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom's door. CXLII. He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn : A sadder and a wiser man, ^25 He rose the morrow morn.^ * Would anything have been gained or lost by telling more of the life of the Ancient Mariner ? Why not end the poem with stanza cxl ? s What was the effect of the story upon the Wedding Guest ? Why this effect, rather than amazement and terror such as have characterized him before ? THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL Note by the Author. — According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to he chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems. The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the follow- ing poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include, not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's reign. PRELUDE TO PART FIRST Over his keys the musing organist/ Beginning doubtfully and far away,- First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: 5 TheU;, as the touch of his loved instrument Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent Along the wavering vista of his dream. * The first stanza, though printed as a part of the Prelude to Part First, is really a little introduction to the whole poem. It gives the idea of the poet's reverie as he follows his thought without the rigidity of a fixed construction. * Far away from whom or what ? 36 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL Not only around our infancy 10 Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; ^ Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not ; - Over our manhood bend the skies ; ^ Against our fallen and traitor lives 15 The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives; Its arms outstretched, the druid * wood Waits with its benedicite; And to our age's drowsy blood 20 Still shouts the inspiring sea. Earth ^ gets its price for what Earth gives us ; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in. The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, We bai:gain for the graves we lie in; 25 At the Devil's booth are all things sold,® Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; For a cap and bells our lives we pay. Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking; 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 30 'Tis only God may be had for the asking; There is no price set on the lavish summer. And June may be had by the poorest comer. 1 The allusion is to Wordsworth's " Ode on the Intimations on Immortality," the first line of stanza v, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." Line 20 probably refers to the last part of stanza ix of the same poem. Possibly line 21 may have been suggested as a comment on Wordsworth's " Earth fills her lap with treasures of her own.*' The student should read the ode. 2 See Exodus xix, 3. Is Lowell's statement in these lines true ? 3 Nature is more loyal to God than we. 4 Where has Longfellow spoken of the forest as standing like Druids ? In poetry words are often more valuable for what they imply than for what they express. What is suggested by druid / ^ Just what does Lowell mean by Earth ? " What is the emphatic word in this line ? THE VISIOX OF SIR LAUNFAL 37 And what is so rare as a day in June ? ^ Then, if ever, come perfect days; 35 Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays ; Whether we look, or whether we listen. We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, 40 An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, grasping blindly above it for light. Climbs to a soul for grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 45 The cowslip startles in meadows green. The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice. And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace; The little bird ^ sits at his door in the sun, 50 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; 55 He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — In the nice*'' ear of Nature which song is the best? Now is the high-tide of the year. And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer * Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it^, We are happy now because God so wills it ; 1 In this description of June, what lines move most smoothly ? Notice how the first stanza of the description appeals to sight and the second to sound. ■•^ Compare with the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas of Bryant's " Robert of Lincoln." 3 In what sense is the word nice here used ? What answer does the question imply ? * Look up the exact significance of cheei\ 60 38 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL No matter how barren the past may have been, ^Tis enough for ns now that the leaves are green ; 65 We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear 70 That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky. That the robin is plastering his house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, 75 For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer. Warmed with the new wine of the year. Tells all in his luty crowing ! ^ 80 Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; Everything is happy now. Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for the grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 85 ^Tis the natural way of living: Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed. The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; ^0 The soul partakes the season's youth. And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 1 What is the effect of the changing movement of these lines ? How has Lowell secured his effects in this description — by the use of especially appropriate words, or by the selection of typical details ? THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 89 Lie deep 'neatli a silence pure and smooth. Like burnt-out craters healed with snow, Wliat wonder if Sir Launfal ' now 95 Remembered the keeping of his vow? PART FIRST- I. '^ My golden spurs ^ now bring to me. And bring to me my richest mail, For to-morroAV I go over land and sea In search of the Holy Grail; 100 Shall never a bed for me be spread. Nor shall a pillow be under my head, Till I begin my vow to keep; Here on the rushes * will I sleep. And perchance there may come a vision true 105 Ere day create the world anew." Slowly Sir Launf aFs eyes grew dim, Slumber fell like a cloud on him. And into his soul the vision flew.^ II. The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 110 In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, The little birds sang as if it were The one day of summer in all the year, And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees: 1 Why does Lowell begin to speak of Sir Launfal suddenly, without telling us who and what he was ? 2 Show how this section sustains the spirit of the prelude. 3 Golden spurs were the symbol of knighthood. When a knight disgraced himself his golden spurs were hacked oflf his heels by the cook's cleaver. * What is the significance of Sir LaunfaPs sleeping on the rushes ? 6 What is the purpose of this appeal to sounds dying into silence at the close of the stanza ? 40 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL The castle alone in the landscape lay 115 Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray; ^Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree/ And never its gates might opened be, Save to lord or lady of high degree; Summer besieged it on every side,^ 120 But the churlish stone her assaults defied; She ^ could not scale the chilly wall, Though round it for leagues her pavilions tall Stretched left and right, Over the hills and out of sight; 125 Green and broad was every tent. And out of each a murmur went Till the breeze fell off at night. III. The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang,* And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 130 Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred summers long, 135 And binding them all in one blazing sheaf. Had cast them forth: so, young and strong. And lightsome as a locust leaf. Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail. To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. IV. 140 It was morning on hill and stream and tree. And morning in the young knight's heart; 1 What rhyme of " The Ancient Mariner " is here recalled ? ^ What is the idea of this and the few following lines ? Cf. 11. 140-144. 3 What other notable instances of personification do you find in the poem ? * Point out some good examples of alliteration in this stanza. THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 41 Only the castle moodily Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, And gloomed by itself apart; 145 The season brimmed all other things up Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, He was 'ware of a leper ^ crouched by the same, Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate; ISO And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, The flesh 'neatli his armor did shrink and crawl, And midway its leap his heart stood still Like a frozen waterfall; 155 j^or this man, so foul and bent of stature. Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. VI. The leper raised not the gold from the dust: 160 « Better to me the poor man's crust. Better the blessing of the poor. Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold 1G5 Who gives from a sense of duty ; - But he who gives a slender mite,^ And gives to that which is out of sight, * How did Christ once receive a leper ? 2 Do the gloomy castle and the brilliant Sir Launfal stand for the same thing in the poet's mind ? * What biblical story Is here suggested? 42 THE VISION" OF SIR LAUNFAL That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and dotli all unite, — 170 The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms. The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starvino- in darkness before/ PRELUDE TO PART SECOND ^ Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,- 175 From the snow five thousand summers ' old ; On open wold and hill-top hleak It had gathered all the cold. And whirled it like sleet on the wanderers cheek; It carried a shiver everywhere 180 ]?rom the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof 'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined * his arches and matched his beams ; 1S5 Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 190 Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt,^ Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; » What different reason for introducing second prelude ? "Which prelude is the more beautiful ? Which the more suggestive ? Which season do you imagine the poet preferred ? a Compare this description of winter with that in Whittier's "Snowbound." The student will be interested in reading LowelFs essay, " A Good Word for Winter." 