,1 •'' '.(.■ 1 . ■:.,.■■:■' '•■■■.■'1 •• . (i.;:i'!::ii'^M ■!•;:, riiH'i'!';'':::/ ^u •!;!■, ^, :):('• C. ^V.r?^''. .--^^ V^ s 0^ ■'^r-. V ^ ^0- °'.o'^ .- '^^^. ^^. o>' \^ ,-0' 0<>^ ""' "°o ./\ ^''^/'-"'o^^'.^'". % *"^° >" #% « \ ■^--o-' . A ■ r '.. .-1 ^ - \0 -t ,0 ^ .^'» , ''o A^ e^ * ^ s ^ 'f ^ ^ ': \. # ^MK' % .x^'%. ^•-0^ ^, ^^ .i^''^%.. ,0- . ^ ^ " / > \fM/}ko ■%,^- ; si@ ^ ^. c^^ v\^ •0' N 0^ » ^ * " /^ > ^A nN %<.^'' .<^ '^/> ■0- S ^x j7, y^. c^f^^-^o^^x. 1795. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY PETER VANDYKE, NOW IN THE NATION/i PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON. SELECT POEMS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY ANDREW J. GEORGE, A. M. DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, NEWTON HIGH SCHOOL -i * ' The songs he gave us, what were they 3 '' But preludes to some loftier rhyme That would not leave the sphered chime, The concords of eternal day, And speak itself in words of Time. ' ' Aubrey de Vere. BOSTON, U.S.A. D. C. HEATH & COMPANY PUBLISHERS THF ^ -' - .~~™| c ! NOV. 10 1902 ! CLASS 0^ XXc. K'o. 1 COPY K. Copyright, 1902, B\ ^ D. C. Heath & Co. PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To THE REV. H. D. RAWNSLEY VICAR OF CROSTHWAITE AND HON. CANON OF CARLISLE WHO WITH THE IMAGINATION OF THE POET AND THE FIDELITY OF THE CHRONICLER HAS REVEALED IN NOBLE VERSE AND PROSE THE LIFE OF THE PAST WITH POETS AND DALESMEN AT THE ENGLISH LAKES THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED IN MEMORY OF WALKS AND TALKS IN THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW ptdact In 1892 Mr. Aubrey de Vere graciously allowed me to dedicate Wordsworth's Prefaces on Poetry to him as, ** The friend of Wordsworth who had nobly illus- trated in prose and verse the principles which these Pre- faces Contain." He then wrote j " It is indeed as the friend of Wordsworth and as one who from youth to age has endeavored to make known to others the transcenden- tal value of his poetry that I should wish to be remem- bered if remembered at all." In the same letter, after alluding to my edition of Select Poems of Wordsworth, he said ; "I only wish that what you have done for Wordsworth you would next do for his brother Poet, Coleridge. Wordsworth expressed to me more than once his conviction that if Coleridge had kept to poetry after his twenty sixth year (when he deserted it) in place of taking to Metaphysics he would have been the chief poet of Modern Times." In the years that have elapsed since this letter was written I have used the poems of Coleridge side by side with those of Wordsworth, with the purpose of ascer- taining those best adapted to reveal not only the growth of his mind and art but also the experiences of his eventful life which give variety and charm to his work. vi ipreface The present volume is the result of these observations, and it is believed that it will furnish the general student with sufficient material to enable him to understand and appreciate this great Poet and the time in which he lived. The special student will of course be satisfied with no- thing less than the whole of the poet' s work. As respects a man whom we never saw we are fortu- nate if we have as means of knowing him, — works re- vealing the various moods of his mind and emotions of his heart, portraits painted by great artists in a lucky hour of his youth and age, and friends who had insight to know and were both able and willing to tell us the truth in regard to his character. In the study of Coleridge we have all of these means awaiting us, and there is no excuse for our taking half views of him and his work. Mr. Richard Gamett has said that in the study of Cole- ridge "The pebble of poetry is often the pearl of biogra- phy. His wood, hay, and stubble must consequently continue along with his fine gold ; and by a curious paralogism, the only editions esteemed standard will be those where the abstract standard of excellence is disre- garded." In this edition both pebbles and pearls will be found as its purpose is to reveal those influences in the life of the man which gave the distinctive note to his poetry. "The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together ; our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not ; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues." Inasmuch as the notes give the biographical and crit- l^tttut Vll ical material sufficient to enable one to estimate the place in the history of literature which by common consent Coleridge occupies, I have attempted in the Introduction to reveal the larger influences of English life during the great revival in English poetry. Romantic and Revolu- tionary, of which Coleridge was so important a force. Although most of the material of the notes has been gathered in my study and teaching of the poet, I am indebted for many important details to the valuable works of Mr. J. Dykes Campbell : The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1893, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge A Narrative of the Events of his Life 1894. My thanks are due to The Rev. Canon Rawnsley for permission to associate his name with this volume. The dates prefixed to the poems give the time of writing and of first publication respectively, so far as they can be ascertained. In some instances when it has been impossible to fix the exact date of composition I have conjectured the date from certain events in the poet's life, and I shall be glad if any readers of the vol- ume can furnish corrections or elucidations. A J. George. Brookline, Massachusetts, JunCf 1902. Contentji PAGE Preface v Introduction xv Appreciations xliii 1786 Genevieve i 1788 Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon ... i 1789 To the Muse 2 Destruction of the Bastile .... 3 Life 5 1790 Monody on the Death of Chatterton . 6 On receiving an account that his only sis- ter's death w^as inevitable . . . . 10 1 79 1 The Raven 11 Sonnet on quitting School for College . 1 3 Absence 14 Happiness 15 1792 A Wish, written in Jesus Wood. (Feb- ruary 10, 1792.) 19 To a young lady, vi^ith a Poem on the French Revolution 20 1793 Songs of the Pixies 22 Sonnet to the River Otter . . . . 27 Lines to a Beautiful Spring in a Village . 28 Lines on an Autumnal Evening . . . 30 1794 Lewti, or the Circassian Love-Chaunt . 35 X Contentfii The Faded Flower 38 Domestic Peace. ( From the Fall of Robes- pierre. Act I.) . . .• . . . 39 On a Discovery made too Late . . . 39 Lafayette 40 To a Friend (Charles Lamb), together with an unfinished poem . . . . 41 Monody on the death of Chatterton. 1794-1829. (Latest version) . . 43 1795 To The Nightingale 50 Composed while climbing the left Ascent of Brockley Coomb. (Somersetshire, May 1795.) 51 The ^olian Harp 52 Reflections on having left a Place of Re- tirement 55 1796 On observing a blossom on the First of February 1796 58 To 59 To a Primrose, the First seen in the Sea- son 60 Sonnet to a Friend who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my Infant to me 61 Lines composed in a Concert-room . . 62 Ode on the Departing Year . . . . 63 1797 To the Rev. George Coleridge ... 71 Lines to W. Linley, Esq 75 The Three Graves 76 This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison . . 99 Fire, Famine and Slaughter . . . .103 Contents? xi 797-^ Kubla Khan 106 ^ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner .109 V Christabel 139 1 798 Encinctured with a twine of Leaves (From ' The Wanderings of Cain) . . .166 France: An Ode 167 Frost at Midnight 172 Fears in SoHtude 175 The Nightingale. A Conversation Poem. 185 1799 Westphalian Song 190 The Visit of the Gods 191 Names 192 Water Ballad 193 Lines written in the Album at Elbinge- rode, in the Hartz Forest . . . '194 Something Childish, but very Natural . 196 The Day-Dream 197 N/Love 198 The Ballad of the Dark Ladie . . .202 A Christmas Carol 205 1 800 Thekla's Song. (From the Piccolomini Act II, Scene 6.) 208 The Keepsake 208 A Stranger Minstrel 210 The Snow-Drop 213 1 801 \ Ode to Tranquillity 215 1802 \J Dejection: An Ode 217 The Picture, or the Lover's Resolution . 224 Hymn before Sun-rise in the Vale of Cha- mouni 232 An Ode to the Ram 236 xii Contmt0 Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath . 239 Answer to a Child's Question . . . 240 1803 The Pains of Sleep 241 1804 Phantom 243 1805 A Sunset 243 What is Life ? 244 Constancy to an Ideal Object . . • 244 The Blossoming of the Solitary Date- Tree 246 1806 A Thought suggested by a View of Sad- dleback in Cumberland . . . .249 Ad Vilmum Axiologum. (William Wordsworth.) 250 1807 To a Gentleman. (William Words- worth.) 251 A Day-Dream 256 Recollections of Love 258 1809 A Tombless Epitaph 260 1 8 1 4 Portrait of Sir George Beaumont. (From Remorse. Act II, Scene 2) . . .261 18 1 5 Glycine's Song, (from Zapolya. Act II, Scene 2) 263 Hunting Song, (from Zapolya. Act IV, Scene 2) 263 Time, Real and Imaginary . . . .264 1 817 The Knight's Tomb 265 1 819 Fancy in Nubibus 265 1820 To Nature 266 1823 Youth and Age 267 1824 Love's First Hope 269 1825 Alice du Clos 269 Contents xiii 1826 Duty surviving Self-Love .... 277 1827 Work without Hope 278 1828 * And oft I saw him stray ' .... 279 The Garden of Boccaccio . . . .280 1829 Love, Hope, and Patience in Education . 284 Lines Written in Commonplace book of Miss Barbour 286 1830 Phantom or Fact 286 1833 Love's Apparition and Evanishment . 288 Epitaph 289 Chronological 290 Notes 291 Index to First Lines 407 Slntfotjuction A STUDY of the two great periods in the history of English literature, the Elizabethan, or the period of Italian influence, and the Modern, or that of the Eng- lish Renascence, will reveal the significant truth that the sources of creative power in each lay deep down in the national hfe. When the people have been stirred with emotion at the consciousness of unity in a great cause, patriotism has at once quickened the im- agination, a Renascence of wonder and delight springs up, and a new faith is born with a new art, as in the case of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton on the one hand, and Burns, Coleridge, and Wordsworth on the other. When the springs of these mighty impulses became tainted or choked up as at the Restoration art and faith both languished ; but when after the lapse of nearly a century England arose to the consciousness of her history and her destiny in the great political revival under Pitt, they burst forth anew, and the art and faith of the Eliza- bethan under the Romantic impulse on the one hand and the Revolutionary outburst on the other were no longer satisfied with their insular position, and the era of expansion began. Britain suddenly rose from an era of the commonplace in men and affairs and tow- ered above nations who were satisfied with merely a xvi idntrotiuction continental influence. In this movement Pitt gained a position unique among English Statesmen. In studying the predecessors of Coleridge it is neces- sary to review the beginning of these great impulses as they appear in the early and middle Eighteenth Cen- tury, and also follow them as they take up into them- selves other elements of the life of the time as that life became more complex and expansive. The new move- ment toward nature, and the democratic movement belong to these two great impulses — Romantic and Revolutionary — which met in Wordsworth and Cole- ridge on the Quantock hills. It was in the almost unconscious protest against the tendency of the Augustans to exclude the emotions from their subjects and freedom of movement from their verse that the Romantic movement had its rise. In contrast to the plastic power of the Classic imagination in molding subjects into graceful but colorless form, the Romantic was picturesque, figuradve, scattering itself over its subject in a splendor of color and im- agery. One is content with the world as it is here and now: the other is filled with an inexhaustible dis- content, homesickness, and endless regret. Heine says that the Romantic movement in Germany was *' the reawakening of the Poetry of Middle Age, as it had shown itself in its songs, images, and Architecture, in art and in life. But the poetry had risen from Chris- tianity; it was a passion-flower which had sprung from the blood of Christ." This is equally true of the movement in England. Predecessors of Coleridge struggled to bring back ^Introduction xvii into English life and literature something of the mirth and merrymaking, the enchantment of forest and stream, the spiritual glow and passion of love in hearts simple and pure, in forms of verse, where more is meant than meets the ear. Poetry, painting, music were to be reunited in the service of a simple natural Hfe, breathing still the noble idealism, sense and soul of the middle ages which had appeared in Spenser and Milton. As no one of these revivalists was great enough to combine all of these characteristics they may be conveniently arranged in groups, as follows: (i) Those who, influenced by Spenser and Milton, ex- celled in reproducing the aspects of natural scenery and the moods of man; as Thomson, Collins, and Gray: ( 2 ) Those who were interested in the Hfe and thought revealed in the ballads and the stories of a Romantic past, as James McPherson, Thomas Percy, and Thomas Chatterton. In the closing years of the seventeenth century Ad- dison had voiced the prevalent feeling of the Augustans as follows: " Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetic rage, In ancient tales amused a barbarous age ; But now the mystic tale, that pleas' d of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more." Before the middle of the eighteenth century there were those who became sated with the shrill wit of an understanding age, and sought again the mystic tale of Spenser. Chief among those who led the return from captivity was James Thomson. In his exquisite xviii 3(|ntroDuction Seasons he did splendid service in revealing the simplicity and truth of rural life and feeling. " At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise, Scarce staining ether ; but by fast degrees, In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep. Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom : Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed, Oppressing life ; but lovely, gentle, kind, And full of every hope and every joy. The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze Into a perfect calm ; that not a breath Is heard to quiver through the closing woods, Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused In glassy breath, seem through delusive lapse Forgetful of their course. 'T is silence all, And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye The fallen verdure. Hushed in short suspense, The plumy people streak their wings with oil, To throw the lucid moisture trickling off j And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once, Into the general choir." l He was not satisfied, hov^'ever, until he had added to all this something of the romantic glow and splendor which exists for the inmost eye alone and constitutes the bliss of solitude. This he did in The Castle of Indolence. In luxury of bewitching sights and sounds it is unsurpassed even by Spenser himself — *' Fancy's pleasing son, Who, like a copious river, poured his song O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground." 1 The Seasons. 3IntroDuccton xix Loveliness with which to satiate one's senses, the ecstasy of romantic atmosphere, the triumph of imagi- nation associative, are seen in the following painting worthy of Claude : *' Was nought around but images of rest : Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ; And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest, From poppies breathed, and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime, unnumbered glittering streamlets played. And hurled everywhere their waters sheen ; That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made." l The revival of interest in the earlier mind and art of Milton which manifested itself at this time was revealed in its finest spirit in Collins and Gray. In their work imagination returns to the habit of spiritual and natural contemplation as opposed to the artificial moralizing of the Augustans, and its cry is ** Hence, vain deluding Joys !" as it welcomes the ** pensive Nun devout and pure " to the studious cloisters pale, while sweet music breathes above, about, or under- neath. In Collins' Ode to Evening these effects are revealed with grace, vigor, and happy harmony. Mr. Swin- burne says Corot on canvas might have signed this ode. ** Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short, shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wingj Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, 1 Castle of Indolence. XX 3fIntroliuction As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum : Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain. Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May, not unseemly, with its stillness suit. As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return ! ' ' His Ode on the Death of Thomson strikes the Ele- giac note of Milton's Lycidas ; while that On the Popu- lar Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland may- be said to contain the whole Romantic School in its germ. The ninth stanza is typical of the entire poem. ** Unbounded is thy rage ; with varied style Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle, To that hoar pile which still its ruin shows : In whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found. Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows. And culls them, wondering, from the hallowed ground ! Or thither, where, beneath the showery west. The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid ; Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest, No slaves revere them, and no wars invade : Yet frequent now, at midnight's solemn hour. The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold. And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power. In pageant robes, and wreathed with sheeny gold, And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold." 1 It is in the work of Gray, the fastidious scholar and 1 Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland. iflntrotjuction xxi recluse, that we see the first culmination of the Roman- tic movement. There were three stages in the devel- opment of his taste. The first was that of the Augus- tans, as is seen by such conventional painting and cold morahty the Ode on the Spring and To Adversity. ** Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade, Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think ( At ease reclined in rustic state ) How vain the ardour of the crowd How low, how little are the proud, How indigent the great ! " 1 The second stage is that of the Elegy y which is in the dreamy, pensive mood of Milton, and is permeated with the atmosphere of rural England. " Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds. Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds : Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign." The third stage is that of The Bard, The Descent of Odin, and the Journal in the Lakes, in which there is a glow of enthusiasm in the passion of man and the beauty of nature. 1 Ode on the Spring. xxii ^Introduction *< On a rock whose haughty brow, Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the Poet stood : (Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air) And with a master's hand, and Prophet's fire Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave, Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! " ^ ' In the caverns of the West, By Odin's fierce embrace comprest ; A wond'rous Boy shall Rinda bear, Who ne'er shall comb his raven hair. Nor wash his visage in the stream. Nor see the sun's departing beam ; Till he on Hoder's corse shall smile Flaming on the funeral pile. Now my weary lips I close : Leave me, leave me to repose." ^ ** Came to the foot of Helvellyn along which runs an excellent road, looking down from a little height on Lee's-water (called also Thirlmeer, or Wiborn- water), and soon descending on its margin. The lake from its depth looks black (though really as clear as glass), and from the gloom of the vast crags, that scowl over it: it is narrow and about three miles long, resembling a river in its course ; little shining torrents hurry down the rocks to join it, with not a bush to overshadow them, or cover their march: all is rock and loose stones up to the very brow, which Hes so near your way, 1 The Bard. 2 The Descent of Odin. 3|ntroUuctton xxiii that not above half the height of Helvellyn can be seen." ^ The subtle analogy between human emotions and the phenomena of external nature ; the identification of our own moods with Nature and the spiritual elation resulting, is to be seen at its height in Wordsworth and Coleridge, but as early as 1739 Gray felt the in- fluence. When visiting the Grande Chartreuse, he wrote to West : ** I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation that there was no restraining ; not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into beHef without the help of other argument." The years 1 760-1 770 are memorable ones in the history of English Romanticism, as at this time were given to the world Macpherson' s Ossian, Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and the Row- ley Poems of Chatterton. Centuries ago among the mountains, lakes, and glens of the western Highlands of Scotland there existed a race of heroes known as the Fienne which Mr. Skene affirms preceded the Scots both in Erin and Alban. They came from Loch- Ian (Scandinavia) and settled in Ireland and the north of Scotland ; hence the legends of this race are the common property of both countries. Each has its own body of popular songs and epics of these Fenian heroes, preserved by oral tradition. Professor Shairp says that he has known of those among the Gael of the Scottish Highlands who could sing the Fenian poems for two 1 Journal in the Lakes. ^xiv 3|ntroiJuction or three evenings continuously. The poetry of this period is known as Ossianic because Oisin was the proto bard, the first and greatest of the bards, and was the son of Fionn or Finn the great king. Having sur- vived his race and kindred, alone and blind he stands at the door of his empty hall solacing himself with memories of the past. His chief delight is to listen to the song of Malvina, the betrothed of his son Oscar, who has fallen in battle. At times he himself breaks forth in a passionate wail of anguish, or a joyful hymn of victory, as he remembers the mighty deeds in which he has been an actor. He is a Gaelic Homer gather- ing the harvest of a splendid era of acdon. In 1758 a young Highlander of Badenoch published a poem. The Highlander ^ which revealed an aspirant for literary honor not without promise. When it became known that he had in his possession some of the old poems of the Ossianic period he was urged to translate them. At first he hesitated, but later produced a trans- lation of Fingal and Temora the ancient Epics. At once he was the observed of all observers and became in reputadon what John Stuart Blackie calls the Pisis- tratus or the Aristarchus of a Cekic Homer. His fame was not only nadonal but European. But at last doubts arose as to the existence of the originals, and the great Ossianic Controversy began. With it we have nothing to do now ; the student who is curious about it will find abundant material in Shairp's Aspects of Poetryy Blackie' s Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands^ and The Publications of the Highlands So- ciety. In the earliest raptures of the Scottish Gael as 31ntroJ5uction xxv he prepared for the combat or returned victorious over his enemy ; in the later and more subdued note of love despair of the race as it fades away before the inevi- table, we find a revelation of his varied interest and activity. In the following description of Cuchullin, the leader of the warriors of Ulster, we have the rapid- ity, the directness, the simplicity, and the nobility of Homer. I give Dr. Clerk's translation from Mac- pherson's prose : * ' In the chariot is seen the chief, True, brave son of the keen-cutting brand, Cuchullin, of blue dappled shields, Son of Semo, renowned in song. His cheek like the polished yew ; Clear, far-ranging his eye, Under arched, dark, and slender brow ; His yellow hair down-streaming from his head, Falls round the glorious face of man. As he draws his spear from his back." A single quotation from the prose of Macpherson' s Fingal will reveal his peculiar style, strong in exclama- tory qualities, abruptness, picturesqueness, and solem- nity, resembling that of the prophetic books of the Eng- lish Bible: **As the dark shades of autumn fly over the grass ; so glowing, dark, successive came the chiefs of Lochlin's echoing woods. Tall as the stag of Mor- ven moved stately before them the King. His shining shield is on his side, like a flame on the heath at night; when the world is silent and dark, and the traveler sees some ghost sporting in the beams. Dimly gleam the hills around, and show indistinctly their oaks. A xxvi 3|ntroUuction blast of the troubled ocean removed the settled mist. The sons of Erin appear, Uke a ridge of rock on the coast ; when mariners on shores unknown are trem- bling at the veering winds." ^ ** The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and dis- tinguished gave his poetry style ; his indomitable per- sonality gave it pride and passion ; his sensibihty and nervous exaltation gave it a better gift still, — the gift of rendering with wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. Magic is just the word for it, — the magic of nature, her weird power and her fairy charm." ^ This magic was just what sick poetry and over-civilization needed to revive their drooping spirits. " Men had been talking under their breath, and in a mincing dialect, so long," says Leslie Stephen, **that they were easily gratified by vigorous and natural sentiment." The charm of these tales of a past age was immediate. They touched Gray so keenly that he was impatient for more ; Chatterton imitated their style and subjects ; Walpole was charmed no less than Gray ; while Byron, Coleridge, and Scott felt their power. They were translated into six languages, and began a tour of Europe. The Celtic revival in Ireland is largely due to them, and the work of one of her greatest poets, Aubrey 1 For revelations of Gaelic Life and Poetry the following works, recommended to me by Prof. John Blackie, will be found valuable: Mackenzie's Beauties of Gaelic Poetry ,• Donald Gregory, History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland; Norman MacLeod, Reminiscences of a Highland Parish ,• John Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands; The Book of the Dean of Lismore } Mrs, Ogilvie, Highland Minstrelsy. 2 Matthew Arnold, Celtic Literature. 