3 Why summers instead of winters? * See the illustrations in the dictionaries. ' Cr^t because it was down underneath, as if in a cellar; forest because the ice froze in form of trees. THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 43 Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; 195 Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 200 And hung them thickly with diamond drops, Which crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one : No mortal builder's most rare device Could match this winter-palace of ice; 205 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day. Each flitting shadow of earth and sky. Lest the hapi)y model should be lost. Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 210 By the elfin builders of the frost. Within the hall are song and laughter,^ The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly. And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With the lightsome green of ivy and holly; 215 Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 220 Hunted to death in its galleries blind; And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear. Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. » study the details of this picture and then deecribe it. What word in the Btanza first shows the change in Sir Lannfal ? 44: THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 225 But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harjj/ And rattles and wrings The icy strings. Singing, in dreary monotone, 230 A Christmas carol of its own. Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 235 And he sat down in the gateway and saw all night - The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, Through the window-slits of the castle old. Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold.^ PAET SECOND I. 240 There was never a leaf on bush or tree, The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; The river was dumb and could not speak. For the frost's swift shuttles its shroud had spun ; ** A single crow on the tree-top bleak ^ 245 From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun; Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold. As if her veins were sapless and old. And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. 1 Is the figure beginning in this line especially good ? especially appropriate ? Would the poem have gained or lost by its omission ? 2 Scan the line. 3 What is the most picturesque word in this stanza ? * In another edition this line is given, " For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun."' Which reading do you prefer, and why ? 6 With what preceding line may we contrast this ? Why a single crow? THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 45 II. 250 Sir Lauiii'al turned from his own hard gate/ For another heir in his earldom sate ; An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 155 ^o more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, But deep in his soul the sign he wore. The badge of the suffering and the poor. 9nfi III. Sir LaunfaFs raiment thin and spare Was idle mail gainst the barbed air, "60 For it was just at the Christmas-time; So he mused,- as he sat, of a sunnier clime, And sought for a shelter from cold and snow In the light and warmth of long ago ; He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 205 O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can count the camels in the sun. As over the red-hot sands they pass To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 270 The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade And with its own self like an infant played. And waved its signal of palms. IV. ?> 3 " For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; The happy camels may reach the spring, 275 But Sir Launfal sees naught save the grewsome thing, 1 With what preceding picture may we contrast the one Bhown in this stanza ? a What different purposes are served by this reverie ? 8 Who is the speaker ? Is alms singular or plural ? 4cQ THE VISION OF SIK LAUNFAL The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone/ That cowered beside him, a thing as lone And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas, In the desolate horror of his disease. V. 280 And Sir Launfal said,—" I behold in thee ^ An image of Him who died on the tree; Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — And to thy life w^re not denied 285 The wounds in the hands and feet and side; Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; - Behold, through him, I give to thee ! '^ ^ VI. Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 290 Remembered in what a haughtier guise He had flung an alms to leprosie. When he caged * his young life up in gilded mail And set forth in search of the Holy Grail, The heart within him was ashes and dust. 295 Pie parted in twain his single crust. He broke the ice on the streandet's brink, And gave the leper to eat and drink; ^Twas a moldy crust of coarse brown bread, 'Twas water out of a wooden bowl, — 300 Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed. And ^twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 1 What different passages in "The Ancient Mariner '" are recalled by this line and by 11. 278, 281 f 2 See Matthew x. 32. 3 See Matthew xxv. 40. 4 Why is caged especially well chosen ? THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 47 VII. As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, A light shone round about the place; The leper no longer crouched at his side, 305 But stood before him glorified, Shining and tall and fair and straight ^ As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, Himself the Gate ^ whereby men can Enter the temple of God in Man. VIII. 310 His words were shed softer ■* than leaves from the pine. And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine. Which mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon ; And the voice that was calmer than silence said. 315 " Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! ^ In many climes, without avail. Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; Behold it is here, — this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now ; 320 This crust is my body broken for thee. This water His blood that died on the tree ; ^ The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another's need, — Not that which we give, but what we share, — 3-5 For the gift without the giver is bare ; 1 What is the effect in this line of the repetition of and ? 2 Acts III, 2. 3 John X, 9. 4 Is this word better than calmer^ the reading of an another edition ? Why ? 6 " Disease, poverty, death, sorrow, all come to us with unbenign countenances; but from one after another the mask falls off, and we behold faces which retain the glory and calm of having looked in the face of God." Letters, I, 78. 8 The student must here recall the belief that the bread and wine of the Holy Sac- rament became the actual body and blood of Christ. 48 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, — Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.'' ^ IX. Sir Launfal awoke, as from a swoimd : — ^ " The Grail in my castle here is found ! 330 Hang my idle armor up on the wall, Let it be the spider's banquet-hall ; He must be fenced with stronger mail Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." X. The castle-gate stands open now, 335 And the wanderer is welcome to the hall As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; No longer scowl the turrets tall, The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 340 She entered with him in disguise. And mastered the fortress by surprise ; There is no spot she loves so well on ground, She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 345 Has hall and bower ^ at his command ; And there's no poor man in the North Countree But is lord of the earldom as much as he.* 1 With this compare Leigh Hunt's little poem " Abou Ben Adhem." 2 To what preceding line does the story return ? Where, in " The Ancient Mariner," do we notice a similar device ? "Mr. Lowell told me that since boyhood he had been subject to visions, which appeared usually in the evening. Commonly he saw a figure in medijeval costume which kept on one side of him. The last vision he had was while staying at an English country house. After dinner, in the drawing-room he saw a figure in the dress of a mediaeval scholar. The form was very distinct. It beckoned to him ; and, determined to see where it would go, he followed it out on the terrace, where of a sudden it disappeared." Note by Dr. S. W. Mitchell, quoted in Letters, II, 371. 3 Hall and bower is one of the old ballad phrases : just what is meant by each word. * What is gained by ending the poem with a ballad note ? THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 49 THE SEAECH Compare carefully with the * ' Vision of Sir Laiinfal " these lines written about a year before. Show how the two poems develop the same central thought. What part of "Sir Launfal" is most closely paralleled by "The Search"? I went to seek for Christ, And [N'ature seemed so fair That first the woods and fields my youth enticed, And I was sure to find him there : 5 The temple I forsook, And to the solitude Allegiance paid ; but Winter came and shook The crown and purple from my wood; His snows, like desert sands, with scornful drift, 10 Besieged the columned aisle and palace-gate; My Thebes, cut deep with many a solemn rift. But epitaphed her own sepulchred state : Then I remembered whom I went to seek. And blessed blunt Winter for his counsel bleak. 15 Back to the world I turned. For Christ, I said, is King; So the cramped alley and the hut I spurned, As far beneath his sojourning : Mid power and wealth I sought, 20 But found no trace of him, And all the costly offerings I had brought With sudden rust and mould grew dim : I found his tomb, indeed, where, by their laws. All must on stated days themselves imprison, 25 Mocking with bread a dead creed's grinning jaws. Witless how long the life had thence arisen ; Due sacrifice to this they set apart. Prizing it more than Christ's own living heart. 