31ntrotJuction xxvii de Vere, especially his Legends of Ireland'' s Heroic Age, which deals with so many of the mighty deeds of Cuchullain, should interest the student of litera- ture. -"^ While the learned were measuring weapons in the Ossianic Controversy a young prodigy, Thomas Chat- terton, at Bristol was practicing a veritable hoax on a simple pewterer in his neighborhood. Having possessed himself of such necessary materials as ochre, pumice, bags of charcoal- dust, and parchments, he hid in the memorial room of the old church of Saint Mary de RedcHfFe, and began copying old devices of heraldry and antique drawings. Having deceived the old guilds- man, Bergum, with the newly discovered manuscript of his house, **The De Bergham Pedigree with crest and arms, two cat-a-mountains ermine," the creative impulse then took possession of him, and he added stories which purported to have been written by an old monk Rowley in the Middle Ages, and ventured to trap larger game. At the opening of the new bridge over the Avon at Bristol, he sent to the Journal a description of the Mayor passing over the old bridge in the reign of Henry II. In 1768 he prepared a prose sketch. The Ryse of Peyncteynee in Englande^ wroten by T. Rowleie I46g for Master Cany?ige. It is the story of Afflem, an Anglo Saxon worker in stained glass, who lived in the reign of Edmond, and was taken captive by the Danes. ** Inkarde, a soldyer of the Danes, was to slea hym ; onne the Nete before the Feeste of Deathe hee founde Afflem to bee hys Broder. AiFreghte chaynede 1 Cf. Aubrey de Vere^ Atlantic Monthly, June, 1902. xxviii 3|ntroUuction uppe hys soule. Gastnesse dwelled yn his Braste. Oscarre, the greate Dane gave hest hee shulde bee forslagene with the commeynge Sunne ; no tears colde availe ; the morne ; cladde yn roabes of ghastness was come whan the Danique Kynge behested Oscarre to arraye hys Knyghtes eftsoones for Warre." This de- ceived Horace Walpole, to whom it was sent. After writing many poems in the pseudo-antique style, as the result of a boyish freak he went to London as a literary adventurer. He lived on a crust because he was too proud to ask help, and died of starvation in his eight- eenth year. After his death the Rowley poems were discovered, and they created almost as much interest as those of Macpherson. When they were published in 1777, they aroused controversy as to their authenticity ; and finally it was acknowledged by all that they were exceedingly clever forgeries, which revealed a genius of marvelous and fascinating character. Chatterton's works carefully edited by the accomplished student of Chaucer, Prof Skeat, may now be read with all their peculiar freshness and antique picturesqueness. Song to AelUy Lord of Castle Bristol, is interesting. " O thou ! where'er — thy bones at rest, — Thv sprite to haunt delighteth best, — Whether upon the blood-embrued plain, Or where thou kenst from far The dismal cry of war ; Or seest some mountain made of corse of slain Or in black armour stalk around Embattled Bristowe, once thy ground, And glow ardurous on the Castle Stair ; Or fiery round the Minster glare, Let Bristowe still be made thy care." 3fInti:oUuction xxix The Ballad of Charity, written when he was half starving, is perhaps the most complete and satisfactory of his works, of sustained power, tenderness, and beauty. " In Virgine the sultry Sun 'gan sheene And hot upon the meads did cast his ray : The apple ruddied from its paly green, And the soft pear did bend the leafy spray ; The pied chelandry 1 sang the livelong day : 'Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year, And eke the ground was dight in its most deft aumere.l The sun was gleaming in the mid of day, Dead still the air and eke the welkin blue, When from the sea arist in drear array A heap of clouds of sable sullen hue, The which full fast unto the woodland drew, Hiding at once the Sunne's festive face ; And the black tempest swelled and gathered up apace. Beneath an holm, fast by a pathway side Which did unto Saint Godwin's convent lead, A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide, Poor in his view, ungentle in his weed. Long breast-full of the miseries of need. Where from the hailstorm could the beggar fly ? He had no housen there, nor any convent nigh." The minstrel song from Aella, while suggested by Ophelia's song in Hamlet, has charming touches pecu- liarly his own : — '* Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note, guick in dance as thought can be, 1 Goldfinch. 2 Mantle. XXX 3Iwti^oDuction Deft his tabor, cudgel stout, O he lies by the willow-tree ! My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow-tree. Hark ! the raven flaps his wing In the briar's dell below 5 Hark ! the death-owl loud doth sing To the nightmares as they go. My love is dead. Gone to his death-bed, AU under the willow- tree." The dramatic character of Chatterton's life, as well as the history and nature of his work, could not fail to in- fluence the Romantic movement. His successors from Blake to Rossetti have acknowledged their inheritance from this fragile, sensitive soul, and have sung his praises. Mr. Edmund Gosse says : ** It is not to be de- nied that, in relation of his years and equipments, to the vigour and bulk of his work produced, Chatterton is, let us say boldly, the most extraordinary phenomenon of infancy in the literature of the world. ' ' It is interesting to note that while the Romantic movement in England grew to its majestic Gothic pro- portions at the close of the century without any assist- ance from abroad, England through Shakespeare was making her contribution to a similar movement in Ger- many, as that country was throwing off the influence of French Classicism. This was returned with inter- est through Goethe in 1796, to stimulate Sir Walter Scott in his earhest work, the translation of Gotx von BerlichingeTiy which, with Percy's Reliquesy shares the jflntroUuction xxxi honor of creating his enthusiasm for the history of the legends and ballads of his own land. In considering the second of great influences, the Revolutionary, which rises between the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789, we recognize how truly the eight- eenth century was an age of prose and reason, for we see that no one of the poets already mentioned has any share in it. In 1788 Pitt, speaking in the House of Commons, said : ** Kings and Princes derive their power from the people ; and to the people alone, through the organ of their representatives, does it ap- pertain to decide in cases for which the Constitution has made no specific or positive provision." 1 And he alluded to the right of princes, other than as derived from the people, as already sunk into contempt and almost oblivion. He was the first Englishman of his time, for he made England the first country in the world. The Great Commoner might look down with scorn on coronets and garters. '* A great and celebrated name ; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may truly be called, * clarum et venerabile nomen Gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi.' " 2 The one man of the period whose political prose has risen^ to the height of great literature is Edmund Burke. 1 Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third. 2 Burke, Speech on American Taxation. xxxii 31ntroDuction His matchless speeches on the American War and his Reflections on the French Revolution place him among the most noble-hearted statesmen and greatest poHtical philosophers the world has ever known. His defense of the Americans and his condemnation of the French reveals that he saw clearly, as Mr. Morley says, why the draught which Rousseau and others brewed was harmless and wholesome for the Americans and mad- dening poison for the French. While revoludonary in the nature of his political phi- losophy, Burke was anti-revolutionary as regards prac- tical results, for abstract right is not always expedient. How imperial he was as an interpreter of English Liberty by his grasp of great prmciples, may be seen from the following. In his Speech on Co?iciliation with America he said : ** Magnanimity in politics is not sel- dom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situa- tion, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to anticipate all our public proceedings on America with the old warn- ing of the church, Sursum corda ! We ought to ele- vate our minds to the greatness of the trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire ; and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all 3|ntroDuction xxxiii that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all it can be." Alluding to the apparent inconsistency in Burke's attitude toward the French and American Revolution respectively Mr. Benjamin Kidd says : ** We see Burke accordingly propounding the doctrine, already becoming strange to the theorists of the French Revo- lution, that even the whole people have no right to make a law prejudicial to the whole community. We are beginning to understand now something of the pro- found social instinct from which such illumination pro- ceeds, as well as to perceive the character of the prin- ciple Burke had in sight which reconciles the apparent contradiction." ^ In his Reflections on the Revolution in France he sought to lay bare the foundations on which political institutions must rest. ** On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy (of the Revolutionists), which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy under- standings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be sup- plied only by their own terrors and by the concern which each individual may find in them from any pri- vate speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests. In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but gallows. No- thing is left which engages the affections in the part of the Commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression in persons ; so as to create in us love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. But 1 Principles of Western Ci'vilvzation^ chap. I. xxxiv 3ntroDuction that sort of reason which banishes the affection is inca- pable of filling the place." The new feeling for man which had been the cause of these great revolutions now revealed itself in the political, moral, and religious life of the time. Adam Smith showed that a nation's wealth was in the nature and conditions of its toilers. ** In England the history of the great intellectual movement, in which the principles of modern democracy have been developed into some- thing Hke the form in which they have come down to the current generation, may be said to have begun with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.^ The Wesleys awakened interest in the poor, and gave the first impulse to popular education. Reforms in the prison system were brought about by the humani- tarian passion of Howard, and in every way Man, aside from considerations of wealth and position, was the centre of interest. In the new atmosphere of childlike wonder, practical wisdom, and philosophical thought, poetry of Man and Nature was developed. The poet who united the elements of the Romantic and Rev- olutionary impulses in the earlier stages is Wilham Blake. His poetry has the elements of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton, and anticipated Burns and Words- worth, in the love of nature, animal life, and children. In Songs of Innocencey simple, tender, joyous, laughing vale and echoing hill ; pleasant cot, and innocent bower ; oaken seat and neighbors all ; merry bird and sportive lamb ; are treated with a passion in- nocent and sublime. In Songs of Experience a child's 1 Benjamin Kidd, Principles of Western Ci-vilizatioTt, chap, i . ^IntroUuction xxxv heart beats in the man's, hating social injustice and all that renders the life of man slavish, mean, and vulgar. These are the prelusive notes to the symphony which is to be. To the Muse is a passionate appeal for a return of the old poetic povi^er : — '* How have you left the ancient love That bards of old enjoyed in you ! The languid strings do scarcely move, The sounds are forced, the notes are few." Blake's relation to the Revolutionary extremists is shown by such work as The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and The French RevolutioUy only the first book of which was published. It was the spiritual idea rather than the historical facts of the Revolution which ap- pealed to him. In the httle room over Johnson's book shop in Saint Paul's Churchyard he met with Godwin, Priestly, Fuseli, and Paine, and was the only one of the party who dared to wear the bonnet rouge on the street ; but when the September Massacres occurred he threw it aside in disgust, and returned to the calmer atmosphere of love and song : — " Memory hither come, And tune your merry notes : And while upon the wind Your music floats, I '11 pore upon the stream — Where sighing lovers dream, And fish for fancies as they pass Within the watery glass. " The three poets who were related to the Revolu- tionary movement in much the same way as were xxxvi 31ntroDuction Thomson, Collins, and Gray to the Romantic, were Crabbe, Cowper, and Burns. The note of the new Democracy had been sounded by Goldsmith when he brooded over the charm of those lovely bowers of in- nocence and ease, which luxuries' contagion had sick- lied o'er. In The Village of Crabbe we have a picture, not of the Arcadian simplicity of Sweet Au- burn, but the sullen woe and bitter struggle in homes neither happy nor lovely, full of pain and misery. To sing of the idyllic pastoral life of Corydon and Phillis in the England of his time, he insisted, was only a delusion. Without flinching he disclosed the unplea- sant truth that among the abject poor, — " Where children dwell, who know no parents' care, Parents who know no children's love," — there can be only despair in living. And thus he united his forces with those of Wesley, Howard, and Wilber- force in teaching, — what we have yet to learn, — ** How best to help the slender store, How mend the dwellings of the poor ; How gain in life, as life advances. Valour and Charity more and more." One may call Crabbe narrow if one pleases, but the power of moving readers by actual grief and suffering no one will deny him. The following is his creed, — * ' Cast by fortune on a frowning coast, Which neither groves nor happy valleys boast ; Where other cares than those the Muse relates. And other shepherds dwell with other mates j By such examples taught, I paint the cot, As truth will paint it and as bards will not : 31ntroDuction xxxvii Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn complain, To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain ; O'er-come by labor, and bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme ? Can poets soothe you when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed ? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower ? Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour ? ^ In 1785 Cower published The Task, and in 1786 Burns gave to the world the first edition of his poems. Each poet wrought his task unconscious of the exist- ence of the other. The one in the dewy meadows of Buckinghamshire, and the other on the Ayrshire hills, saw Nature as she had not been seen since the time of Chaucer — in all her freshness and beauty ; and by so revealing it made poetry simple and natural, strong and healthful, with the health and the strength of youth. Cowper — *' Loved the rural walk through lanes Of grassy swarth, close cropped by nibbling sheep, And skirted thick with intertexture firm Of thorny boughs . . . O'er hills, through valleys, and by river's brink." He loved to tend the hare which he had saved from the hunter, — " One sheltered hare Has never heard the sanguinary yell Of cruel man exulting in her woes. Yes — thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand That feeds thee ; thou mayst frolic on the floor At evening, and at night retire secure To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarmed.' ' 1 The Village. xxxviii JlntroDuction Burns loved to wander — ** Whyles owre the linn the burnie plays, As thro' the glen it wimpl't ; Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays, Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; Whyles glitter' d to the nightly rays, Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; Whyles cook'd underneath the braes. Below the spreading hazel, Unseen that night." In the winter night when the " doors and whinnock " rattle, he thought * ' On the ourie cattle Or silly sheep, wha bide the brattle O' winter war. And thro the drift, deep-laiving, sprattle Beneath the scaur. ' ' Again, by revealing that the hearts as tender and true beat under the hodden gray as under royal robes, these singers made poetry democratic. Cowper wrote : — "He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. He looks abroad into the varied field Of Nature, and though poor, perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own." Burns voiced the same sentiment : — " Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, * An honest man is the noblest work of God,' And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind." And lastly, by teaching that God's love was revealed in nature, in animal life, and in man, that, — JlntroDuction xxxix ** God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign we and they are his children, one family here," they made poetry reflect, as never before, the religion of Christ. The one indignantly protests : — " My ear is pain'd, My soul is sick with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with which the earth is filled ; Man devotes his brother and destroys. And what man seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush And hang his head to think himself a man ? " The other, with his sweet sympathy for his erring brother, says : — " Who made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us. He knows each cord its various tone. Each spring its various bias ; Then at the balance let 's be mute. We never can adjust it : What 's done we partly may compute, But know not what 's resisted.'''' I have said that these poets never met, and that each lived and loved and sang almost unconscious of the existence of the other. It seems that Cowper read Burns in July, 1797, for he then wrote: *' I think them on the whole a very extraordinary production. He is, I believe, the only poet these kingdoms have produced in the lower rank of life since Shakespeare who need not be indebted for any part of his praise to a charitable consideration of his origin, and the disadvan- xi 31ntroUuctton tages under which he has labored." How soon it was after the publication of Cowper's Task that it found Burns we cannot tell ; but in 1 795 he wrote his friend, Mrs. Dunlop, as follows : — ** How do you Hke Cowper ? Is not the Task a glorious poem ? The religion of the Task, bating a few scraps of Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and nature ; the religion that exalts, that ennobles man." The passion of these poets for Nature and Man resulted in their becoming the chief precursors of the Revolutionary movement. Cowper was an Evangelical and Whig. He was gentle and unaggressive, yet he was by no means effeminate. He was averse to all sudden transitions in church and state. He writes : ** God grant that we may have no revolution here, but unless we have reform we certainly shall. ' ' But he felt that ** Whenever the people chose to be masters they always are so, and none can hinder them." He hailed the hour when the Bastile should fall, with all the ardent desire of young Coleridge and Wordsworth. " Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts. Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair, That monarchs have supplied from age to age, With music such as suits their sovereign ears, The sighs and groans of miserable men ! There 's not an English heart that would not leap To hear that ye are fallen at last ; to know That even our enemies so oft employed In forging chains for us, themselves were free." His conception of the power and duty of the poet 31ntroliuction xli — a power prophetic and duty heroic — is that of all the great movement poets in our literature : — ' ' A terrible sagacity informs The poet's heart, he looks to distant storms, He hears the thunder ere the tempest lower, And, armed with strength surpassing human powers, Seizes events as yet unknown to man, And darts his soul into the dawning plan." This may well stand as the inscription over the portals of our nineteenth century poetry, for by it we have come to judge poetic greatness in Cowper's successors. Senator Hoar says of one of these, Wordsworth, ** No man of his time, statesman, philosopher, or poet, saw with such unerring insight into the great moral forces vv^hich determine currents of history." Burns was even more national in his passion than Cowper, yet when act'ng as exciseman his sympathies with struggling .^rance led him to send to her a car- ronade captured from a smuggler, with a letter of sym- pathy. For this he was reprimanded, and as he retained his office, he so feared that his friends might call him servile, that he wrote a letter to posterity in his own defense, saying, ** In the poet I have avowed manly and independent sentiments which I hope have been found in the man." Again at a dinner, when Pitt's health was proposed. Burns rose and begged leave to drink to a greater and better man, — General Wash- ington. In his patriotic chant, ** Does haughty Gaul invasion threat y^^ while declaring his loyalty to the party of order, he cannot forget that popular rights have claim to consideration, — xiii 31ntrot)uction " Who will not sing, ' God save the King,' Shall hang as high 's the steeple 5 But while we sing, ' God save the King,' We '11 ne'er forget the people." Having considered some of the phases of the Roman- tic and Revolutionary movements respectively until the time of Wordsworth and Coleridge, it will be the pur- pose of this volume to reveal the union of the two in the chartreuse of the Quantock hills, dedicated to the genius of Solitude. But we may anticipate the work of these two teachers in a general way by applying to them what Matthew Arnold says of Joubert, — they ** lived in the Philistines' day, in a place and time when almost every idea current in literature had the mark of Dagon upon it, and not the mark of the chil- dren of light. Nay, the children of light were as yet hardly so much as heard of : the Canaanite was then in the land. Still, there were even then a few, who, nourished on some secret tradition, or illumined, per- haps, by divine inspiration, kept aloof from the reign- ing superstitions, never bowed the knee to the gods of Canaan." ^ 1 Essays in Criticism^ First Series. apprectationjs " Nothing can surpass the melodious richness of words which he heaps around his images, — images not glaring in themselves, but which are always affecting to the very verge of tears, because they have all been formed and nourished m the recesses of one of the most deeply musing spirits that ever breathed forth its inspira- tions in the majestic language of England." Prof. John Wilson, *< Endowed with so glorious a gift of song, and only not fully master of his poetic means, because of the very versatility of his artistic power and the very variety and catholicity of his youthful sympathies, it is unhappily but too certain that the world has lost much by that perversity of conspiring accidents which so unhappily silenced Coleridge's muse. And the loss is the more trying to pos- terity because he seems, to a not, I think, too curiously considering criticism, to have once actually struck that very chord which would have sounded most movingly beneath his touch." H. D. Traill. " Coleridge's poetical performance is like some exotic plant, just managing to blossom a little in the somewhat un-English air of his southwestern birthplace, but never quite well there. What shapes itself for criticism as the main phenomenon of Coleridge's poetic life is not, as with most true poets, the gradual development of a poetic gift, determined, enriched, retarded, by the actual circum- stances of the poet's life, but the sudden blossoming, through one short season, of such a gift already perfect in its kind, which thereafter deteriorates as suddenly, with something like premature old age." Waltkr Pater. xliv aippreciattons? *' One is a little apt to forget that Coleridge's metaphysical bent was no less innate than his poetical ; even at Christ's Hospital his spiritual potation was a half-and-half, in which the waters of a more or less authentic Castaly, and the philosophic draughts from such fountains as Jamblichus and Plotinus, were equally mingled. Whether or not a born * maker,' he was certainly a born theorist; and we believe not only that under all his most important artistic achievements there was a basis in intellectual theory, but that the theory, so far from being an alien and disturbing presence, did duty as the unifying principle which co-ordinated the whole." William Watson. *' What Coleridge did well was unique, but it was very little j and the volume we have from him influences us with all the sadness that a garden does in which two or three beautiful flowers rise and flower perfectly, but in which the rest are choked with weeds and run to seed. And to those who can compare the things of art with the things of soul and heart, the analogy has its own profound moral lesson. . . , Surely few men have ever loved mankind more than this large-hearted creature of the sunny mist. And inasmuch as he loved much, his faults are forgiven." Stopford a. Brooke. * ' The brilliant Coleridge of Nether Stowey, the buoyant young poet-philosopher who had not been to Germany, was a curious compound of un perfectly fused elements . . . but he was, above all, essentially and intrinsically a poet. The first genuine manifes- tations of his genius are the poems which he wrote before he was twenty-six. The germ of all Coleridge's utterances may be found — by a little ingenuity — in the Ancient Mariner.'''' Leslie Stephen. ' ' A brief dawn of unsurpassed promise and achievement : * a trouble ' as of ' clouds and weeping rain ' ; then a long summer evening's work done by ' the setting sun's pathetic light' — such was Coleridge's day, the afterglow of which is stUl in the sky. I am sure that the temple, with all the rubble which blended with its marble, must have been a grander whole than any we are able to re- appreciatiottflf xlv construct for ourselves from the stones that lie about the field. The living Coleridge was ever his own apology — men and women who neither shared nor ignored his shortcomings, not only loved him, but honored and followed him. . . . Hatred as well as love may be blind, but friendship has eyes, and their testimony may wisely be used in correcting our own impressions." J. Dykes Campbell. '* Coleridge certainly was a main influence in showing the Eng- lish mind how it could emancipate itself from the vulgarizing tyranny of common sense, and teaches it to recognize in the imagination an important factor not only in the happiness but in the destiny of man. ... I cannot think it a personal peculiarity, but a matter of universal experience, that more bits of Coleridge have introduced themselves in my memory than of any other poet who delighted my youth, unless I should except the sonnets of Shakespeare. This argues perfectness of expression." J. R. Lowell. " In one of his pieces of blank verse Coleridge has described a vision of the graceful, white-armed Isabel, reflected in the placid waters of a lonely stream ; but let a blossom of willow-herb or a foxglove bell be tossed upon the pool, and the charm is broken : — * All that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other. ' The description might stand for that Coleridge's own poetry per- sonified, with its visionary beauty and its harmony of exquisite colors ; and what shall be said of the critic who flings his heavy stone of formula and scatters the loveliness ? " Edward Dowden. " Of Coleridge's best verses I venture to affirm that the world has nothing like them and can never have j that they are of the highest kind and their own. An age that should neglect or for- get Coleridge might neglect or forget any poet that ever lived. That may be said of him which can hardly be said of any but the xivi appreciationsf greatest among men, — that come what may to the world in course of time, it will never see his place filled." Algernon Charles Swinburne. " Coleridge was the spirit-quickener not only of this man or that, but of his whole age. The greatest men of his time were the most susceptible of his influence, and the first to feel it. His was the most germinative mind England has this century given birth to. Like a vast seed-field it lay, till the winds of inspiration wafted over it, blowing the seeds of his new thought over all the world." J. C. Shairp. ** Coleridge's place in poetical literature was the incarnate transi- tion, so to speak, from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, summing up in his own person in the restricted field of English poetry that description of spiritual evolution which Goethe has exhibited on a large scale in his symbolical representation of Faust's, and Helena's passage from classical into the mediaeval age." Richard Garnett. " His soul fared forth (as from the deep home- grove The father-songster plies the hour-long quest), To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest ; But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above Their callow fledgling progeny still hove With tented roof of wings and fostering breast Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human Love." Dante Gabriel Rossetti. <* O, for those Orphic songs unheard. That lived but in the Singer's thought ! Who sinned ? Whose hand frustration wrought ? Unworthy was the world or Bard To clasp those splendours, all but caught ? ' ' Aubrey de Vere. Select l^oemjS of ColeriDge GENEVIEVE 1 786-1 794 Maid of my Love, sweet Genevieve ! In Beauty's light you glide along : Your eye is like the star of eve, And sweet your voice as seraph's song. Yet not your heavenly beauty gives This heart with passion soft to glow : Within your soul a voice there lives ! It bids you hear the tale of woe. When sinking low the sufferer wan Beholds no hand outstretcht to save. Fair, as the bosom of the swan That rises graceful o'er the wave, I've seen your breast with pity heave. And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve ! SONNET TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON 1788-1796 Mild Splendour of the various-vested Night ! Mother of wildly-working visions ! hail ! I watch thy gliding, while with watery light 2 Select ipoem^ of Coleritige Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil ; And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud Behind the gathered blackness lost on high ; And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud Thy placid lightning o'er the awakened sky. Ah such is Hope ! as changeful and as fair ! Now dimly peering on the wistful sight ; Now hid behind the dragon-winged Despair ; But soon emerging in her radiant might She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight. TO THE MUSE 1789-1834 Tho' no bold flights to thee belong ; And tho' thy lays with conscious fear, Shrink from Judgement's eye severe. Yet much I thank thee. Spirit of my song ! For, lovely Muse ! thy sweet employ Exalts my soul, refines my breast. Gives each pure pleasure keener zest. And softens sorrow into pensive Joy. From thee I learn'd the wish to bless. From thee to commune with my heart ; From thee, dear Muse ! the gayer part. To laugh with pity at the crowds that press Where Fashion flaunts her robes by Folly spun. Whose hues gay-varying wanton in the sun. SDesftmction of t^t Wn&tilt 3 DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE 1789 ?-i834 I Heard'st thou yon universal cry, And dost thou linger still on Gallia's shore ? Go, Tyranny ! beneath some barbarous sky Thy terrors lost and ruin'd power deplore ! What tho' through many a groaning age 5 Was felt thy keen suspicious rage. Yet Freedom roused by fierce Disdain Has wildly broke thy triple chain. And like the storm which earth's deep entrails hide. At length has burst its way and spread the ruins wide. ^^ IV In sighs their sickly breath was spent ; each gleam Of Hope had ceased the long long day to cheer ; Or if delusive, in some flitting dream. It gave them to their friends and children dear — Awaked by lordly Insult's sound 15 To all the doubled horrors round, 4 Select jpoem0 of Coleriuge Oft shrunk they from Oppression's band While anguish raised the desperate hand p'or silent death ; or lost the mind's controll, Thro' every burning vein would tides of Frenzy roll. But cease, ye pitying bosoms, cease to bleed ! Such scenes no more demand the tear humane ; I see, I see ! glad Liberty succeed With every patriot virtue in her train ! And mark yon peasant's raptured eyes ; 25 Secure he views his harvests rise ; No fetter vile the mind shall know. And Eloquence shall fearless glow. Yes ! Liberty the soul of Life shall reign. Shall throb in every pulse, shall flow thro' every vein ! 30 VI Shall France alone a Despot spurn ? Shall she alone, O Freedom, boast thy care ? Lo, round thy standard Belgia's heroes burn, Tho' Power's blood-stain'd streamers fire the air. And wider yet thy influence spread, 35 Nor e'er recline thy weary head, Till every land from pole to pole Shall boast one independent soul ! life 5 And still, as erst, let favourM Britain be First ever of the first and freest of the free ! 40 LIFE 1789-1834 As late I journey'd o'er the extensive plain Where native Otter sports his scanty stream. Musing in torpid woe a sister's pain, The glorious prospect woke me from the dream. At every step it widen'd to my sight, 5 Wood, Meadow, verdant Hill, and dreary Steep. Following in quick succession of delight. Till all — at once — did my eye ravish'd sweep ! May this (I cried) my course through Life portray ! New scenes of wisdom may each step display, 10 And knowledge open as my days advance ! Till what time Death shall pour the undarken'd ray. My eye shall dart thro' infinite expanse. And thought suspended lie in rapture's blissful trance. 6 g)elect l|Donn0 of Coletitige MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON 1790-1794 [First Version in Christ's Hospital Book — 1790] Cold penury repress' d his noble rage, And froze the genial current of his soul. Now prompts the Muse poetic lays, And high my bosom beats with love of Praise ! But, Chatterton ! methinks I hear thy name. For cold my Fancy grows, and dead each Hope of Fame. When Want and cold Neglect had chill'd thy soul, 5 Athirst for Death I see thee drench the bowl ! Thy corpse of many a livid hue On the bare ground I view. Whilst various passions all my mind engage ; Now is my breast distended with a sigh, 10 And now a flash of Rage Darts through the tear, that glistens in my eye. Is this the land of liberal Hearts ! Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain Pour'd forth her soul-enchanting strain ? *5 ^onoD^ on t^t mm\) of Cl^atterton 7 Ah me ! yet Butler 'gainst the bigot foe Well-skill'd to aim keen Humour's dart, Yet Butler felt Want's poignant sting ; And Otway, Master of the Tragic art. Whom Pity's self had taught to sing, 20 Sank beneath a load of Woe ; This ever can the generous Briton hear. And starts not in his eye th' indignant Tear ? Elate of Heart and confident of Fame, From vales where Avon sports, the Minstrel came, 25 Gay as the Poet hastes along He meditates the future song. How ^lla battled with his country's foes, And whilst Fancy in the air Paints him many a vision fair 30 His eyes dance rapture and his bosom glows. With generous joy he views th' ideal gold : He listens to many a Widow's prayers, And many an Orphan's thanks he hears ; He soothes to peace the care-worn breast, 35 He bids the Debtor's eyes know rest. And Liberty and Bliss behold : And now he punishes the heart of steel. And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel. Fated to heave sad Disappointment's sigh, 40 To feel the Hope now rais'd, and now deprest. 8 Select iponns? of ColrriDge To feel the burnings of an injur'd breast, From all thy Fate's deep sorrow keen In vain, O Youth, I turn th' affrighted eye ; For powerful Fancy evernigh 45 The hateful picture forces on my sight. There, Death of every dear delight, Frowns Poverty of Giant mien ! In vain I seek the charms of youthful grace. Thy sunken eye, thy haggard cheeks it shews, 50 The quick emotions struggling in the Face Faint index of thy mental Throes, When each strong Passion spurn'd controll. And not a Friend was nigh to calm thy stormy soul. Such was the sad and gloomy hour 55 When anguish'd care of sullen brow Prepared the Poison's death-cold power. Already to thy lips was rais'd the bowl. When filial Pity stood thee by. Thy fixed eyes she bade thee roll 60 On scenes that well might melt thy soul — Thy native cot she held to view, Thy native cot, where Peace ere long Had listen'd to thy evening song ; Thy sister's shrieks she bade thee hear, 65 And mark thy mother's thrilling tear. She made thee feel her deep-drawn sigh. And all her silent agony of Woe. And from thy Fate shall such distress ensue ? ^onoD^ on ttie SDeatlj of Ctjatterton 9 Ah ! dash the poison'd chalice from thy hand ! 70 And thou had'st dash'd it at her soft command; But that Despair and Indignation rose, And told again the story of thy Woes, Told the keen insult of th' unfeeling Heart, The dread dependence on the low-born mind, 75 Told every Woe, for which thy breast might smart. Neglect and grinning scorn and Want com- bined— Recoiling back, thou sent'st the friend of Pain To roll a tide of Death thro' every freezing vein. O Spirit blest ! 80 Whether th' eternal Throne around. Amidst the blaze of Cherubim, Thou pourest forth the grateful hymn, Or, soaring through the blest Domain, Enraptur'st Angels with thy strain, — 85 Grant me, like thee, the lyre to sound, Like thee, with fire divine to glow — But ah ! when rage the Waves of Woe, Grant me with firmer breast t'oppose their hate. And soar beyond the storms with upright eye elate ! 9° 10 ^tltct l^otm^ of Coleriuge ON RECEIVING AN ACCOUNT THAT HIS ONLY SISTER'S DEATH WAS INEVITABLE 1790-1834 The tear which mourn'd a brother's fate scarce dry — Pain after pain, and woe succeeding woe — Is my heart destined for another blow ? O my sweet sister ! and must thou too die ? Ah ! how has Disappointment pour'd the tear O'er infant Hope destroy'd by early frost ! How are ye gone, whom most my soul held dear ! Scarce had I loved you ere I mourn'd you lost ; Say, is this hollow eye, this heartless pain. Fated to rove thro' Life's wide cheerless plain — Nor father, brother, sister meet its ken — My woes, my joys unshared ! Ah ! long ere then On me thy icy dart, stern Death, be proved ; — Better to die, than live and not be loved ! tirije Haben 1 1 THE RAVEN A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS 1 791 P-I798 Underneath a huge oak tree There was of swine a huge company, That grunted as they crunched the mast : For that was ripe, and fell full fast. Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high : 5 One acorn they left, and no more might you spy. Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly: He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melan- choly ! Blacker was he than blackest jet. Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet. 10 He picked up the acorn and buried it straight By the side of a river both deep and great. Where then did the Raven go? He went high and low. Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go. 15 Many Autumns, many Springs Travelled he with wandering wings : Many Summers, many Winters — I can't tell half his adventures. 1 2 ^tlttt ipoem0 of CoUriDge At length he came back, and with him a She, 20 And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree. They built them a nest in the topmost bough, And young ones they had, and were happy enow. But soon came a woodman in leathern guise. His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes. 25 He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke, But with many a hem ! and a sturdy stroke. At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak. His young ones were killed ; for they could not depart, And their mother did die of a broken heart. 30 The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever ; And they floated it down on the course of the river. They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip. And with this tree and others they made a good ship. The ship, it was launched ; but in sight of the land 35 Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand. It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast : bonnet 13 The old Raven flew round and round, and cawed to the blast. He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls — See ! see ! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls ! 40 Right glad was the Raven, and ofF he went fleet. And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet. And he thank'd him again and again for this treat : They had taken his all, and Revenge was SWEET ! [We must not think so ; but forget and for- give, 45 And what Heaven gives life to, we'll still let it live ! ] SONNET ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR COLLEGE 1791-1834 Farewell parental scenes ! a sad farewell ! To you my grateful heart still fondly clings, Tho' fluttering round on Fancy's burnish'd wings Her tales of future Joy Hope loves to tell. Adieu, adieu ! ye much-loved cloisters pale ! 5 Ah ! would those happy days return again, 1 4 g)riect poems; of Coleriuge When 'neath your arches, free from every stain, I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale ! Dear haunts ! where oft my simple lays I sang. Listening meanwhile the echoings of my feet. Lingering I quit you, with as great a pang. As when erewhile, my weeping childhood, torn By early sorrow from my native seat. Mingled its tears with hers — my widow'd Parent lorn. ABSENCE A FAREWELL ODE ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 1791-1794 Where graced with many a classic spoil Cam rolls his reverend stream along, I haste to urge the learned toil That sternly chides my love-lorn song : Ah me ! too mindful of the days Illumed by Passion's orient rays. When Peace, and Cheerfulness and Health Enriched me with the best of wealth. Ah fair Delights ! that o'er my soul On Memory's wing, like shadows fly ! Ah Flowers ! which Joy from Eden stole While Innocence stood smiling by ! — But cease, fond Heart ! this bootless moan : Those Hours on rapid Pinions flown Shall yet return, by Absence crowned, 15 And scatter livelier roses round. The Sun who ne'er remits his fires On heedless eyes may pour the day : The Moon, that oft from Heaven retires, Endears her renovated ray. 20 What though she leave the sky unblest To mourn awhile in murky vest ? When she relumes her lovely light, We bless the Wanderer of the Night. HAPPINESS 1791 ?-i834 On wide or narrow scale shall Man Most happily describe life's plan ? Say shall he bloom and wither there, Where first his infant buds appear; Or upwards dart with soaring force, 5 And tempt some more ambitious course ? Obedient now to Hope's command, I bid each humble wish expand. And fair and bright Life's prospects seem. While Hope displays her cheering beam, 10 And Fancy's vivid colourings stream. 1 6 g)rtect l^otm& of ColeriDge While Emulation stands me nigh The Goddess of the eager eye. With foot advanced and anxious heart Now for the fancied goal I start : — 15 Ah ! why will Reason intervene Me and my promised joys between ! She stops my course, she chains my speed, While thus her forceful words proceed : — ' Ah ! listen, youth, ere yet too late, 20 What evils on thy course may wait ! To bow the head, to bend the knee, A minion of Servility, At low Pride's frequent frowns to sigh, And watch the glance in Folly's eye ; 25 To toil intense, yet toil in vain. And feel with what a hollow pain Pale Disappointment hangs her head O'er darling Expectation dead ! 'The scene is changed and Fortune's gale 30 Shall belly out each prosperous sail. Yet sudden wealth full well I know Did never happiness bestow. That wealth to which we were not born Dooms us to sorrow or to scorn. 35 Behold yon flock which long had trod O'er the short grass of Devon's sod. To Lincoln's rank rich meads transferr'd, And in their fate thy own be fear'd ; I^appine^flf 17 Through every limb contagions fly, 4° Deform'd and choked they burst and die. ' When Luxury opens wide her arms, And smiling wooes thee to those charms. Whose fascination thousands own, Shall thy brows wear the stoic frown ? 45 And when her goblet she extends Which maddening myriads press around. What power divine thy soul befriends That thou should'st dash it to the ground ? — No, thou shalt drink, and thou shalt know 50 Her transient bliss, her lasting woe. Her maniac joys, that know no measure, And riot rude and painted pleasure ; — Till (sad reverse !) the Enchantress vile To frowns converts her magic smile ; 55 Her train impatient to destroy. Observe her frown with gloomy joy ; On thee with harpy fangs they seize The hideous offspring of Disease, • Swoln Dropsy ignorant of Rest, 60 And Fever garb'd in scarlet vest. Consumption driving the quick hearse. And Gout that howls the frequent curse. With Apoplex of heavy head That surely aims his dart of lead. 65 ' But say Life's joys unmixM were given To thee some favourite of Heaven : 1 8 &t\ttt ^JDoem0 of ColeriDge Within, without, tho' all were health — Yet what e'en thus are Fame, Power, Wealth, But sounds that variously express, 70 What's thine already — Happiness ! 'Tis thine the converse deep to hold With all the famous sons of old ; And thine the happy waking dream While Hope pursues some favourite theme, 75 As oft when Night o'er Heaven is spread, Round this maternal seat you tread. Where far from splendour, far from riot, In silence wrapt sleeps careless quiet. 'Tis thine with fancy oft to talk, 80 And thine the peaceful evening walk ; And what to thee the sweetest are — The setting sun, the evening star — The tints, which live along the sky. And Moon that meets thy raptured eye, 85 Where oft the tear shall grateful start. Dear silent pleasures of the Heart ! Ah ! Being blest, for Heaven shall lend To share thy simple joys a friend ! Ah ! doubly blest, if Love supply 90 His influence to complete thy joy. If chance some lovely maid thou find ■ To read thy visage in thy mind. ^\ ' One blessing more demands thy care : — Once more to Heaven address the prayer : 95 Mi0l) 19 For humble independence pray The guardian genius of thy way ; Whom (sages say) in days of yore Meek Competence to Wisdom bore, So shall thy little vessel glide 3 With a fair breeze adown the tide, And Hope, if e'er thou 'ginst to sorrow Remind thee of some fair to-morrow. Till Death shall close thy tranquil eye While Faith proclaims " thou shalt not die ! " ' A WISH WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD, FEB. 10, I 792 [^Sent, nvith the tivo pieces ivhich folloiv, to Mary E-vansy in a letter of that date."^ Lo ! through the dusky silence of the groves. Thro' vales irriguous, and thro' green retreats. With languid murmur creeps the placid stream And works its secret way. Awhile meand'ring round its native fields. It rolls the playful wave and winds its flight : Then downward flowing with awaken'd speed Embosoms in the Deep ! Thus thro' its silent tenor may my Life Smooth its meek stream by sordid wealth un- clogg'd. 20 ^tlttt potm& of Colmuge Alike unconscious of forensic storms, And Glory's blood-stain' d palm ! And when dark Age shall close Life's little day, Satiate of sport, and weary of its toils. E'en thus may slumbrous Death my decent limbs is Compose with icy hand ! MS. TO A YOUNG LADY WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 1 792-1 796 Much on my early youth I love to dwell. Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell. Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale, L heard of guilt and wondered at the tale ! Yet though the hours flew by on careless wing, 5 Full heavily of Sorrow would I sing. Aye as the star of evening flung its beam In broken radiance on the wavy stream. My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom Mourned with the breeze, O Lee Boo! o'er thy tomb. Where'er I wandered, Pity still was near. Breathed from the heart and glistened in the tear: No knell that tolled but filled my anxious eye. And suffering Nature wept that one should die ! to a goung llau^ 21 Thus to sad sympathies I soothed my breast, 15 Calm, as the rainbow in the weeping West : When slumbering Freedom roused with high Disdain With giant fury burst her triple chain ! Fierce on her front the blasting Dog-star glowed ; Her banners, Hke a midnight meteor, flowed j ^o Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies ! She came, and scattered battles from her eyes ! Then Exultation waked the patriot fire And swept with wilder hand the Alcaean lyre : Red from the Tyrant's wound I shook the lance, 25 And strode in joy the reeking plains of France ! Fallen is the oppressor, friendless, ghastly, low. And my heart aches, though Mercy struck the blow. With wearied thought once more I seek the shade, Where peaceful Virtue weaves the Myrtle braid. 3° And O ! if Eyes whose holy glances roll, Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul ; If Smiles more winning, and a gentler Mien Than the love-wildered Maniac's brain hath seen Shaping celestial forms in vacant air, 35 22 ^tittt jpoems; of ColertUge If these demand the empassioned Poet's care — If Mirth and softened Sense and Wit refined, The blameless features of a lovely mind ; Then haply shall my trembling hand assign No fading wreath to Beauty's saintly shrine. 40 Nor, Sara ! thou these early flowers refuse — Ne'er lurk'd the snake beneath their simple hues ; No purple bloom the Child of Nature brings From Flattery's night-shade : as he feels he sings. SONGS OF THE PIXIES 1793-1796 The Pixies, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race of beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a small distance from a village in that county, half way up a wood-covered hill, is an excava- tion called the Pixies' Parlour. The roots of old trees form its ceiling ; and on its sides are innumerable cy- phers, among which the author discovered his own cypher and those of his brothers, cut by the hand of their childhood. At the foot of the hill flows the river Otter. To this place the Author, during the summer months of the year 1793, conducted a party of young ladies j one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of com- plexion colourless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion the following Irregular Ode was written. ^ongsf of tl}t :^ivit& 23 I Whom the untaught Shepherds call Pixies in their madrigal, Fancy's children, here we dwell : Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell. Here the wren of softest note 5 Builds its nest and warbles well ; Here the blackbird strains his throat ; Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell. II When fades the moon all shadowy-pale, And scuds the cloud before the gale, 10 Ere Morn with living gems bedight Purples the East with streaky light, We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dews Clad in robes of rainbow hues ; Or sport amid the rosy gleam 'S Soothed by the distant-tinkling team, While lusty Labour scouting sorrow Bids the Dame a glad good-morrow. Who jogs the accustomed road along. And paces cheery to her cheering song. ao III But not our filmy pinion We scorch amid the blaze of day. When Noontide's fiery-tressed minion, Flashes the fervid ray. 24 Select iponn0 of Colertoge Aye from the sultry heat 25 We to the cave retreat O'ercanopied by huge roots intertwined With wildest texture, blackened o'er with age : Round them their mantle green the ivies bind, Beneath whose foliage pale 30 Fanned by the unfrequent gale We shield us from the Tyrant's mid-day rage. IV Thither, while the murmuring throng Of wild-bees hum their drowsy song, By Indolence and Fancy brought, 35 A youthful Bard, ' unknown to Fame,* Wooes the Queen of Solemn Thought, And heaves the gentle misery of a sigh Gazing with tearful eye. As round our sandy grot appear 40 Many a rudely-sculptured name To pensive Memory dear ! Weaving gay dreams of sunny-tinctured hue, We glance before his view: O'er his hush'd soul our soothing witcheries shed 45 And twine our faery garlands round his head. When Evening's dusky car Crowned with her dewy star 1 Steals o*er the fading sky in shadowy flight ; On leaves of aspen trees 50 We tremble to the breeze Veiled from the grosser ken of mortal sight. Or, haply, at the visionary hour, Along our wildly-bowered sequestered walk, We listen to the enamoured rustic's talk ; 55 Heave with the heavings of the maiden's breast. Where young-eyed Loves have built their turtle nest; Or guide of soul-subduing power The electric flash, that from the melting eye Darts the fond question and the soft reply. 60 VI Or through the mystic ringlets of the vale We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank ; Or, silent-sandal'd, pay our defter court. Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, Where wearied with his flower-caressing sport, 65 Supine he slumbers on a violet bank ; Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream ; Or where his wave with loud unquiet song Dash'd o'er the rocky channel froths along; 70 Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest. The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast. 26 g)elm jpoem^ of Coleriuge VII Hence thou lingerer, Light ! Eve saddens into Night. Mother of wildly-working dreams ! we view 75 The sombre hours, that round thee stand With down-cast eyes (a duteous band !) Their dark robes dripping with the heavy dew. Sorceress of the ebon throne ! Thy power the Pixies own, 80 When round thy raven brow Heaven's lucent roses glow, And clouds in watery colours drest Float in light drapery o'er thy sable vest ; What time the pale moon sheds a softer day 85 Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beam : For mid the quivering light 'tis ours to play. Aye dancing to the cadence of the stream. VIII Welcome, Ladies ! to the cell Where the blameless Pixies dwell: 90 But thou. Sweet Nymph ! proclaimed our Faery Queen, With what obeisance meet Thy presence shall we greet? For lo ! attendant on thy steps are seen Graceful Ease in artless stole, 95] And white-robed Purity of soul, bonnet 27 With Honour's softer mien ; Mirth of the loosely-flowing hair, And meek-eyed Pity eloquently fair, Whose tearful cheeks are lovely to the view, As snow-drop wet with dew. loi IX Unboastful Maid ! though now the Lily pale Transparent grace thy beauties meek; Yet ere again along the impurpling vale, The purpling vale and elfin-haunted grove, 105 Young Zephyr his fresh flowers profusely throws, We'll tinge with livelier hues thy cheek ; And, haply, from the nectar-breathing Rose Extract a Blush for Love ! SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER i793?-i797 Dear native Brook ! wild Streamlet of the West ! How many various-fated years have past. What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast. Numbering its light leaps ! yet so deep imprest 5 Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes 28 g>elect UDoemsi of Coleriuge I never shut amid the sunny ray, But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, And bedded sand that veined with various dyes Gleamed through thy bright transparence ! On my way. Visions of Childhood ! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs : Ah ! that once more I were a careless Child ! LINES TO A BEAUTIFUL SPRING IN A VILLAGE .1793 ?