60 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL So from iny feet the dust ^^ Of the proud World I shook ; Then came dear Love and shared with me his crust. And half my sorrow's burden took. After the World's soft bed. Its rich and dainty fare, 35 Like down seemed Love's coarse pillow to my head. His cheap food seemed as manna rare; Fresh-trodden prints of bare and bleeding feet. Turned to the heedless city whence I came. Hard by I saw, and springs of worship sweet 40 Gushed from my cleft heart smitten by the same; Love looked me in the face and spake no words. But straight I knew those footprints were the Lord's. I followed where they led. And in a hovel rude, 45 With naught to fence the weather from his head. The King I sought for meekly stood; A naked, hungry child Clung round his gracious knee, And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled 50 To bless the smile that set him free; New miracles I saw his presence do, — No more I knew the hovel bare and poor, The gathered chips into a woodpile grew, The broken morsel swelled to goodly store ; 55 I knelt and wept : my Christ no more I seek. His throne is with the outcast and the weak. STANDARD LITERATURE SERIES TITLES SHOWING QRADINQ AMERICAN HISTORY *Deerslayer (Cooper), No. 8 For 5th and 6th Years. Dutchman's Fireside (Paulding), No. 44 For 6th and 7th Years. *Grandfather's Chair (Hawthorne), No. 46 For 6th Year. *Horse-Shoe Robinson (Kennedy), No. 10 For 6th and 7th Years. Knickerbocker Stories (Irving-), No. 23 For 7th and 8th Y'ears. *Last of the Mohicans (Cooper), No. 29 For 7th Year. *Pilot (Cooper). No. 3 For 6th and 7th Years. Spy (Cooper), No. 1 For 6th and 7th Years. * Water Witch (Cooper). No. 27 For 7th Year. *Westward Ho! (Kingsley), No. 33 For 7th and 8th Years. *Yemassee (Simms), No. 32 For 7th and 8th Y'ears. ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH HISTORY *Harokl (Bulwer-Lytton). No. 12 For 8th Year. *Ivanhoe (Scott), No. 24 For 7th Year. *Kenil worth (Scott), No. 7 For 6th and 7th Years. Rob Roy (Scott), No. 3 For 6th and 7th Years. Tales of a Grandfather (Scott), No. 28 For 6th Year. * Waverley (Scott), No. 50 For 6th and 7th Years. FRENCH, SPANISH AND ROMAN HISTORY Alhambra (Irving), No. 4 For 6th and 7th Years. *Last Days of Pompeii (Bulwer-Lytton), No. 38 For 7th Year, *Ninety-Three (Hugo), No. 18 For 7th Year. *Peasant and Prince (Martineau), No. 41 For 6th and 7th Years. *Tale of Two Cities (Dickens), No. 60 For 6th and 7th Years. FOR PRIMARY GRADES Fairy Tales (For Second School Year), No. 39 For 2d Year. Grimm's Best Stories, No. 55 For 3d and 4th Years. Hans Andersen's Best Stories, No. 52 For 3d Y^ear. Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), No. 25 For 3d and 4th Years. Swiss Family Robinson (Wyss), No. 35 For 4th Year. Wonder Book (Hawthorne) (4 Stories), No. 16 For 4th Yeac STANDARD LITERATURE SERIES FOR INTERMEDIATE AND GRAMMAR GRADES *Black Beauty (Sewall), No. 31 For 5th and 6th Years. Christmas Stories (Dickens), No. 5 For 5th and 6th Years. Gulliver's Travels (Swift), No. 13 For 6th and 7th Years. Little Nell (Dickens), No. 22 For 6th and 7th Years. Paul Dombey (Dickens), No. 14 For 6th and 7th Years. Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan), No. 30 For 5th Year. *Round the World in Eighty Days (Verne), No 34. . For 5th Year. Snow Image (Hawthorne), No. 20 For 5th Year. Twice Told Tales (Hawthorne), No. 15 For 7th and 8th Years. *Two Years Before the Mast (Dana), No. 19 For 6th Year Young Marooners (Goulding), No. 57 . . .For 5th and 6th Years. FOR CRITICAL STUDY OF ENGLISH In Grammar and High Schools Ancient Mariner (Coleridge), and Vision of Sir \ t^ ■,^ rr, . Launfal (Lowell), No. 63 / ^ ^^^ ^®^^- ^Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems [ ^^^^ Text (Longfellow), No. 47 \ *David Copperfield's Childhood (Dickens) No. 36. .Complete. Enoch Arden and Other Poems (Tennyson), No. 6. Full Text. Evangeline (Longfellow), No. 21 Full Text. *Five Great Authors, No. 42 Each Selection Complete. Garethand Lynette, etc. (Tennyson), No. 56 Three Complete Poems. Goldsmith, Gray, Burns and other Romantic Kq p,- p Poets of the Eighteenth Century, No. 48. . . ) ^^ Complete roems. Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), No. 51 Complete. Lay of the Last Minstrel (Scott), No. 40 Full Text. *Lady of the Lake (Scott), No. 9 Full Text. Macbeth (Shakespeare), No. 53 Complete. Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare), No. 49 Complete. Princess (Tennyson), No. 54 , Full Text. Prisoner of Chillon and Other Poems (Byron), No. 11. *Poems of Knightly Adventure, No. 26 Each Selection Complete. *Silas Marner (Eliot), No. 43 Complete. *Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, No. 59 Complete. Sketch Book, Part One, Stories (Irving), No. 17, 8 Complete Selections. Sketch Book, Part Two, Essays (Irving), No. 61, 7 Complete Selections. *Sketch Book, Combined (Irving), No. 62 15 Complete Selections. *Song of Hiawatha (Longfellow), No. 37 Full Text. Stories and Poems, by Poe, No. 58 10 Complete Selections * Vicar of Wakefield ((Goldsmith), No. 45. Complete. Vision of Sir Launfal (Lowell), and Ancient [ t7i,,ii rr>.^^ Mariner (Coleridge), No. 63 P ^^^ ^^^^- APR16 1&06 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: March 2009 PreservationTechnoIogies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111