-? Once more, sweet Stream ! with slow foot wandering near, I bless thy milky waters cold and clear. Escape the flashing of the noontide hours, With one fresh garland of Pierian flowers (Ere from thy zephyr-haunted brink I turn) My languid hand shall wreath thy mossy urn. For not through pathless grove with murmur rude Thou soothest the sad wood-nymph. Solitude ; Nor thine unseen in cavern depths to well. The Hermit-fountain of some dripping cell ! Pride of the Vale ! thy useful streams supply The scattered cots and peaceful hamlet nigh. The elfin tribe around thy friendly banks With infant uproar and soul-soothing pranks, Released from school, their little hearts at rest, 15 Launch paper navies on thy waveless breast. The rustic here at eve with pensive look Whistling lorn ditties leans upon his crook, Or, starting, pauses with hope-ftiingled dread To list the much-loved maid's accustomed tread : 20 She, vainly mindful of her dame's command, Loiters, the long-fill'd pitcher in her hand. Unboastful Stream ! thy fount with pebbled falls The faded form of past delight recalls. What time the morning sun of Hope arose, 25 And all was joy ; save when another's woes A transient gloom upon my soul imprest. Like passing clouds impictured on thy breast. Life's current then ran sparkling to the noon, Or silvery stole beneath the pensive Moon : 30 Ah ! now it works rude brakes and thorns among. Or o'er the rough rock bursts and foams along ! 30 Select l^otm^ of Colmuge LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING 1793-1796 THOU wild Fancy, check thy wing ! No more Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore ! Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light ; Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day, With western peasants hail the morning ray ! Ah ! rather bid the perished pleasures move, A shadowy train, across the soul of Love ! O'er Disappointment's wintry desert fling Each flower that wreathed the dewy locks of Spring, When blushing, like a bride, from Hope's trim bower She leapt, awakened by the pattering shower. Now sheds the sinking Sun a deeper gleam. Aid, lovely Sorceress ! aid thy Poet's dream ! With faery wand O bid the Maid arise. Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes ; As erst when from the Muses' calm abode 1 came, with Learning's meed not unbestowed ; When as she twined a laurel round my brow. And met my kiss, and half returned my vow. 0*er all my frame shot rapid my thrilled heart, And every nerve confessed the electric dart. dear Deceit ! I see the Maiden rise, Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes ! When first the lark high-soaring swells his throat, 25 Mocks the tired eye, and scatters the loud note, 1 trace her footsteps on the accustomed lawn, I mark her glancing mid the gleams of dawn. When the bent flower beneath the night-dew weeps And on the lake the silver lustre sleeps, 30 Amid the paly radiance soft and sad. She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad. With her along the streamlet's brink I rove ; With her I list the warblings of the grove ; And seems in each low wind her voice to float 35 Lone whispering Pity in each soothing note ! Spirits of Love ! ye heard her name ! Obey The powerful spell, and to my haunt repair. Whether on clustering pinions ye are there. Where rich snows blossom on the Myrtle-trees, 40 Or with fond languishment around my fair Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair ; O heed the spell, and hither wing your way, Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze ! 32 ^tlttt }jDoem0 of ColeriDge Spirits ! to you the infant Maid was given Formed by the wondrous Alchemy of Heaven ! No fairer Maid does Love's wide empire know, No fairer Maid e'er heaved the bosom's snow. A thousand Loves around her forehead fly ; A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye ; Love lights her smile — in Joy's red nectar dips His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips. She speaks ! and hark that passion-warbled song — Still, Fancy ! still that voice, those notes pro- long. As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls Shall wake the softened echoes of Heaven's Halls ! O (have I sigh'd) were mine the wizard's rod. Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful God ! A flower-entangled Arbour I would seem To shield my Love from Noontide's sultry beam : Or bloom a Myrtle, from whose odorous boughs My Love might weave gay garlands for her brows. When Twilight stole across the fading vale, To fan my Love I'd be the Evening Gale ; Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest, iLinesf 33 And flutter my faint pinions on her breast ! On Seraph wing I'd float a Dream by night, To soothe my Love with shadows of de- light : — Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies, And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes ! 70 As when the Savage, who his drowsy frame Had basked beneath the Sun's unclouded flame, Awakes amid the troubles of the air, The skiey deluge, and white lightning's glare — Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep, 75 And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep : — So tossed by storms along Life's wildering way, Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day, When by my native brook I wont to rove. While Hope with kisses nursed the Infant Love. 80 Dear native brook ! like Peace, so placidly Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meek ! Dear native brook ! where first young Poesy Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream ! Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek, 85 As water-lilies ripple thy slow stream ! 34 ^tlttt JDoentfl? of Coleriuge Dear native haunts ! where Virtue still is gay, Where Friendship's fixed star sheds a mellowed ray, Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears. Where soften'd Sorrow smiles within her tears ; 90 And Memory, with a Vestal's chaste employ. Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of joy ! No more your sky-larks melting from the sight Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with de- light — No more shall deck your pensive Pleasures sweet 95 With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat. Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied scene Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between ! Yet sweet to Fancy's ear the warbled song. That soars on Morning's wing your vales among. 100 Scenes of my Hope ! the aching eye ye leave Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve ! Tearful and saddening with the saddened blaze Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze : Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend, 105 Till chill and damp the moonless night descend. I lletDti 35 LEWTI OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT 1 794-1 798 At midnight by the stream I roved, To forget the form I loved. Image of Lewti ! from my mind Depart ; for Lewti is not kind. The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam 5 And the shadow of a star Heaved upon Tamaha's stream; But the rock shone brighter far. The rock half sheltered from my view By pendent boughs of tressy yew. — 10 So shines my Lewti's forehead fair. Gleaming through her sable hair. Image of Lewti ! from my mind Depart ; for Lewti is not kind. I saw a cloud of palest hue, '5 Onward to the moon it passed ; Still brighter and more bright it grew. With floating colours not a few. Till it reach'd the moon at last : Then the cloud was wholly bright, ao With a rich and amber light ! And so with many a hope I seek 36 g)tlect l^ottn& of ColeriDge And with such joy I find my Lewti ; And even so my pale wan cheek Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty ! 25 Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind. The little cloud — it floats away, Away it goes ; away so soon ? Alas ! it has no power to stay : 30 Its hues are dim, its hues are grey — Away it passes from the moon! How mournfully it seems to fly, Ever fading more and more. To joyless regions of the sky — 35 And now 'tis whiter than before ! As white as my poor cheek will be. When, Lewti ! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee. Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind — 40 And yet, thou didst not look unkind. I saw a vapour in the sky, Thin, and white, and very high ; I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud : Perhaps the breezes that can fly 45 Now below and now above. Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud Of Lady fair — that died for love. For maids, as well as youths, have perished iletoti 37 From fruitless love too fondly cherished. 50 Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind — For Lewti never will be kind. Hush ! my heedless feet from under Slip the crumbling banks for ever : Like echoes to a distant thunder, 55 They plunge into the gentle river. The river-swans have heard my tread, And startle from their reedy bed. O beauteous birds ! methinks ye measure Your movements to some heavenly tune ! 60 beauteous birds ! 'tis such a pleasure To see you move beneath the moon, 1 would it were your true delight To sleep by day and wake all night. I know the place where Lewti lies 65 When silent night has closed her eyes : It is a breezy jasmine-bower. The nightingale sings o'er her head : Voice of the Night ! had I the power That leafy labyrinth to thread, And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, I then might view her bosom white Heaving lovely to my sight. As these two swans together heave On the gently-swelling wave. 75 70 38 g)elect l^otma of ColeriDge Oh ! that she saw me in a dream, And dreamt that I had died for care ; All pale and wasted I would seem Yet fair withal, as spirits are ! I'd die indeed, if I might see 80 Her bosom heave, and heave for me ! Soothe, gentle image ! soothe my mind ! To-morrow Lewti may be kind. THE FADED FLOWER 1794-1836 Ungrateful he, who pluckM thee from thy stalk, Poor faded flow'ret ! on his careless way ; Inhal'd awhile thy odours on his walk. Then onward pass'd and left thee to decay. Ah ! melancholy emblem ! had I seen Thy modest beauties dew'd with evening's gem, I had not rudely cropp'd thy parent stem. But left thee, blushing, 'mid the enliven'd green. And now I bend me o'er thy wither'd bloom And drop the tear — as Fancy, at my side. Deep-sighing, points the fair frail Abra's tomb — ' Like thine, sad flower, was that poor wanderer's pride ! Oh ! lost to love and truth, whose selfish joy Tasted her vernal sweets, but tasted to destroy ! ' 2Dome0tic peace 39 DOMESTIC PEACE [From *The Fall of Robespierre,' Act I.] I 794-1 794 Tell me, on what holy ground May Domestic Peace be found ? Halcyon daughter of the skies, Tar on fearful wings she flies. From the pomp of Sceptered State, From the Rebel's noisy hate. In a cottaged vale She dwells Listening to the Sabbath bells ! Still around her steps are seen Spotless Honour's meeker mien. Love, the sire of pleasing fears. Sorrow smiling through her tears, And conscious of the past employ Memory, bosom-spring of joy. ON A DISCOVERY MADE TOO LATE 1 794-1 796 Thou bleedest, my poor Heart ! and thy distress Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness. 40 &t\ttt UDorntfif of ColeriDge Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland ? Or, listening, why forget the healing tale, When Jealousy with feverish fancies pale Jarred thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand ? Faint was that Hope, and ray less ! — Yet 'twas fair And soothed with many a dream the hour of rest : Thou should'st have loved it most, when most opprest. And nursed it with an agony of care, Even as a mother her sweet infant heir That wan and sickly droops upon her breast ! LA FAYETTE 1794-1794,5 As when far off the warbled strains are heard That soar on Morning's wing the vales among ; Within his cage the imprisoned matin bird Swells the full chorus with a generous song : He bathes no pinion in the dewy light. No Father's joy, no Lover's bliss he shares, Yet still the rising radiance cheers his sight — His fellows' freedom soothes the captive's cares ! *^* The above beautiful sonnet was written antecedently to the joyful account of the Patriot's escape from the Tyrant's Dungeon. [Note in M. C/i-l — December 15, 1794. ®o a iFrienu 41 Thou, Fayette ! who didst wake with start- ling voice Life's better sun from that long wintry night, Thus in thy Country's triumphs shalt rejoice And mock with raptures high the dungeon's might : For lo ! the morning struggles into day, And Slavery's spectres shriek and vanish from the ray ! TO A FRIEND [CHARLES lamb] Together with an Unfinish*^ ' Poem 1794-1" . Thus far my scantv ' ^m hath built the rhyme Elaborate and swelimg : yet the heart Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers I ask not now, my friend ! the aiding verse. Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know) From business wandering far and local cares. Thou creepest round a dear-loved Sister's bed With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look, Soothing each pang with fond solicitude. And tenderest tones medicinal of love. I too a Sister had, an only Sister — 42 Select |Donn0 of Coleriuge She loved me dearly, and I doted on her 1 To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows, (As sick Patient in his Nurse's arms) 15 And of the heart those hidden maladies That even from Friendship's eye will shrink ashamed. O ! I have woke at midnight, and have wept, Because she was not ! — Cheerily, dear Charles ! Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year : 20 Such warm presagings feel I of high Hope. For not uninterested the dear Maid I've view'd — her soul affectionate yet wise, Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories That play around a sainted infant's head. 25 He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees. Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love Aught to implore were impotence of mind) That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne. Prepared, when he his healing ray vouchsafes, 30 To pour forth thanksgiving with lifted heart. And praise Him Gracious with a Brother's Joy ! ^onoD^ on t\)t wmi) of Cljatterton 43 MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON 1794, 1829-1834 O WHAT a wonder seems the fear of death, Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep, Babes, Children, Youths, and Men, Night following night for threescore years and ten ! But doubly strange, where life is but a breath To sigh and pant with, up Want's rugged steep. Away, Grim Phantom ! Scorpion King, away ! Reserve thy terrors and thy stings display For coward Wealth and Guilt in robes of State ! Lo ! by the grave I stand of one, for whom A prodigal Nature and a niggard Doom (That all bestowing, this withholding all) Made each chance knell from distant spire or dome Sound like a seeking Mother's anxious call. Return, poor Child ! Home, weary truant, home ! Thee, Chatterton ! these unblest stones protect From want, and the bleak freezings of neglect. Too long before the vexing Storm-blast driven Here hast thou found repose ! beneath this sod ! 44 Select l^otm^ of ColeriDge Thou ! O vain word ! thou dwell'st not with the clod ! 20 Amid the shining Host of the Forgiven Thou at the throne of mercy and thy God The triumph of redeeming Love dost hymn (Believe it, O my Soul !) to harps of Seraphim. Yet oft, perforce ('tis suffering Nature's call), 25 I weep that heaven-born Genius so shall fall ; And oft, in Fancy's saddest hour, my soul Averted shudders at the poisoned bowl. Now groans my sickening heart, as still I view Thy corse of livid hue ; 30 Now indignation checks the feeble sigh. Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine eye ! Is this the land of song-ennobled line ? Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain Poured forth his lofty strain ? 35 Ah me ! yet Spenser, gentlest bard divine, Beneath chill Disappointment's shade. His weary limbs in lonely anguish lay'd. And o'er her darling dead Pity hopeless hung her head, 40 While ' mid the pelting of that merciless storm,' Sunk to the cold earth Otway's famished form ! ^onou^ on t\}t SDeatt) of C^iatterton 45 Sublime of thought, and confident of fame, From vales where Avon winds the Minstrel came. Light-hearted youth ! aye, as he hastes along, 45 He meditates the future song. How dauntless iElla fray'd the Dacyan foe ; And while the numbers flowing strong In eddies whirl, in surges throng. Exulting in the spirits' genial throe 50 In tides of power his life-blood seems to flow. And now his cheeks with deeper ardors flame, His eyes have glorious meanings, that declare More than the light of outward day shines there, A holier triumph and a sterner aim ! 55 Wings grow within him ; and he soars above Or Bard's or Minstrel's lay of war or love. Friend to the friendless, to the sufferer health. He hears the widow's prayer, the good man's praise ; To scenes of bliss transmutes his fancied wealth, 60 And young and old shall now see happy days. On many a waste he bids trim gardens rise. Gives the blue sky to many a prisoner's eyes ; And now in wrath he grasps the patriot steel. And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel. 65 46 Select jpoemsf of Colrriuge Sweet Flower of Hope ! free Nature's genial child ! That didst so fair disclose thy early bloom, Filling the wide air with a rich perfume ! For thee in vain all heavenly aspects smil'd ; From the hard world brief respite could they win — 70 The frost nipp'd sharp without, the canker prey'd within ! Ah ! where are fled the charms of vernal Grace, And Joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er thy face ? Youth of tumultuous soul, and haggard eye ! Thy wasted form, thy hurried steps I view, 75 On thy wan forehead starts the lethal dew. And oh ! the anguish of that shuddering sigh ! Such were the struggles of the gloomy hour. When Care, of withered brow. Prepared the poison's death-cold power : 80 Already to thy lips was raised the bowl. When near thee stood Affection meek (Her bosom bare, and wildly pale her cheek) Thy sullen gaze she bade thee roll On scenes that well might melt thy soul ; 85 Thy native cot she flashed upon thy view, ^onoD^ on tl)e wm^ of Clftattmon 47 Thy native cot, where still, at close of day. Peace smiling sate, and listened to thy lay ; Thy sister's shrieks she bade thee hear, And mark thy mother's thrilling tear ; 90 See, see her breast's convulsive throe. Her silent agony of woe ! Ah ! dash the poisoned chalice from thy hand ! And thou hadst dashed it, at her soft command. But that Despair and Indignation rose, 95 And told again the story of thy woes ; Told the keen insult of the unfeeling heart. The dread dependence on the low-born mind ; Told every pang, with which thy soul must smart. Neglect, and grinning Scorn, and Want com- bined ! 100 Recoiling quick, thou badest the friend of pain Roll the black tide of Death through every freezing vein ! Ye woods ! that wave o er Avon's rocky steep. To Fancy's ear sweet is your murmuring deep ! P'or here she loves the cypress wreath to weave ; 105 Watching, with wistful eye, the saddening tints of eve. Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove. 48 ^tlttt l^otm& of Coln:iage In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove, Like star-beam on the slow sequestered tide Lone-glittering, through the high tree branch- ing wide. no And here, in Inspiration's eager hour, When most the big soul feels the mastering power. These wilds, these caverns roaming o'er. Round which the screaming sea-gulls soar, With wild unequal steps he passed along, 115 Oft pouring on the winds a broken song : Anon, upon some rough rock's fearful brow Would pause abrupt — and gaze upon the waves below. Poor Chatterton ! he sorrows for thy fate Who would have praised and loved thee, ere too late. 120 Poor Chatterton ! farewell ! of darkest hues This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb ; But dare no longer on the sad theme muse, Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred doom : For oh ! big gall-drops, shook from Folly's wing, 125 Have blackened the fair promise of my spring ; And the stern Fate transpierced with viewless dart The last pale Hope that shivered at my heart ! ^onou^ on t^t SDeatt) of Ctiattmon 49 Hence, gloomy thoughts ! no more my soul shall dwell On joys that were ! no more endure to weigh 130 The shame and anguish of the evil day, Wisely forgetful ! O'er the ocean swell Sublime of Hope I seek the cottaged dell Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray ; And, dancing to the moon-light roundelay, i35 The wizard Passions weave a holy spell ! O Chatterton ! that thou wert yet alive ! Sure thou would'st spread the canvass to the gale. And love with us the tinkling team to drive O'er peaceful P'reedom's undivided dale ; 140 And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng. Hanging, enraptured, on thy stately song. And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy All deftly masked as hoar Antiquity. Alas, vain Phantasies ! the fleeting brood HS Of Woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood ! Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream. Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream ; And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide, ^5° Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee. Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy ! And there, soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind. Muse on the sore ills I had left behind. 50 g)elect IIDoems! of Coleriuge TO THE NIGHTINGALE 1795 ?-i 796 Sister of love-lorn Poets, Philomel ! How many Bards in city garret pent, While at their window they with downward eye Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud. And listen to the drowsy cry of Watchmen (Those hoarse unfeather'd Nightingales of Time !), How many wretched Bards address thy narhe. And hers, the full-orb'd Queen that shines above. But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark. Within whose mild moon-mellow'd foliage hid Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains. ! I have listen'd, till my working soul. Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies, Absorb'd hath ceased to listen ! Therefore oft, 1 hymn thy name : and with a proud delight Oft will I tell thee. Minstrel of the Moon ! ' Most musical, most melancholy ' Bird ! That all thy soft diversities of tone, Tho' sweeter far than the delicious airs That vibrate from a white-arm'd Lady's harp. What time the languishment of lonely love Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow. ilme0 51 Are not so sweet as is the voice of her, My Sara — best beloved of human kind ! When breathing the pure soul of tenderness 25 She thrills me with the Husband's promised name ! LINES COMPOSED WHILE CLIMBING THE LEFT ASCENT OF BROCKLEY COOMB, SOMERSETSHIRE, MAY 1795 With many a pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb's ascent : sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody : Far ofF the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock 5 That on green plots o'er precipices browze : From the forced fissures of the naked rock The Yew-tree bursts ! Beneath its dark green boughs (Mid which the May-thorn blends its blossoms white) Where broad smooth stones jut out in mossy seats, 10 I rest : — and now have gained the topmost site. Ah ! what a luxury of landscape meets My gaze ! Proud towers, and cots more dear to me, 52 Select jponnsf of Colmtige Elm-shadow' d fields, and prospect-bounding sea ! Deep sighs my lonely heart : I drop the tear : 15 Enchanting spot ! O were my Sara here ! THE EOLIAN HARP COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE 1 795-1 796 My pensive Sara ! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad- leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love !), 5 And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light. Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) Shine opposite ! How exquisite the scents Snatched from yon bean-field ! and the world so hushed ! 10 The stilly murmur of the distant sea Tells us of silence. And that simplest lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark ! How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, 15 It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong ! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise. Such a soft floating witchery of sound ao As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers. Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing ! as O ! the one life within us and abroad. Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where — Methinks, it should have been impossible 3® Not to love all things in a world so filled ; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air Is Music slumbering on her instrument. And thus, my love ! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, 35 Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, 54 &tlttt l|Doem0 of Colmtjge And tranquil muse upon tranquillity ; Full many a thought uncalled and undetained, And many idle flitting phantasies, 4° Traverse my indolent and passive brain, As wild and various as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject lute ! And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, 45 That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze. At once the Soul of each, and God of all ? But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O beloved woman ! nor such thoughts 5° Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject. And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek daughter in the family of Christ ! Well hast thou said and holily dispraised These shapings of the unregenerate mind ; 55 Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him. The Incomprehensible ! save when with awe I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels; 6o Who with his saving mercies healed me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this cot, and thee, dear honoured Maid ! Mrtlmton^ 55 REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT Sermoni propriora. — HOR. 1795-1796 Low was our pretty Cot : our tallest rose Peeped at the chamber-window. We could hear At silent noon, and eve, and early morn. The sea's faint murmur. In the open air Our myrtles blossom'd ; and across the porch Thick jasmins twined : the little landscape round Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye. It was a spot which you might aptly call The Valley of Seclusion ! Once I saw (Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) A wealthy son of commerce saunter by, Bristowa's citizen : methought, it calmed His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse With wiser feehngs : for he paused, and looked With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around. Then eyed our Cottage, and gazed round again. And sighed, and said, it was a Blessed Place. And we were blessed. Oft with patient ear Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note (Viewless, or haply for a moment seen Gleaming on sunny wings) in whispered tones 56 ^tlttt ipoent0 of Coleritige I've said to my beloved, ' Such, sweet girl ! The inobtrusive song of Happiness, Unearthly minstrelsy ! then only heard When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hushed, 25 And the heart listens ! ' But the time, when first From that low dell, steep up the stony mount I climbed with perilous toil and reached the top, Oh ! what a goodly scene ! Here the bleak mount, The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep ; 30 Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ; And river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrowed. Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ; And seats, and lawns, the abbey and the wood, And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire ; 35 The Channel there^ the Islands and white sails. Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless Ocean — It seem'd like Omnipresence ! God, me- thought. Had built him there a Temple : the whole World liXtUtttioM S7 Seemed imaged in its vast circumference : 40 No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart. Blest hour ! It was a luxury, — to be ! Ah ! quiet dell ! dear cot, and mount sublime ! I was constrained to quit you. Was it right. While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled, 45 That I should dream away the entrusted hours On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart With feelings all too delicate for use ? Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth : 50 And he that works me good with unmoved face. Does it but half: he chills me while he aids, My benefactor, not my brother man ! Yet even this, this cold beneficence Praise, praise it, O my Soul ! oft as thou scann'st 55 The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe ! Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched. Nursing in some delicious solitude Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies ! I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand, 60 Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ. Yet oft when after honourable toil 58 g>elect poettt0 of ColeriDge Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream, My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot ! 65 Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose, And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air. And I shall sigh fond wishes — sweet abode ! Ah ! — had none greater ! And that all had such ! It might be so — but the time is not yet. 70 Speed it, O Father ! Let thy Kingdom come ! ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY 1796 1796 Sweet flower ! that peeping from thy russet stem Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chatter- ing month Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee With blue voluptuous eye) alas, poor Flower ! 5 These are but flatteries of the faithless year. Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave, Even now the keen North-East is on its way. Flower that must perish ! shall I liken thee To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth 10 #n (Db^erbing a 115lo5^0om 59 Nipp'd by consumption mid untimely charms ? Or to Bristowa's bard, the wondrous boy ! An amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd to own. Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief 15 Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's hope. Bright flower of hope killed in the opening bud ? Farewell, sweet blossom ! better fate be thine And mock my boding ! Dim similitudes Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour ao From anxious Self, Life's cruel task-master ! And the warm wooings of this sunny day Tremble along my frame and harmonize The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tones 25 Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument. TO 1796 ?-i836 I MIX in life, and labour to seem free. With common persons pleased and common things. While every thought and action tends to thee. And every impulse from thy influence springs. 6o g)elect UDoentfif of Coleritige TO A PRIMROSE THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON 1796-1796 Nitens et roboris expers Turget et insolida est : et spe delectat. Ovid, Me tarn. Tny smiles I note, sweet early flower, That peeping from thy rustic bower The festive news to earth dost bring, A fragrant messenger of spring. But, tender blossom, why so pale ? s Dost hear stern winter in the gale ? And didst thou tempt the ungentle sky To catch one vernal glance and die ? Such the wan lustre sickness wears When health's first feeble beam appears ; 10 So languid are the smiles that seek To settle on the care-worn cheek When timorous hope the head uprears. Still drooping and still moist with tears. If, through dispersing grief, be seen 15 Of bliss the heavenly spark serene. §)onnet 6i And sweeter far the early blow, Fast following after storms of woe, Than (comfort's riper season come) Are full-blown joys and pleasure's gaudy bloom. 20 SONNET TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME 1796-1797 Charles ! my slow heart was only sad, when first I scanned that face of feeble infancy : For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst All I had been, and all my child might be ! But when I saw it on its mother's arm. And hanging at her bosom (she the while Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile) Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm Impressed a father's kiss : and all beguiled Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, I seemed to see an angel-form appear — 'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild ! So for the mother's sake the child was dear. And dearer was the mother for the child. 62 g>elect l^otnus of ColeriDge LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT- ROOM 1 796-1 799 O GIVE me, from this heartless scene released, To hear our old musician, blind and grey, (Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kissed,) His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play. By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night, 5 The while I dance amid the tedded hay With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light. Or lies the purple evening on the bay Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees, 10 For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied. On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease, And while the lazy boat sways to and fro. Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow. That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears. 15 But O, dear Anne ! when midnight wind ca- reers. And the gust pelting on the out-house shed mt 63 Makes the cock shrilly in the rain-storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead, 20 Whom his own true-love buried in the sands ! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures The things of Nature utter ; birds or trees. Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, 25 Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR 1 796-1 796 lov lOV, &> & KUKoi. 'Ttt' ad fi€ Seivhs opOofiavreias irSvos "STpofieT, Tapdffawu (ppoifiiois e(prifjLiois. Th fifWov {{^ei. Ka\ (t6 /jC 4v rdx^i irapiiiv "Ayav a.Ar)d6/jLavTiv o'lKreipas epets, iEscHYL. A^am, 1215-18; 1240-41. ARGUMENT The Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may- appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in 64 ^tlttt ipoenttf of Coleriuge general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the i yth of Novem- ber 1796 5 having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of the De- parting Year, etc., as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. Spirit who sweepest the wild Harp of Time ! It is most hard, with an untroubled ear Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear ! Yet, mine eye fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime Long had I listened, free from mortal fear, 5 With inward stillness, and submitted mind ; When lo ! its folds far waving on the wind, I saw the train of the Departing Year ! Starting from my silent sadness Then with no unholy madness 10 Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. II Hither, from the recent tomb. From the prison's direr gloom. From distemper's midnight anguish ; 15 d^ue 65 And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish ; Or where, his two bright torches blending. Love illumines Manhood's maze ; Or where o'er cradled infants blending, Hope has fixed her wishful gaze; 20 Hither, in perplexed dance, Ye woes ! ye young-eyed Joys ! advance ! By time's wild harp, and by the hand Whose indefatigable sweep Raises its fateful strings from sleep, 25 I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band ! From every private bower. And each domestic hearth. Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, 30 O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth. Weep and rejoice ! Still echoes the dread Name that o'er the earth Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell: And now advance in saintly Jubilee 35 Justice and Truth ! They too have heard thy spell. They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty ! Ill I marked Ambition in his war-array ! 66 g>elect J^otma of Colmtige I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry — ' Ah ! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay ! 40 Groans not her chariot on its onward way ? ' Fly, mailed Monarch, fly ! Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, No more on Murder's lurid face The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye ! 45 Manes of the unnumbered slain ! Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain ! Ye that erst at Ismail's tower. When human ruin choked the streams, Fell in conquest's glutted hour, 50 Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams ! Spirits of the uncoffined slain. Sudden blasts of triumph swelling. Oft, at night, in misty train. Rush around her narrow dwelling ! 55 The exterminating fiend is fled — (Foul her life, and dark her doom) Mighty armies of the dead Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb ! Then with prophetic song relate, 6c Each some tyrant-murderer's fate ! IV Departing Year ! 'twas on no earthly shore (Due 67 My soul beheld thy vision ! Where alone, Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne. Aye Memory sits : thy robe inscribed with gore, 65 With many an unimaginable groan Thou storied'st thy sad hours ! Silence en- sued. Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude. Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone. Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, 70 From the choired gods advancing. The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet. And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat. Throughout the blissful throng. Hushed were harp and song : 75 Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven, (The mystic Words of Heaven) Permissive signal make : The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and spake ! ' Thou in stormy blackness throning 80 Love and uncreated Light, By the Earth's unsolaced groaning. Seize thy terrors, Arm of might ! By Peace with profFer'd insult scared, 68 ^tlttt l^otm& of Coleriuge Masked hate and envying scorn ! 85 By years of havoc yet unborn ! And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared! But chief by Afric's wrongs, Strange, horrible, and foul ! By what deep guilt belongs 90 To the deaf Synod, ' full of gifts and lies ! ' By Wealth's insensate laugh ! by Torture's howl ! Avenger, rise ! For ever shall the thankless Island scowl, Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow ? 95 Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven, O speak aloud ! And on the darkling foe Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud ! O dart the flash ! O rise and deal the blow ! The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries ! 100 Hark ! how wide Nature joins her groans below ! Rise, God of Nature ! rise.' VI The voice had ceased, the vision fled ; Yet still I gasped and reeled with dread. And ever, when the dream of night 105] Renews the phantom to my sight, 0tit 69 Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs ; My ears throb hot ; my eye-balls start ; My brain with horrid tumult swims ; Wild is the tempest of my heart; ,10 And my thick and struggling breath Imitates the toil of death ! No stranger agony confounds The soldier on the war-field spread. When all foredone with toil and wounds, 1,5 Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead ! (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled. And the night-wind clamours hoarse ! See ! the starting wretch's head Lies pillowed on a brother's corse !) lao VII Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, O Albion ! O my mother Isle ! Thy vallies, fair as Eden's bowers, Glitter green with sunny showers ; Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells 1^5 Echo to the bleat of flocks ; (Those grassy hills, those glittering dells Proudly ramparted with rocks) And Ocean mid his uproar wild Speaks safety to his Island-child ! 130 Hence for many a fe.*,iess age Has social Quiet loved thy shore j 70 Select DDorm0 of Coleriuge Nor ever proud invader's rage Or sacked thy towers, or stained thy fields with gore. VIII Abandon'd of Heaven ! mad Avarice thy guide, 13s At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride — Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood. And join'd the wild yelling of Famine and Blood ! The nations curse thee ! They with eager wondering Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream ! 140 Strange-eyed Destruction ! who with many a dream Of central fires through nether seas up-thun- dering Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies By livid fount, or red volcanic stream. If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes, 145 O Albion ! thy predestined ruins rise. The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap. Muttering distempered triumph in her charmed sleep. to ti)t Vit\^. (3toxQt Coleritige 71 IX Away, my soul, away ! In vain, in vain the birds of warning sing— 150 And hark ! I hear the famished brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind ! Away, my soul, away ! I unpartaking of the evil thing. With daily prayer and daily toil 155 Soliciting for food my scanty soil. Have wailed my country with a loud La- ment. Now I recentre my immortal mind In the deep sabbath of meek self-content ; Cleansed from the vaporous passions that be- dim 160 God's Image, sister of the Seraphim. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON WITH SOME POEMS I79I-I797 Notus in fratres animi paterni. HoR. Carm. lib. i, 2. A BLESSED lot hath he, who having passed His youth and early manhood in the stir 72 S^elect }JDoem0 of Coleritge And turmoil of the world, retreats at length, With cares that move, not agitate the heart, To the same dwelling where his father dwelt ; 5 And haply views his tottering little ones Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap. On which first kneeling his own infancy Lisped its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest friend ! Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy. 10 At distance did ye climb life's upland road. Yet cheered and cheering : now fraternal love Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live ! To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed 15 A different fortune and more different mind — Me from the spot where first I sprang to hght Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed Its first domestic loves ; and hence through life Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while 20 Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills ; But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem, If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once Dropped the collected shower; and some most false, 25 False and fair-foliaged as the Manchineel, to tlje l^etj* George Colmtjge 73 Have tempted me to slumber in their shade E'en mJd the storm ; then breathing subtlest damps, Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven, That I woke poisoned ! But, all praise to Him 30 Who gives us all things, more have yielded me Permanent shelter ; and beside one friend, Beneath the impervious covert of one oak, I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names Of Husband and of Father ; not unhearing 35 Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, Which from my childhood to maturer years Spake to me of predestinated wreaths, Bright with no fading colours ! Yet at times My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life 40 Still most a stranger, most with naked heart At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then. When I remember thee, my earliest friend ! Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth ; Didst trace my wanderings with a father's eye; 45 And boding evil yet still hoping good. Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes 74 ^tlttt l^omt& of Colmoge Sorrowed in silence ! He who counts alone The beatings of the solitary heart, That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever, 5© Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee ! Oh ! 'tis to me an ever new delight. To talk of thee and thine : or when the blast Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash, Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl ; 55 Or when as now, on some delicious eve. We in our sweet sequestered orchard-plot Sit on the tree crooked earth-ward; whose old boughs. That hang above us in an arborous roof, Stirred by the faint gale of departing May, 60 Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads ! Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours. When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem 65 Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind. Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times, Cope with the tempest's swell ! These various strains, Which I have framed in many a various mood. Mm!ii 75 Accept, my Brother ! and (for some perchance 70 Will strike discordant on thy milder mind) If aught of error or intemperate truth Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it ! LINES TO W. LINLEY, ESQ. v^hile he sang a song to purcell's music 1 797-1 800 While my young cheek retains its healthful hues. And I have many friends who hold me dear, Linley ! methinks, I would not often hear Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose All memory of the wrongs and sore distress 5 For which my miserable brethren weep ! But should uncomforted misfortunes steep My daily bread in tears and bitterness ; And if at death's dread moment I should lie With no beloved face at my bed-side, 10 To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks such strains, breathed by my angel- guide. Would make me pass the cup of anguish by. Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died ! 76 Select l|Doem0 of Cotoiuge THE THREE GRAVES A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON's TALE 1 707-1 809 [Part I — From MS.] Beneath this thorn when I was young, This thorn that blooms so sweet, We loved to stretch our lazy limbs In summer's noon-tide heat. And hither too the old man came, 5 The maiden and her feer, ' Then tell me, Sexton, tell me why The toad has harbour here. The Thorn is neither dry nor dead. But still it blossoms sweet ; 10 Then tell me why all round its roots The dock and nettle meet. Why here the hemlock, etc. \_sic in MS.'\ Why these three graves all side by side, Beneath the flow'ry thorn, 15 Stretch out their lengths so green and dark, By any foot unworn.' t^t t^ttt elect ipoentfif of CoUriDge Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage ; and I watched Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above, 50 Dappling its sunshine ! And that walnut-tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest grass Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue 55 Through the late twilight : and though now the bat Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble-bee Sings in the bean-flower ! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure ; 60 No plot so narrow, be but Nature there. No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty ! and sometimes 'Tis well to be bereft of promised good, 65 That we may lift the soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles ! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it ! deeming, its black wing 70 iFire, ifaminet anD g>laugl^ter 103 (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had cross'd the mighty orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing ; or when all was still. Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom 75 No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER A WAR ECLOGUE 1 797-1 798 TAe Scene a desolated Tract in La Vendee. Famine is disco'vered lying on the ground ,• to her enter Fire and Slaughter. Fam. Sisters ! sisters ! who sent you here ? Slau. \to Fire'] , I will whisper it in her ear. Fire. No ! no ! no ! Spirits hear what spirits tell : 'Twill make an holiday in Hell. No ! no ! no ! Myself, I named him once below. And all the souls, that damned be. Leaped up at once in anarchy. Clapped their hands and danced for glee. They no longer heeded me ; But laughed to hear Hell's burning rafters Unwillingly re-echo laughters ! 104 Select ponttfl! of ColeriDgt No ! no ! no ! Spirits hear what spirits tell : 15 'Twill make an holiday in Hell ! Fam. Whisper it, sister ! so and so ! In a dark hint, soft and slow. Slau. Letters four do form his name — And who sent you ? Both, The same ! the same ! 20 Slau. He came by stealth, and unlocked my den. And I have drunk the blood since then Of thrice three hundred thousand men. Both, Who bade you do 't ? Slau, The same ! the same ! Letters four do form his name. 25 He let me loose, and cried Halloo ! To him alone the praise is due. Fam. Thanks, sister, thanks ! the men have bled. Their wives and their children faint for bread. I stood in a swampy field of battle ; 30 With bones and skulls I made a rattle. To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow And the homeless dog — but they would not go. So off Lflew : for how could I bear To see them gorge their dainty fare ? 35 I heard a groan and a peevish squall. iFire, iFaminet anti §)laugt)ter 105 And through the chink of a cottage-wall — Can you guess what I saw there ? Both. Whisper it, sister ! in our ear. Fam. A baby beat its dying mother : 40 I had starved the one and was starving the other ! Both. Who bade you do't ? Fam, The same ! the same ! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried. Halloo ! To him alone the praise is due. 45 Fire. Sisters ! I from Ireland came ! Hedge and corn-fields all on flame, I triumph'd o'er the setting sun ! And all the while the work was done, On as I strode with my huge strides, 5° I flung back my head and I held my sides, It was so rare a piece of fun To see the sweltered cattle run With uncouth gallop through the night. Scared by the red and noisy light! 55 By the light of his own blazing cot Was many a naked Rebel shot : The house-stream met the flame and hissed. While crash ! fell in the roof, I wist, On some of those old bed-rid nurses, 60 That deal in discontent and curses. Both. Who bade you do't ? 1 06 &t\ta l^otm^ of ColeriDge Fire. The same ! the same ! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo ! To him alone the praise is due. 65 Jil. He let us loose, and cried Halloo ! How shall we yield him honour due ? Fam. Wisdom comes with lack of food, ril gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude. Till the cup of rage o'erbrim : 7° They shall seize him and his brood — Slau, They shall tear him limb from limb ! Fire. O thankless beldames and untrue ! And is this all that you can do For him, who did so much for you ? 75 Ninety months he, by my troth ! Hath richly catered for you both ; And in an hour would you repay An eight years' work ? — Away ! away ! I alone am faithful ! I 80 Cling to him everlastingly. KUBLA KHAN 1797,8-1816 In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Mblai^iian 107 Down to a sunless sea. 5 So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round : And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; And here were forests ancient as the hills, 10 Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place ! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 15 By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething. As if this earth in fast thick pants were breath- ing. A mighty fountain momently was forced : Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 20 Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail. Or chafFy grain beneath the thresher's flail : And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 25 Through wood and dale the sacred river ran. Then reached the caverns measureless to man. And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean : io8 ^tittt IJDonnfif of Coleridge And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 30 The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves ; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, 35 A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw : It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, 40 Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, 45 I would build that dome in air. That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware ! Beware ! His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 50 Weave a circle round him thrice. And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed. And drunk the milk of Paradise. \ t^t }^mt of tlie 2intimt Mariner 109 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER IN SEVEN PARTS 1797,8-1798 Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit ? et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera ? Quid agunt ? quae loca habitant ? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabula, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari : ne mens assuefacta hodiernae vitae minutiis se contrabat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veri- tati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus. — T. Burnet, Archaol. Phil. p. 68. ARGUMENT How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole j and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean j and of the strange things that befell ; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country. [1798.] PART I It is an ancient Mariner, An ancient And he stoppeth one of three. meeteth ' By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, three Gai- Now wherefore stopp'st thou me .? ^^"^^ ^^^' , ^ ^ den to a wed- ding-feast. The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, ^^^ detain- And I am next of kin j "'^ °"^- 1 10 Select Ij^otmsi of ColeriDge The guests are met, the feast is set : May'st hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, ' There was a ship,' quoth he. lo ' Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon ! ' Eftsoons his hand dropt he. The Wed- He holds him with his glittering eye — ding-Guest ^he Wedding-Guest stood still, IS spell- . o ' bound by And listens like a three years' child : 15 the eye of The Mariner hath his will. the old sea- faring man, and con- The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone : strained to fjg cannot choose but hear ; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. 20 hear his tale. ' The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared. Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill. Below the lighthouse top. The Man- yj^g ^^^^ came up upon the left, nertellshow *^ ^ ' the ship Uut ot the sea came he ! sailed south- And he shone bright, and on the right rgooTi^LdWent down into the sea. and fair weather, till it reached the line. t^t Mmt of tlje ancient partner 1 1 1 Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon — ' 30 The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall. The Wed- Red as a rose is she ; h'"^"^"!!' Nodding their heads before her goes bridal 35 The merry minstrelsy. music ; but the Mariner The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, his tale. Yet he cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, Thp bright-eyed Mariner. 40 < And now the Storm-blast came, and he The ship Was tyrannous and strong : ^"^^" ^y ^ He struck with his overtaking wings, toward the And chased us south along. south pole. With sloping masts and dipping prow, 45 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. And southward aye we fled. 5° 1 1 2 Select jpoem^ of Coleritige And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold : And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald. ThekndofAnd through the drifts the snowy frarfu?"^"^ cliftS 55 sounds Dirlm p3nn0 of ColeriDge One after One after one, by the star-dogged another, Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye. 215 His ship- Four times fifty living men, mates drop /^^^^ j j^^^j.^ j^^j. gj }^ ^or groan) down dead. V ^ rr i i With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, They dropped down one by one. But Life-in- The souls did from their bodies fly, — 220 Death be- j^. ^^j ^^ ^jj^g ^^ ^^^ , gins her / work on the And every soul, it passed me by, ancient Like the whizz of my cross-bow ! Mariner. PART IV The Wed- c J fear thee, ancient Mariner ! fZAri I f^^' thy skinny hand! «s a Spirit is And thou art long, and lank, and brown, talking to As is the ribbed sea-sand. him ; But I fear thee and thy glittering eye, MarbeT"' ^"^ ^^Y ^^^""7 ^^^^^ ^o brown.' — assureth Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding- himofhis Guest ! 230 and pro-^' ^^^^ hodj dropt not down. ceedeth to relate his horrible penance. t^t Mmt of tlie 3incient partner 1 2 1 Alone, alone, all, all alone. Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony. 435 The many men, so beautiful ! He despis- And they all dead did lie : ^^^ '^^ And a thousand thousand slimy things of^thr^lm. Lived on ; and so did I. I looked upon the rotting sea, Andenvieth And drew my eyes away ; hould Sve ^^^ I looked upon the rotting deck, and so many And there the dead men lay. lie dead. I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, a45 A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust. I closed my lids, and kept them close. And the balls like pulses beat j For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky as© Lay like a load on my weary eye. And the dead were at my feet. The cold sweat melted from their limbs, ^"^ ^}?^ . ' curse livetn Nor rot nor reek did they : for him in the eye of the dead men. 122 ^tltct jpoemsf of ColertDge The look with which they looked on me Has never passed away. ^55 An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high ; But oh ! more horrible than that Is a curse in a dead man's eye ! 260 Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse. And yet I could not die. In his lone- ^r^, • t» /r 11 liness and ^ he movmg Moon went up the sky, fixedness he And no where did abide : ?:rdfd>c Softly she was going up, .65 journeying And a Star or two beside — Moon, and that^tm ^^^ beams bemocked the sultry main, sojourn, yet Like April hoar-frost spread ; stiu move g^^ ^here the ship's huge shadow lay, and every T*^^ charmed water burnt alway 270 where the A Still and awful red. blue sky them, and Beyond the shadow of the ship, is their ap- J watched the water-snakes : anlTtheir^^*^' They moved in tracks of shining white, native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unan- nounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival. • il)e JXimt of t\)t ancinxt Mariner 1 23 And when they reared, the elfish light 275 Fell ofF in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship By the light I watched their rich attire : ?^^^^ , 11111 Moon he Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, behoideth God's ere; tures of th great calm. They coiled and swam ; and every God's crea- 1 tures of the . track „._, _,„ 280 V_ flash of golden fire. O happy living things ! no tongue Their Their beauty might declare : ^f "^ '"^ { D their happi- A spnng of love gushed from my heart, ness. And I blessed them unaware: He biesseth^^S Sure my kind saint took pity on me, Jj^^"^ '^ ^^^ And I blessed them unaware. The selfsame moment I could pray ; The speU And from my neck so free ^"J^' '° The Albatross fell off, and sank ' ^9° Like lead into the sea. -J PART V Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing, ^ Beloved from pole to pole ! To Mary Queen the praise be given ! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, ^95 That sUd into my soul. 124 g>elect l^otm& of ColeriDge By grace of The silly buckcts on the deck, MotSthe'^^^^ had so long remained, ancient ' I dreamt that they were filled with dew ; Mariner And when I awokc, it rained. 300 is refreshed with rain. My lips were wet, my throat was cold. My garments all were dank ; Sure I had drunken in my dreams. And still my body drank. I moved, and could not feel my limbs : I was so light — almost 306 I thought that I had died in sleep. And was a blessed ghost. He heareth And soon I heard a roaring wind : rhXeI'd'dnotcomeanear; 3.0 sights and But with its sound it shook the sails, commotions That were so thin and sere. in the sky and the ele- ment. The upper air burst into life ! And a hundred fire-flags sheen. To and fro they were hurried about ! 315 And to and fro, and in and out. The wan stars danced between. And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; t^t Mmt of ttie ancient farmer 125 And the rain poured down from one black cloud ; 3»o The Moon was at its edge. The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side : Like waters shot from some high crag. The lightning fell with never a jag, 3*5 A river steep and wide. The loud wind never reached the The bodies , . of the ship's ^"^P' crew are in- Yet now the ship moved on ! spired, and Beneath the lightning; and the Moon the ship r^, 11 moves on : The dead men gave a groan. 33° They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ; 335 Yet never a breeze up blew ; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do j 1 26 Select iponufif of Colmoge They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — We were a ghastly crew, 34^ The body of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee : The body and I pulled at one rope But he said nought to me. But not by c J fg^r thee, ancient Mariner ! * 345 the men, °^ Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest ! nor by 'Twas not those souls that fled in daemons of rtoin U<11I1, earth or ttti. • i. i. • middle air Which to their corses came again, but by a But a troop of spirits blest : blessed troop of angelic . i i i i spirits, sent For when It dawned — they dropped down by the their arms, 35° ofThe ^°" ^"^ clustered round the mast ; guardian Sweet sounds Tose slowly through their ^''^' mouths. And from their bodies passed. , Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun ; 355 Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one. t^t li^itnt of tlie Sincimt Mariner 1 2 7 Sometimes a-dropping from the sky I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning ! 360 And now 't was like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute ; And now it is an angel's song, That makes the heavens be mute. 365 It ceased ; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. 370 Till noon we quietly sailed on, Yet never a breeze did breathe : Slowly and smoothly went the ship. Moved onward from beneath. 375 Under the keel nine fathom deep. From the land of mist and snow, The spirit slid : and it was he That made the ship to go. the shi'ls 3^° far as the Line, in obedience to the an- gelic troop, but still requireth vengeance. The lone- some Spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as 1 28 Select jponufif of Coleriop The sails at noon left ofF their tune, And the ship stood still also. The Sun, right up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean : But in a minute she 'gan stir, 385 Wfth a short uneasy motion — Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go. She made a sudden bound : 390 It flung the blood into my head, And I fell down in a swound. The Polar Spirit's How long in that same fit I lay, f ^°^- I have not to declare ; daemons, ,. . ,.^ ' . the invisible out ere my livmg lire returned, 395 inhabitants I heard and in my soul discerned of the ele- t-> • • u • ment, take ^wo voiccs m the air. part in his wrong 5 and c jg it he ? ' quoth onc, ' Is this the man ? two of them -r* i • i i • i relate one ^Y him who died on cross, to the With his cruel bow he laid full low 400 other, that ^he harmless Albatross. penance long and heavy for Xhc Spirit who bidcth by himself Mariner^" ^" ^^^ ^^"^ ^^ "^^^^ ^^^ Snow, hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward. t\)t l^mt of t^e aincimt Mariner 1 29 He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow.' 405 The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew : Quoth he, ' The man hath penance done. And penance more will do.* PART VI FIRST VOICE ' But tell me, tell me ! speak again, 410 Thy soft response renewing — What makes that ship drive on so fast ? What is the ocean doing ? * SECOND VOICE ' Still as a slave before his lord, The ocean hath no blast; 415 His great bright eye most silently Up to the Moon is cast — If he may know which way to go ; For she guides him smooth or grim. See, brother, see ! how graciously 420 She looketh down on him.' 130 g>elect }poettt0 of ColmDge FIRST VOICE The Mari- c But why drivcs on that ship so fast, ner hath J^'^^y^^^^ qj. ^^VC Or wind ? ' been cast in- to a trance : for the an- SECOND VOICE geiic power , j.^^ ^.^ .^ ^^^ ^ before, causeth the i i • i vessel to And closes from behind. 425 drive north- r'htr„Fly, brother, fly! more high, more life could high ! endure. Qr we shall be belated : For slow and slow that ship will go. When the Mariner's trance is abated.' The super- I woke, and we were sailing on 430 natural As in a gentle weather : motion is o retarded} i was night, calm night, the moon the Mariner waS high, awakes, and yj^g dead men stood together. his penance d begins All Stood together on the deck. For a charnel-dungeon fitter : 435 All fixed on me their stony eyes. That in the Moon did glitter. anew. The pang, the curse, with which they died. Had never passed away : t\)t Mmt of t\)t ancient Mariner 1 3 1 I could not draw my eyes from theirs, 440 Nor turn them up to pray. And now this spell was snapt : once The curse more '' ^."^"7 T . , , expiated. 1 Viewed the ocean green, And looked far forth, yet little saw Of what had else been seen — 445 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 ; Because he knows, a frightful fiend 450 Doth close behind him tread. But soon there breathed a wind on me, Nor sound nor motion made : Its path was not upon the sea. In ripple or in shade. 455 It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek Like a meadow-gale of spring — It mingled strangely with my fears. Yet it felt like a welcoming. Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 460 Yet she sailed softly too : 1 3 2 ^tlttt poems' of ColeriDge Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — On me alone it blew. And the Qh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed Mariner be- The light-house top I See ? 465 hoideth his Is this the hill ? is this the kirk ? native jg ^j^jg mine own countree ? country. We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, And I with sobs did pray — O let me be awake, my God ! 470 Or let me sleep alway. The harbour-bay was clear as glass. So smoothly it was strewn ! And on the bay the moonlight lay. And the shadow of the Moon. 475 The rock shone bright, the kirk no less. That stands above the rock : The moonlight steeped in silentness The steady weathercock. And the bay was white with silent light Till rising from the same, 481 The angelic Full many shapes, that shadows were, spirite leave j^^ crimson colours came. the dead bodies, 1 t^t Htme of tlje ancient farmer 133 A little distance from the prow And appear Those crimson shadows were : forms'or" I turned my eyes upon the deck^ — light. 486 Oh, Christ ! what saw I there ! Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, And, by the holy rood ! A man all light, a seraph-man, 490 On every corse there stood. This seraph-band, each waved his hand : It was a heavenly sight ! They stood as signals to the land, Each one a lovely light ; 495 This seraph-band, each waved his hand, No voice did they impart — No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank Like music on my heart. But soon I heard the dash of oars, 500 I heard the Pilot's cheer; My head was turned perforce away, And I saw a boat appear. The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, I heard them coming fast : 505 Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy The dead men could not blast. 134 Select poems? of Coleritige I saw a third — I heard his voice : It is the Hermit good ! He singeth loud his godly hymns 510 That he makes in the wood. He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood. PART VII The Her- This Hermit good lives in that wood mitofthe "Which slopes down to the sea. 515 Wood, ^^ 1 11 i_- -1 How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! He loves to talk with marineres That come from a far countree. He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — He hath a cushion plump : 520 It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump. The skiff-boat neared : I heard them talk, ' Why, this is strange, I trow ! Where are those lights so many and fair, 525 That signal made but now ? ' t\)t Wmt of t\)t atncient farmer 135 ' Strange, by my faith ! ' the Hermit Approach- said— J^^^^^j^ ' And they answered not our cheer ! wonder The planks looked warped ! and see those sails, How thin they are and sere ! 53° I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were Brown skeletons of leaves that lag My forest-brook along ; When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 535 And the owlet whoops to the wolf be- low. That eats the she-wolPs young.' ' Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look — (The Pilot made reply) I am a-feared' — ' Push on, push on ! ' 540 Said the Hermit cheerily. The boat came closer to the ship, But I nor spake nor stirred ; The boat came close beneath the ship. And straight a sound was heard. 545 Under the water it rumbled on. The ship Still louder and more dread : '^^f^'^v sinketh. 136 ^tlttt ^ponnfi! of ColeriDge It reached the ship, it split the bay ; The ship went down like lead. The ancient Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, ^^T"'h ^^^^^ s^y ^"^ ocean smote, 551 Pilot's boat. Like one that hath been seven days drowned My body lay afloat ; But swift as dreams, myself I found Within the Pilot's boat. 555 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. I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked 560 And fell down in a fit ; The holy Hermit raised his eyes, And prayed where he did sit. I took the oars : the Pilot's boy. Who now doth crazy go, 565 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.' t^t H^imt of tlje Ancient ^mntt 137 And now, all in my own countree, 570 I stood on the firm land ! The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, And scarcely he could stand. ' O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man ! ' The ancient The Hermit crossed his brow. Manner ^j^ ' Say quick,' quoth he, ' I bid thee say — entreateth What manner of man art thou ? ' the Hermit to shrieve him ; and Forthwith this frame of mine was the penance wrenched of life falls With a woful agony. Which forced me to begin my tale ; 580 And then it left me free. Since then, at an uncertain hour, And ever and anon throughout That agony returns : And till my ghastly tale is told, hirfuture"' 584 This heart within me burns. life an agony constrain- eth him to I pass, like night, from land to land ; travel from I have strange power of speech ; land to land, That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me : To him my tale I teach. 590 138 Select l|Donn0 of ColeriUge 1 What loud uproar bursts from that door ! The wedding-guests are there : But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are : And hark the little vesper bell, 595 Which biddeth me to prayer ! O Wedding-Guest ! this soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea : So lonely 'twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be. 600 O sweeter than the marriage-feast, *Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company ! — To walk together to the kirk, 605 And all together pray. While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends And youths and maidens gay ! And to Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 610 hirown^ To thee, thou Wedding-Guest ! example, He praycth well, who loveth well love and g^^-j^ ^^^^ ^j^j l^-j.^ ^j^^j bcast. reverence to all things that God made and loveth. Cl)n0tabel 139 He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; 615 For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. The Mariner, whose eye is bright. Whose beard with age is hoar. Is gone : and now the Wedding-Guest ^^° Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been stunned. And is of sense forlorn : A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn. 625 CHRISTABEL 1797, 1800-1816 PART THE FIRST 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing cock, Tu — whit ! Tu — whoo ! And hark, again ! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. 5 Sir Leoline, the Baron rich. Hath a toothless mastiff, which 140 Select l^otmsi of Colmoge From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, ii Sixteen short howls, not over loud ; Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark. 15 The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky. The moon is behind, and at the full ; And yet she looks both small and dull. The night is chill, the cloud is gray : 20 'Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way. The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, 25 A furlong from the castle gate ? She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight ; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away. 30 She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low. Cijri^tabel 141 And naught was green upon the oak But moss and rarest mistletoe : She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, 35 And in silence prayeth she. The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel ! It moaned as near, as near can be. But what it is she cannot tell. — 40 On the other side it seems to be. Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is chill ; the forest bare ; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? There is not wind enough in the air 45 To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek — There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan. That dances as often as dance it can, 50 Hanging so light, and hanging so high. On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! Jesu, Maria, shield her well ! She folded her arms beneath her cloak, 55 And stole to the other side of the oak. What sees she there ? 142 Select iponns; of Coleritige There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white, That shadowy in the moonlight shone : 60 The neck that made that white robe wan, Her stately neck, and arms were bare ; Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were, And wildly glittered here and there The gems entangled in her hair. 65 I guess, 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she — Beautiful exceedingly ! Mary mother, save me now ! (Said Christabel,) And who art thou ? 70 The lady strange made answer meet. And her voice was faint and sweet : — Have pity on my sore distress, I scarce can speak for weariness : Stretch forth thy hand and have no fear ! Said Christabel, How camest thou here ? And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet, Did thus pursue her answer meet : — 75 My sire is of a noble line. And my name is Geraldine : 80 Five warriors seized me yestermorn. Me, even me, a maid forlorn : I Cljrififtaijel 143 They choked my cries with force and fright, And tied me on a palfrey white. The palfrey was as fleet as wind, 85 And they rode furiously behind. They spurred amain, their steeds were white: And once we crossed the shade of night. As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, I have no thought what men they be; 90 Nor do I know how long it is (For I have lain entranced I wis) Since one, the tallest of the five, Took me from the palfrey's back, A weary woman, scarce alive. 95 Some muttered words his comrades spoke : He placed me underneath this oak; He swore they would return with haste ; Whither they went I cannot tell — I thought I heard, some minutes past, 100 Sounds as of a castle bell. Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she). And help a wretched maid to flee. Then Christabel stretched forth her hand. And comforted fair Geraldine : 105 O well, bright dame ! may you command The service of Sir Leoline ; And gladly our stout chivalry Will he send forth and friends withal 144 Select ipoems? of ColeriUge To guide and guard you safe and free no Home to your noble father^s hall. She rose : and forth with steps they passed That strove to be, and were not, fast. Her gracious stars the lady blest. And thus spake on sweet Christabel: 115 All our household are at rest, The hall as silent as the cell ; Sir Leoline is weak in health. And may not well awakened be. But we will move as if in stealth, izo And I beseech your courtesy. This night, to share your couch with me. They crossed the moat, and Christabel Took the key that fitted well ; A little door she opened straight, 125 All in the middle of the gate ; The gate that was ironed within and without Where an army in battle array had marched out. The lady sank, belike through pain, And Christabel with might and main 130 Lifted her up, a weary weight. Over the threshold of the gate : Then the lady rose again. And moved, as she were not in pain. Ctiriflftabel 145 So free from danger, free from fear, 135 They crossed the court : right glad they were. And Christabel devoutly cried To the lady by her side. Praise we the Virgin all divine Who hath rescued thee from thy distress ! 140 Alas, alas ! said Geraldine, I cannot speak for weariness. So free from danger, free from fear. They crossed the court : right glad they were. Outside her kennel, the mastiff old 145 Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. The mastiff old did not awake. Yet she an angry moan did make ! And what can ail the mastiff bitch ? Never till now she uttered yell 150 Beneath the eye of Christabel. Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch : For what can ail the mastiff bitch ? They passed the hall, that echoes still. Pass as lightly as you will ! 155 The brands were flat, the brands were dying. Amid their own white ashes lying ; But when the lady passed, there came A tongue of light, a fit of flame ; And Christabel saw the lady's eye, 160 146 Select J^otnaa of Coleridge And nothing else saw she thereby, Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. O softly tread, said Christabel, My father seldom sleepeth well. 165 Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare. And jealous of the listening air They steal their way from stair to stair. Now in glimmer, and now in gloom. And now they pass the Baron's room, 170 As still as death, with stifled breath ! And now have reached her chamber door ; And now doth Geraldine press down The rushes of the chamber floor. The moon shines dim in the open air, 175 And not a moonbeam enters here. But they without its light can see The chamber carved so curiously. Carved with figures strange and sweet. All made out of the carver's brain, 180 For a lady's chamber meet : The lamp with twofold silver chain Is fastened to an angel's feet. The silver lamp burns dead and dim ; But Christabel the larnp will trim. 185 Ct)ris?tabel 147 She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright, And left it swinging to and fro, While Geraldine, in wretched plight, Sank down upon the floor below. weary lady, Geraldine, 190 1 pray you, drink this cordial wine ! It is a wine of virtuous powers ; My mother made it of wild flowers. And will your mother pity me. Who am a maiden most forlorn ? 195 Christabel answered — Woe is me ! She died the hour that I was born. I have heard the grey-haired friar tell How on her death-bed she did say. That she should hear the castle-bell ^oo Strike twelve upon my wedding-day. mother dear ! that thou wert here ! 1 would, said Geraldine, she were ! But soon with altered voice, said she — ' OfF, wandering mother ! Peak and pine ! 205 I have power to bid thee flee.* Alas ! what ails poor Geraldine ? Why stares she with unsettled eye ? Can she the bodiless dead espy ? And why with hollow voice cries she, 210 148 g>elm JIDoentflf of Coleritige ' OfF, woman, off! this hour is mine — Though thou her guardian spirit be, OfF, woman, off! 'tis given to me.' Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side. And raised to heaven her eyes so blue — 215 Alas ! said she, this ghastly ride — Dear lady ! it hath wildered you ! The lady wiped her moist cold brow, And, faintly said, ' 'tis over now ! ' Again the wild-flower wine she drank : 220 Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright. And from the floor whereon she sank, The lofty lady stood upright: She was most beautiful to see. Like a lady of a far countree. 225 And thus the lofty lady spake — ' All they who live in the upper sky, Do love you, holy Christabel ! And you love them, and for their sake And for the good which me befel, 230 Even I in my degree will try. Fair maiden, to requite you well. But now unrobe yourself; for I Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.' Ct)ri0tabel 149 Quoth Christabel, So let it be ! 235 And as the lady bade, did she. Her gentle limbs did she undress, And lay down in her loveliness. But through her brain of weal and woe So many thoughts moved to and fro, 240 That vain it were her lids to close ; So half-way from the bed she rose. And on her elbow did recline To look at the lady Geraldine. Beneath the lamp the lady bowed, 245 And slowly rolled her eyes around ; Then drawing in her breath aloud, Like one that shuddered, she unbound The cincture from beneath her breast : Her silken robe, and inner vest, 250 Dropt to her feet, and full in view. Behold ! her bosom and half her side A sight to dream of, not to tell ! O shield her ! shield sweet Christabel ! Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs ; 255 Ah ! what a stricken look was hers ! Deep from within she seems half-way To lift some weight with sick assay, And eyes the maid and seeks delay ; 150 ^tlttt iponnsi of Coleritige Then suddenly, as one defied, a6o Collects herself in scorn and pride. And lay down by the Maiden's side ! — And in her arms the maid she took, Ah wel-a-day ! And with low voice and doleful look 265 These words did say : ' In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell. Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel ! Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to- morrow, This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow ; But vainly thou warrest, 271 For this is alone in Thy power to declare. That in the dim forest Thou heard'st a low moaning, 275 And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair ; And didst bring her home with thee in love and in charity. To shield her and shelter her from the damp air/ THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE FIRST It was a lovely sight to see The lady Christabel, when she 281 1 Was praying at the old oak tree. Amid the jagged shadows Of mossy leafless boughs, Kneeling in the moonlight, To make her gentle vows ; 285 Her slender palms together prest, Heaving sometimes on her breast ; Her face resigned to bliss or bale — Her face, oh call it fair not pale. And both blue eyes more bright than clear, 290 Each about to have a tear. With open eyes (ah woe is me !) Asleep, and dreaming fearfully. Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis, Dreaming that alone, which is — 295 O sorrow and shame ! Can this be she, The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree ? And lo ! the worker of these harms. That holds the maiden in her arms. Seems to slumber still and mild, 300 As a mother with her child. A star hath set, a star hath risen, O Geraldine ! since arms of thine Have been the lovely lady's prison. O Geraldine ! one hour was thine — 305 Thou'st had thy will ! By tairn and rill, 1 5 2 §)f lect potms of ColeriDge The night-birds all that hour were still. But now they are jubilant anew, From clifF and tower, tu — whoo ! tu — whoo ! Tu — whoo ! tu — whoo ! from wood and fell! 310 And see ! the lady Christabel Gathers herself from out her trance j Her limbs relax, her countenance Grows sad and soft ; the smooth thin lids Close o'er her eyes ; and tears she sheds — 315 Large tears that leave the lashes bright ! And oft the while she seems to smile As infants at a sudden light ! Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep. Like a youthful hermitess, 320 Beauteous in a wilderness. Who, praying always, prays in sleep. And, if she move unquietly. Perchance, 'tis but the blood so free Comes back and tingles in her feet. 3^5 No doubt, she hath a vision sweet. What if her guardian spirit 'twere, What if she knew her mother near ? But this she knows, in joys and woes, That saints will aid if men will call : 33° For the blue sky bends over all ! Clirisftabel 153 PART THE SECOND Each matin bell, the Baron saith, Knells us back to a world of death. These words Sir Leoline first said, When he rose and found his lady dead : 335 These words Sir Leoline will say Many a morn to his dying day ! And hence the custom and law began That still at dawn the sacristan. Who duly pulls the heavy bell, 340 Five and forty beads must tell Between each stroke — a warning knell, Which not a soul can choose but hear From Bratha Head to Wyndermere. Saith Bracy the bard. So let it knell ! 345 And let the drowsy sacristan Still count as slowly as he can ! There is no lack of such, I ween, As well fill up the space between. In Langdale Pike and Witch's Lair, 350 And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent. With ropes of rock and bells of air Three sinful sextons' ghosts are pent. Who all give back, one after t'other. The death-note to their living brother ; 355 And oft too, by the knell offended, 154 Select ponns! of ColeriDge Just as their one ! two ! three ! is ended, The devil mocks the doleful tale With a merry peal from Borrowdale. The air is still ! through mist and cloud 360 That merry peal comes ringing loud ; And Geraldine shakes off her dread, And rises lightly from the bed ; Puts on her silken vestments white. And tricks her hair in lovely plight, 365 And nothing doubting of her spell Awakens the lady Christabel. ' Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel ? I trust that you have rested well.* And Christabel awoke and spied 370 The same who lay down by her side — O rather say, the same whom she Raised up beneath the old oak tree ! Nay, fairer yet ! and yet more fair ! For she belike hath drunken deep 375 Of all the blessedness of sleep ! And while she spake, her looks, her air. Such gentle thankfulness declare, That (so it seemed) her girded vests Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts. 380 ' Sure I have sinn'd ! ' said Christabel, ' Now heaven be praised if all be well ! ' Ctiri^tabel 155 And in low faltering tones, yet sweet, Did she the lofty lady greet With such perplexity of mind 385 As dreams too lively leave behind. So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed Her maiden limbs, and having prayed That He, who on the cross did groan, Might wash away her sins unknown, 390 She forthwith led fair Geraldine To meet her sire. Sir Leoline. The lovely maid and the lady tall Are pacing both into the hall, And pacing on through page and groom, 395 Enter the Baron's presence-room. The Baron rose, and while he prest His gentle daughter to his breast. With cheerful wonder in his eyes The lady Geraldine espies, 400 And gave such welcome to the same, As might beseem so bright a dame ! But when he heard the lady's tale. And when she told her father's name. Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale, 405 Murmuring o'er the name again, Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine .? 156 §>elm lIDoemsi of Coleridge Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; But whispering tongues can poison truth ; And constancy lives in realms above ; 410 And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain. And thus it chanced, as I divine, With Roland and Sir Leoline. 415 Each spake words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother : They parted — ne'er to meet again ! But never either found another To free the hollow heart, from paining — 420 They stood aloof, the scars remaining. Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; A dreary sea now flows between. But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, 4^5 The marks of that which once hath been. Sir Leoline, a moment's space. Stood gazing on the damsel's face : And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine Came back upon his heart again. 43° O then the Baron forgot his age, His noble heart swelled high with rage; He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side Ctjri^tabel 157 He would proclaim it far and wide, With trump and solemn heraldry, 435 That they, who thus had wronged the dame Were base as spotted infamy ! ' And if they dare deny the same. My herald shall appoint a week, And let the recreant traitors seek 440 My tourney court — that there and then I may dislodge their reptile souls From the bodies and forms of men ! ' He spake : his eye in lightning rolls ! For the lady was ruthlessly seized ; and he kenned 445 In the beautiful lady the child of his friend ! And now the tears were on his face. And fondly in his arms he took Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace. Prolonging it with joyous look. 450 Which when she viewed, a vision fell Upon the soul of Christabel, The vision of fear, the touch and pain ! She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again — (Ah, woe is me ! Was it for thee, 455 Thou gentle maid ! such sights to see ?) Again she saw that bosom old. Again she felt that bosom cold, 1 5 8 g>elect l^otm^ o( ColeriDge And drew in her breath with a hissing sound : Whereat the Knight turned wildly round, 460 And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid With eyes upraised, as one that prayed. The touch, the sight, had passed away, And in its stead that vision blest. Which comforted her after-rest, 465 While in the lady's arms she lay. Had put a rapture in her breast. And on her lips and o'er her eyes Spread smiles like light ! With new surprise, ' What ails then my beloved child ? ' 470 The Baron said — His daughter mild Made answer, ' All will yet be well ! * I ween, she had no power to tell Aught else : so mighty was the spell. Yet he, who saw this Geraldine, 475 Had deemed her sure a thing divine. Such sorrow with such grace she blended, As if she feared she had offended Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid ! And with such lowly tones she prayed 480 She might be sent without delay Home to her father's mansion. f Ctiri0tabel 159 ' Nay! Nay, by my soul ! ' said Leoline. ' Ho ! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine ! Go thou, with music sweet and loud, 485 And take two steeds with trappings proud, And take the youth whom thou lov'st best To bear thy harp, and learn thy song, And clothe you both in solemn vest. And over the mountains haste along, 49° Lest wandering folk, that are abroad. Detain you on the valley road. ' And when he has crossed the Irthing flood. My merry bard ! he hastes, he hastes Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood, 495 And reaches soon that castle good Which stands and threatens Scotland's wastes. ' Bard Bracy ! bard Bracy ! your horses are fleet. Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet, More loud than your horses' echoing feet ! 500 And loud and loud to Lord Roland call. Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall ! Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free — Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me. He bids thee come without delay 505 With all thy numerous array; i6o ^tlttt l^otm^ of Coleriuge And take thy lovely daughter home : Ar?d he will meet thee on the way With all his numerous array White with their panting palfreys' foam: 510 And, by mine honour ! I will say, That I repent me of the day When I spake words of fierce disdain To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine ! — — For since that evil hour hath flown, 515 Many a summer's sun hath shone ; Yet ne'er found I a friend again Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine.' The lady fell, and clasped his knees. Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing ; 520 And Bracy replied, with faltering voice, His gracious hail on all bestowing ; ' Thy words, thou sire of Christabel, Are sweeter than my harp can tell ; Yet might I gain a boon of thee, 525 This day my journey should not be. So strange a dream hath come to me ; That I had vowed with music loud To clear yon wood from thing unblest, Warn'd by a vision in my rest ! 53° For in my sleep I saw that dove. That gentle bird, whom thou dost love. And call'st by thy own daughter's name — €W^tn\)t\ i6i Sir Leoline ! I saw the same. Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan, 535 Among the green herbs in the forest alone. Which when I saw and when I heard, I wonder'd what might ail the bird ; For nothing near it could I see, Save the grass and green herbs underneath the old tree. 540 ' And in my dream, methought, I went To search out what might there be found j And what the sweet bird's trouble meant. That thus lay fluttering on the ground. I went and peered, and could descry 545 No cause for her distressful cry ; But yet for her dear lady's sake I stooped, methought, the dove to take, When lo ! I saw a bright green snake Coiled around its wings and neck. 550 Green as the herbs on which it couched. Close by the dove's its head it crouched ; And with the dove it heaves and stirs. Swelling its neck as she swelled hers ! I woke; it was the midnight hour, 555 The clock was echoing in the tower ; But though my slumber was gone by, This dream it would not pass away — It seems to live upon my eye ! 1 6 2 ^tltct ipoenttf of ColeriDge And thence I vowed this self-same day 560 With music strong and saintly song To wander through the forest bare, Lest aught unholy loiter there.' Thus Bracy said : the Baron, the while. Half-listening heard him with a smile; 565 Then turned to Lady Geraldine, His eyes made up of wonder and love ; And said in courtly accents fine, ' Sweet maid. Lord Roland's beauteous dove, With arms more strong than harp or song, 57° Thy sire and I will crush the snake ! ' He kissed her forehead as he spake, And Geraldine in maiden wise Casting down her large bright eyes. With blushing cheek and courtesy fine 575 She turned her from Sir Leoline ; Softly gathering up her train. That o'er her right arm fell again ; And folded her arms across her chest. And couched her head upon her breast, 580 And looked askance at Christabel Jesu, Maria, shield her well ! A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy. And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, 585 Cljrisftabel 163 And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread, At Christabel she look'd askance ! — One moment — and the sight was fled! But Christabel in dizzy trance Stumbling on the unsteady ground 590 Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound ; And Geraldine again turned round. And like a thing, that sought relief. Full of wonder and full of grief. She rolled her large bright eyes divine 595 Wildly on Sir Leoline. The maid, alas ! her thoughts are gone, She nothing sees — no sight but one ! The maid, devoid of guile and sin, I know not how, in fearful wise, 600 So deeply had she drunken in That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, That all her features were resigned To this sole image in her mind : And passively did imitate 605 That look of dull and treacherous hate ! And thus she stood, in dizzy trance. Still picturing that look askance With forced unconscious sympathy Full before her father's view 610 As far as such a look could be In eyes so innocent and blue ! i64 Select ^Doems; of Coleritjge And when the trance was o'er, the maid Paused awhile, and inly prayed : Then falling at the Baron's feet, 615 ' By my mother's soul do I entreat That thou this woman send away ! ' She said : and more she could not say : For what she knew she could not tell, O'er-mastered by the mighty spell. 620 Why is thy cheek so wan and wild, Sir Leoline ? thy only child Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride. So fair, so innocent, so mild ; The same, for whom thy lady died ! 625 O, by the pangs of her dear mother Think thou no evil of thy child ! For her, and thee, and for no other. She prayed the moment ere she died : Prayed that the babe for whom she died, 630 Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride ! That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled. Sir Leoline ! And wouldst thou wrong thy only child. Her child and thine ? 635 Within the Baron's heart and brain If thoughts, like these, had any share, They only swelled his rage and pain. 11 Ctirififtabel 165 And did but work confusion there. His heart was cleft with pain and rage, 640 His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild, Dishonour'd thus in his old age ; Dishonour'd by his only child, And all his hospitality To the insulted daughter of his friend 645 By more than woman's jealousy Brought thus to a disgraceful end — He rolled his eye with stern regard Upon the gentle minstrel bard. And said in tones abrupt, austere — 650 ' Why, Bracy I dost thou loiter here ? I bade thee hence ! ' The bard obeyed ; And turning from his own sweet maid, The aged knight, Sir Leoline, Led forth the lady Geraldine ! 655 THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE SECOND A little child, a limber elf. Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks. That always finds, and never seeks. Makes such a vision to the sight 660 As fills a father's eyes with light ; And pleasures flow in so thick and fast 1 66 Select ^poern^ of Cole riDge Upon his heart, that he at last Must needs express his love's excess With words of unmeant bitterness. 665 Perhaps *tis pretty to force together Thoughts so all unlike each other; To mutter and mock a broken charm, To dally with wrong that does no harm. Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty 670 At each wild word to feel within A sweet recoil of love and pity. And what, if in a world of sin (O sorrow and shame should this be true !) Such giddiness of heart and brain 675 Comes seldom save from rage and pain, So talks as it's most used to do. 1798-1825 Encinctured with a twine of leaves, That leafy twine his only dress ! A lovely Boy was plucking fruits. By moonlight, in a wilderness. The moon was bright, the air was free. And fruits and flowers together grew On many a shrub and many a tree : And all put on a gentle hue. Hanging in the shadowy air Like a picture rich and rare. ii iFrance: an (Due 167 It was a climate where, they say, The night is more belov'd than day. But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd. That beauteous Boy to linger here ? Alone, by night, a little child, 15 In place so silent and so wild — Has he no friend, no loving mother near ? FRANCE: AN ODE 1798-1798 I Ye Clouds ! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may con- troul ! Ye Ocean-Waves ! that, wheresoever ye roll. Yield homage only to eternal laws ! Ye Woods ! that listen to the night-birds' sing- ings _ 5 Midway the smooth and perilous slope re- clined. Save when your own imperious branches swing- ing, Have made a solemn music of the wind ! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod, 10 How oft, pursuing fancies holy. 1 68 ^titct JDoetttfli of Coleriuge My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, Inspired, beyond the guess of folly. By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound ! O ye loud Waves ! and O ye Forests high ! And O ye Clouds that far above me soared ! Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky ! Yea, every thing that is and will be free ! Bear witness for me, wheresoever ye be. With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty. II When France in wrath her giant-limbs upreared. And with that oath, which smote air, earth, and sea. Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free. Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared ! With what a joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band : And when to whelm the disenchanted nation, Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand. The Monarchs marched in evil day. And Britain join'd the dire array ; Though dear her shores and circling ocean. Though many friendships, many youthful loves iFrance: and^ue 169 Had swoln the patriot emotion And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves i 35 Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance. And shame too long delayed and vain retreat ! For ne'er, O Liberty ! with partial aim I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame ; 4° But blessed the paeans of delivered France, And hung my head and wept at Britain's name. Ill * And what,' I said, ' though Blasphemy's loud scream With that sweet music of deliverance strove ! Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove 45 A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream ! Ye storms, that round the dawning east as- sembled. The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light ! ' And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled. The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright ; 5° When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory ; 1 70 Select }|Doem0 of Colerioge When, insupportably advancing, Her arm made mockery of the warrior's ramp ; While timid looks of fury glancing, 55 Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp, Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore; Then I reproached my fears that would not flee; ' And soon,' I said, ' shall Wisdom teach her lore In the low huts of them that toil and groan ! 60 And, conquering by her happiness alone, Shall France compel the nations to be free, Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth their own.' IV Forgive me. Freedom ! O forgive those dreams ! I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, 65 From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent — I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams ! Heroes, that for your peaceful country per- ished. And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows With bleeding wounds ; forgive me, that I cherished 70 One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes ! iFrance: an (Bt>t 171 To scatter rage and traitorous guilt Where Peace her jealous home had built ; A patriot-race to disinherit Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear; 75 And with inexpiable spirit To taint the bloodless freedom of the moun- taineer — O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind. And patriot only in pernicious toils ! Are these thy boasts. Champion of human kind ? 80 To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway. Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey ; To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils From freemen torn ; to tempt and to betray ? V The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, 85 Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain ! O Liberty ! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour ; 90 But thou nor swell' st the victor's strain, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. AHke from all, howe'er they praise thee, 172 Select iponn0 of Coleriuge (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee) Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions, 95 And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves. Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions. The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves ! And there I felt thee ! — on that sea-clifPs verge. Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above, 100 Had made one murmur with the distant surge ! Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare. And shot my being through earth, sea and air. Possessing all things with intensest love, O Liberty ! my spirit felt thee there. 105 FROST AT MIDNIGHT 1798-1798 The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud — and hark, again ! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest. Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings : save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange iFro0t at ^iunigtit 173 And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, lo This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood. With all the numberless goings-on of life. Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not ; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, 15 Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form. Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit 20 By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. But O ! how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, ^5 To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church- tower. Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, 30 So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come ! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, 1 74 ^tlttt ^ponn0 of Coleritige Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams ! 35 And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book : Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, 40 For still I hoped to see the stranger's face. Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved. My play-mate when we both were clothed alike ! Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side. Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, * 45 Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought ! My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee. And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, 50 And in far other scenes ! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim. And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou^ my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags 55 Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds. Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores iFearsf in ^olituue 175 And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God 60 Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher ! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, 65 Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave- drops fall 7© Heard only in the trances of the blast. Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles. Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. FEARS IN SOLITUDE WRITTEN IN APRIL 1798, DURING THE ALARM OF AN INVASION 1798-1798 A GREEN and silent spot, amid the hills, A small and silent dell ! O'er stiller place No singing sky-lark ever poised himself. 1 76 Select poem0 of Coletiuge The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, 5 All golden with the never^bloomless furze, Which now blooms most profusely : but the dell. Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax. When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve, 10 The level sunshine glimmers with green light. Oh ! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook ! Which all, methinks, would love ; but chiefly he. The humble man, who, in his youthful years, Knew just so much of folly, as had made 15 His early manhood more securely wise ! Here he might lie on fern or withered heath, While from the singing lark (that sings unseen The minstrelsy that solitude loves best). And from the sun, and from the breezy air, 20 Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame ; And he, with many feelings, many thoughts, Made up a meditative joy, and found Religious meanings in the forms of Nature ! And so, his senses gradually wrapt 25 In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds. And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark ; That singest like an angel in the clouds ! iFeartf in ^oUtuDe 177 My God ! it is a melancholy thing For such a man, who would full fain preserve 30 His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel For all his human brethren — O my God ! It weighs upon the heart, that he must think What uproar and what strife may now be stirring This way or that way o*er these silent hills — 35 Invasion, and the thunder and the shout, And all the crash of onset ; fear and rage, And undetermined conflict — even now. Even now, perchance, and in his native isle : Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun ! 40 We have offended. Oh ! my countrymen ! We have off'ended very grievously, And been most tyrannous. From east to west A groan of accusation pierces Heaven ! The wretched plead against us ; multitudes 45 Countless and vehement, the sons of God, Our brethren ! Like a cloud that travels on, Steam'd up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence, Even so, my countrymen ! have we gone forth And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs, 50 And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint With slow perdition murders the whole man. His body and his soul ! Meanwhile, at home. All individual dignity and power Engulf 'd in Courts, Committees, Institutions, 55 1 7 8 Select ipoemsf of Coleriuge Associations and Societies, A vain, speech- mouthing, speech - reporting Guild, One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery. We have drunk up, demure as at a grace. Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth ; 60 Contemptuous of all honourable rule. Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's life For gold, as at a market ! The sweet words Of Christian promise, words that even yet Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached, 65 Are muttered o'er by men, whose tones pro- claim How flat and wearisome they feel their trade : Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth. Oh ! blasphemous ! the book of life is made 70 A superstitious instrument, on which We gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break ; For all must swear — all and in every place. College and wharf, council and justice-court ; All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed^ 75 Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest. The rich, the poor, the old man and the young; All, all make up one scheme of perjury. That faith doth reel ; the very name of God i?ear0 in ^olituDe 179 Sounds like a juggler's charm ; and, bold with joy, 80 Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, (Portentous sight ! ) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon. Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close. And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, 85 Cries out, ' Where is it ? ' Thankless too for peace, (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war ! Alas ! for ages ignorant of all 90 Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague. Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,) We, this whole people, have been clamorous For war and bloodshed ; animating sports. The which we pay for as a thing to talk of, 95 Spectators and not combatants ! No guess Anticipative of a wrong unfelt. No speculation on contingency. However dim and vague, too vague and dim To yield a justifying cause ; and forth, 100 (Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names, And adjurations of the God in Heaven,) 1 80 Select IJDonnsf of Coletiuge We send our mandates for the certain death Of thousands and ten thousands ! Boys and girls, And women, that would groan to see a child 105 Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war, The best amusement for our morning meal ! The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers From curses, who knows scarcely words enough To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father, no Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute And technical in victories and defeats. And all our dainty terms for fratricide ; Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which We join no feeling and attach no form ! 116 As if the soldier died without a wound ; As if the fibres of this godlike frame Were gored without a pang ; as if the wretch, Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, 120 Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed ; As though he had no wife to pine for him. No God to judge him ! Therefore, evil days Are coming on us, O my countrymen ! And what if all-avenging Providence, 125 Strong and retributive, should make us know iFearsf in ^oUtuUe i8i The meaning of our words, force us to feel The desolation and the agony Of our fierce doings ? Spare us yet awhile, Father and God ! O ! spare us yet awhile ! 130 Oh ! let not English women drag their flight Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes. Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday Laughed at the breast ! Sons, brothers, hus- bands, all Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms ^35 Which grew up with you round the same fire- side. And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells Without the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure ! Stand forth ! be men ! repel an impious foe, Impious and false, a light yet cruel race, 140 Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth With deeds of murder ; and still promising Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free. Poison life's amities, and cheat the heart Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes 145 And all that lifts the spirit ! Stand we forth ; Render them back upon the insulted ocean. And let them toss as idly on its waves As the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blast 1 8 2 Select lIDoemsf of Coleriuge Swept from our shores ! And oh ! may we return 150 Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear, Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung So fierce a foe to frenzy ! I have told, O Britons ! O my brethren ! I have told Most bitter truth, but without bitterness. iS5 Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed ; For never can true courage dwell with them. Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look At their own vices. We have been too long Dupes of a deep delusion ! Some, belike, 160 Groaning with restless enmity, expect All change from change of constituted power ; As if a Government had been a robe. On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe 165 Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach A radical causation to a few Poor drudges of chastising Providence, Who borrow all their hues and qualities From our own folly and rank wickedness, 17° Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others, meanwhile. irearg in ^olituUe 183 Dote with a mad idolatry ; and all Who will not fall before their images, And yield them worship, they are enemies Even of their country ! Such have I been deemed. — 175 But, O dear Britain ! O my Mother Isle ! Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy To me, a son, a brother, and a friend, A husband, and a father ! who revere All bonds of natural love, and find them all 180 Within the limits of thy rocky shores. O native Britain ! O my Mother Isle ! How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills. Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas. Have drunk in all my intellectual life, 186 All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, All adoration of the God in nature. All lovely and all honourable things. Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel 190 The joy and greatness of its future being ? There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul Unborrowed from my country ! O divine And beauteous island ! thou hast been my sole And most magnificent temple, in the which 195 1 84 Select potm^ of ColertUge I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, Loving the God that made me ! — May my fears, My filial fears, be vain ! and may the vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pass like the gust, that roared and died away 200 In the distant tree : which heard, and only heard In this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass. But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad The fruit -like perfume of the golden furze : The light has left the summit of the hill, 205 Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful, Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell. Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot ! On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill, Homeward I wind my way ; and lo ! recalled 210 From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me, I find myself upon the brow, and pause Startled ! And after lonely sojourning In such a quiet and surrounded nook, This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main. Dim-tinted, there the mighty majesty 216 Of that huge amphitheatre of rich And elmy fields, seems like society — Conversing with the mind, and giving it 2:1)0 ipigtjtingale 185 A livelier impulse and a dance of thought ! 220 And now, beloved Stowey ! I behold Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend ; And close behind them, hidden from my view, Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe 225 And my babe's mother dwell in peace ! With light And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend, Remembering thee, O green and silent dell ! And grateful, that by nature's quietness And solitary musings, all my heart 230 Is soften'd, and made worthy to indulge Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind. THE NIGHTINGALE A CONVERSATION POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL 1798 1798-1798 No cloud, no relique of the sunken day Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge ! You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, 5 1 8 6 g>elect ||Doem0 of Coleritjge But hear no murmuring : it flows silently, O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, A balmy night ! and though the stars be dim, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers That gladden the green earth, and we shall find A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. n And hark ! the Nightingale begins its song, ' Most musical, most melancholy ' bird ! A melancholy bird ? Oh ! idle thought ! In Nature there is nothing melancholy. 15 But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong. Or slow distemper, or neglected love, (And so, poor wretch ! fill'd all things with himself. And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale 20 Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he. First named these notes a melancholy strain. And many a poet echoes the conceit ; Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretched his limbs 25 Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell. By sun or moon-light, to the influxes Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful ! so his fame 30 ti^t jl^tgtjtingale 187 Should share in Nature's immortality, A venerable thing ! and so his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature ! But 'twill not be so ; And youths and maidens most poetical, 35 Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring In ball-rooms- and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. My Friend, and thou, our Sister ! we have learnt 40 A different lore : we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance ! 'Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, 45 As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music ! And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, 50 Which the great lord inhabits not ; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass. Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. 1 88 Select ipoemsf of Colmuge But never elsewhere in one place I knew 55 So many nightingales ; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's songs. With skirmish and capricious passagings. And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, 60 And one low piping sound more sweet than all — Stirring the air with such an harmony. That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day ! On moonlight bushes. Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed, 65 You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full. Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch. A most gentle Maid, Who dwelleth in her hospitable home 70 Hard by the castle, and at latest eve (Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate To something more than Nature in the grove) Glides through the pathways ; she knows all their notes, That gentle Maid ! and oft, a moment's space, 75 t^t jliigtitinple 189 What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence ; till the moon Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky With one sensation, and those wakeful birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, 80 As if some sudden gale had swept at once A hundred airy harps ! And she hath watched Many a nightingale perch giddily On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze. And to that motion tune his wanton song 85 Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head. Farewell, O Warbler ! till to-morrow eve. And you, my friends ! farewell, a short fare- well ! We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes. — That strain again ! 9© Full fain it would delay me ! My dear babe. Who, capable of no articulate sound. Mars all things with his imitative lisp. How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up, 95 And bid us listen ! And I deem it wise To make him Nature's play-mate. He knows well The evening-star ; and once, when he awoke 1 90 g)elect ^jDoentfif of Coleriuge In most distressful mood (some inward pain Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream), 100 I hurried with him to our orchard-plot. And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once, Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears. Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam ! Well ! — It is a father's tale : But if that Heaven 106 Should give me life, his childhood shall grow Familiar with these songs, that with the night He may associate joy. — Once more, farewell. Sweet Nightingale ! once more, my friends ! farewell. WESTPHALIAN SONG 1799?-? [The following is an almost literal translation of a very old and very favourite song among the Westphalian Boors. The turn at the end is the same with one of Mr. Dibdin"" s excellent songs, and the air to which it is sung by the Boors is remarkably sweet and lively.] When thou to my true-love com'st Greet her from me kindly ; When she asks thee how I fare .? Say, folks in Heaven fair finely. t^t JBteit of ttje ^000 1 9 1 When she asks, ' What ! Is he sick ? ' Say, dead ! — and when for sorrow She begins to sob and cry. Say, I come to-morrow. THE VISIT OF THE GODS IMITATED FROM SCHILLER 1799 ?-i8i7 Never, beHeve me. Appear the Immortals, Never alone : Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler, lacchus ! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler ; 5 Lo ! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his throne ! They advance, they float in, the Olympians all ! With Divinities fills my Terrestrial hall ! How shall I yield you 10 Due entertainment, Celestial quire ? Me rather, bright guests ! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance. That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre ! 15 1 9 2 ^tlttt J|Doem0 of ColeriDge Hah ! we mount ! on their pinions they waft up my soul ! O give me the nectar ! O fill me the bowl ! Give him the nectar ! Pour out for the poet, 20 Hebe ! pour free ! Quicken his eyes with celestial dew, That Styx the detested no more he may view. And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be ! Thanks, Hebe ! I quaff it ! lo Paean, I cry ! 25 The wine of the Immortals Forbids me to die ! NAMES [from lessing] 1 799-1 799 I ask'd my fair one happy day. What I should call her in my lay ; By what sweet name from Rome or Greece ; Lalage, Neaera, Chloris, Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris, 5 Arethusa or Lucrece. ' Ah ! ' replied my gentle fair, ' Beloved, what are names but air ? Mater llBallaD 193 Choose thou whatever suits the line ; Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, ^o Call me Lalage or Doris, Only, only call me Thine.' WATER BALLAD i799?-i83i ' Come hither, gently rowing. Come, bear me quickly o'er This stream so brightly flowing To yonder woodland shore. But vain were my endeavour 5 To pay thee, courteous guide ; Row on, row on, for ever I'd have thee by my side. ' Good boatman, prithee haste thee, I seek my father-land.' — '° ' Say, when I there have placed thee. Dare I demand thy hand ? ' ' A maiden's head can never So hard a point decide ; Row on, row on, for ever ^5 I'd have thee by my side.' The happy bridal over The wanderer ceased to roam, For, seated by her lover. 1 94 Select ^)Donn0 of Colerttige The boat became her home. And still they sang together As steering o'er the tide : ' Row on through wind and weather For ever by my side.' LINES WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE HARTZ FOREST 1 799-1 799 I STOOD on Brocken's sovran height, and saw Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills, A surging scene, and only limited By the blue distance. Heavily my way Downward I dragged through fir-groves ever- more. Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms Speckled with sunshine ; and, but seldom heard, The sweet bird's song became an hollow sound ; And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly. Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct From many a note of many a waterfall. And the brook's chatter ; 'mid whose islet- stones Ilmesf 195 The clingy kidling with its tinkling bell Leaped frolicsome, or old romantic goat Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on 15 In low and languid mood : for I had found That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive Their finer influence from the Life within ; — Fair cyphers else : fair, but of import vague Or unconcerning, where the heart not finds 20 History or prophecy of friend, or child. Or gentle maid, our first and early love. Or father, or the venerable name Of our adored country ! O thou Queen, Thou delegated Deity of Earth, 25 O dear, dear England ! how my longing eye Turned westward, shaping in the steady clouds Thy sands and high white cliflFs ! My native Land ! Filled with the thought of thee this heart was proud. Yea, mine eye swam with tears: that all the view 30 From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills, Floated away, like a departing dream. Feeble and dim ! Stranger, these impulses Blame thou not lightly ; nor will I profane. With hasty judgment or injurious doubt, 35 196 Select |ponn0 of Colmtige That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel That God is everywhere ! the God who framed Mankind to be one mighty family, Himself our Father, and the World our Home. SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL WRITTEN IN GERMANY 1 799-1 800 If I had but two little wings And were a little feathery bird. To you I'd fly, my dear ! But thoughts like these are idle things, And I stay here. But in my sleep to you I fly : I'm always with you in my sleep ! The world is all one's own. But then one wakes, and where am I ? All, all alone. Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids : So I love to wake ere break of day : For though my sleep be gone. Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids. And still dreams on. tl\t SDa^^SDream 197 THE DAY-DREAM FROM AN EMIGRANT TO HIS ABSENT WIFE 1799-1802 If thou wert here, these tears were tears of light ! But from as sweet a vision did I start As ever made these eyes grow idly bright ! And though I weep, yet still around my heart A sweet and playful tenderness doth linger, 5 Touching my heart as with an infant's finger. My mouth half open, like a witless man, I saw our couch, I saw our quiet room. Its shadows heaving by the fire-light gloom ; And o'er my lips a subtle feeling ran, 10 All o'er my lips a soft and breeze-like feeling — I know not what — but had the same been stealing Upon a sleeping mother's lips, I guess It would have made the loving mother dream That she was softly bending down to kiss 15 Her babe, that something more than babe did seem, A floating presence of its darling father. And yet its own dear baby self far rather ! 198 ^tlttt l|Doem0 of Coletiuge Across my chest there lay a weight, so warm ! As if some bird had taken shelter there ; ^o And lo ! I seem'd to see a woman's form — Thine, Sara, thine ? O joy, if thine it were ! I gazed with stifled breath, and fear'd to stir it, No deeper trance e'er wrapt a yearning spirit ! And now, when I seem'd sure thy face to see, 25 Thy own dear self in our own quiet home ; There came an elfish laugh, and waken'd me : 'Twas Frederic, who behind my chair had clomb. And with his bright eyes at my face was peep- ing. I bless'd him, tried to laugh, and fell a-weeping ! LOVE 1 799-1 799 All thoughts, all passions, all delights. Whatever stirs this mortal frame. All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I 5 Live o'er again that happy hour. When midway on the mount I lay, Beside the ruined tower. ilotje 199 The moonshine, stealing o*er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve ; 10 And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve ! She leant against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight ; She stood and listened to my lay, 15 Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own. My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve ! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve. 20 I played a soft and doleful air, I sang an old and moving story — An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary. She listened with a flitting blush, 25 With downcast eyes and modest grace; For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face. I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand ; 30 And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land. 200 Select |ponn0 of ColeriDge I told her how he pined : and ah ! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, 35 Interpreted my own. She listened with a flitting blush. With downcast eyes, and modest grace And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face ! 40 But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night ; That sometimes from the savage den, 45 And sometimes from the darksome shade And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, — There came and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright ; 50 And that he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight! And that unknowing what he did. He leaped amid a murderous band, And saved from outrage worse than death 55 The Lady of the Land ! Ilotie 201 And how she wept, and clasped his knees ; And how she tended him in vain — And ever strove to expiate The scorn that crazed his brain ; — 60 And that she nursed him in a cave ; And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay ; — His dying words — but when I reached 65 That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity! All impulses of soul and sense Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve; 70 The music and the doleful tale. The rich and balmy eve; And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng. And gentle wishes long subdued, 75 Subdued and cherished long! She wept with pity and delight. She blushed with love, and virgin-shame ; And like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name. 80 202 ^tltct poems; of Coleriuge Her bosom heaved — she stepped aside, As conscious of my look she stepped — Then suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me and wept. She half enclosed me with her arms, 85 She pressed me with a meek embrace ; And bending back her head, looked up. And gazed upon my face. 'Twas partly love, and partly fear. And partly 'twas a bashful art, 90 That I might rather feel, than see. The swelling of her heart. I calmed her fears, and she was calm. And told her love with virgin pride j And so I won my Genevieve, 95 My bright and beauteous Bride. THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE A FRAGMENT 1799-1834 Beneath yon birch with silver bark. And boughs so pendulous and fair. The brook falls scattered down the rock : And all is mossy there ! t^t llBallaH of t\)t Dark ilatiie 203 And there upon the moss she sits, 5 The Dark Ladie in silent pain ; The heavy tear is in her eye, And drops and swells again. Three times she sends her little page Up the castled mountain's breast, lo If he might find the Knight that wears The Griffin for his crest. The sun was sloping down the sky. And she had linger'd there all day, Counting moments, dreaming fears — 15 Oh wherefore can he stay ? She hears a rustling o'er the brook. She sees far ofF a swinging bough ! ' 'Tis He ! 'Tis my betrothed Knight ! Lord Falkland, it is Thou ! ' ao She springs, she clasps him round the neck, She sobs a thousand hopes and fears. Her kisses glowing on his cheeks She quenches with her tears. ' My friends with rude ungentle words 25 They scofF and bid me fly to thee ! 204 Select l^otm^ of ColetiDge give me shelter in thy breast ! O shield and shelter me ! ' My Henry, I have given thee much, 1 gave what I can ne'er recall, 30 I gave my heart, I gave my peace, O Heaven ! I gave thee all.' The Knight made answer to the Maid, While to his heart he held her hand, ' Nine castles hath my noble sire, 35 None statelier in the land. 'The fairest one shall be my love's, The fairest castle of the nine ! Wait only till the stars peep out, The fairest shall be thine: 4° ' Wait only till the hand of eve Hath wholly closed yon western bars. And through the dark we two will steal Beneath the twinkling stars ! ' — ' The dark ? the dark ? No ! not the dark ? 45 The twinkling stars ? How, Henry ? How ? O God ! 'twas in the eye of noon He pledged his sacred vow ! at Ci)risftma0 Carol 205 ' And in the eye of noon my love Shall lead me from my mother's door, 50 Sweet boys and girls all clothed in white Strewing flowers before : ' But first the nodding minstrels go With music meet for lordly bowers, The children next in snow-white vests, 55 Strewing buds and flowers ! ' And then my love and I shall pace. My jet black hair in pearly braids. Between our comely bachelors And blushing bridal maids.' 60 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 1 799-1 799 The shepherds went their hasty way, And found the lowly stable-shed Where the Virgin-Mother lay : And now they checked their eager tread. For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung, A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung. 2o6 Select jjDoemfl! of Colent)ge 1 They told her how a glorious light, Streaming from a heavenly throng, Around them shone, suspending night ! While sweeter than a mother's song. Blest Angels heralded the Saviour's birth. Glory to God on high ! and Peace on Earth. Ill She listened to the tale divine. And closer still the Babe she pressed ; And while she cried, the Babe is mine ! The milk rushed faster to her breast : Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn ; Peace, Peace on Earth ! the Prince of Peace is born. IV Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace, Poor, simple, and of low estate ! That strife should vanish, battle cease, O why should this thy soul elate ? Sweet Music's loudest note, the Poet's story, Didst thou ne'er love to hear of fame and glory ? And is not War a youthful king, 25 A stately hero clad in mail ? ^ Ct)nsfttttasf Carol 207 Beneath his footsteps laurels spring ; Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail Their friend, their playmate ! and his bold bright eye Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh. 30 VI ' Tell this in some more courtly scene, To maids and youths in robes of state ! I am a woman poor and mean. And therefore is my soul elate. War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled, 35 That from the aged father tears his child ! VII ' A murderous fiend, by fiends adored. He kills the sire and starves the son ; The husband kills, and from her board Steals all his widow's toil had won ; 40 Plunders God's world of beauty ; rends away All safety from the night, all comfort from the day. VIII ' Then wisely is my soul elate. That strife should vanish, battle cease : I'm poor and of a low estate, 45 The Mother of the Prince of Peace. 2o8 Select 1^0tm& of Coleriuge Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn : Peace, Peace on Earth ! the Prince of Peace is born.' THEKLA'S SONG I 800-1 800 The cloud doth gather, the green wood roar, The damsel paces along the shore ; The billows they tumble with might, with might ; And she flings out her voice to the darksome night ; Her bosom is swelling with sorrow ; The world it is empty, the heart will die. There's nothing to wish for beneath the sky : Thou Holy One, call thy child away ! I've lived and loved, and that was to-day — Make ready my grave-clothes to-morrow. THE KEEPSAKE 1 800-1 802 The tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil. The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field. Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust, t^t J^eeps^afee 209 Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark, 5 Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose (In vain the darling of successful love) Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years. The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone. Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk lo By rivulet, or spring, or wet roadside, That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook, Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not ! So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk 15 Has worked (the flowers which most she knew I loved). And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair. In the cool morning twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyous restlessness, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, 20 Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower. Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze. Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung. Making a quiet image of disquiet In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool. 25 There, in that bower where first she owned her love. And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy 2 1 o Select jpoemsf of ColetiDge From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretched The silk upon the frame, and worked her name Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not — Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair ! That forced to wander till sweet spring return, I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look, Her voice (that even in her mirthful mood Has made me wish to steal away and weep). Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss With which she promised, that when spring returned. She would resign one half of that dear name. And own thenceforth no other name but mine ! A STRANGER MINSTREL [written to MRS. ROBINSON, A FEW WEEKS BEFORE H£R DEATH] 1800-1831 As late on Skiddaw's mount I lay supine, Midway th' ascent, in that repose divine When the soul centred in the heart's recess Hath quaff'd its fill of Nature's loveliness. Yet still beside the fountain's marge will stay And fain would thirst again, again to quaff; Then when the tear, slow travelling on its way, Fills up the wrinkles of a silent laugh — 3 Stranger ^inmtl 211 In that sweet mood of sad and humorous thought A form within me rose, within me wrought lo With such strong magic, that I cried aloud, ' Thou ancient Skiddaw by thy helm of cloud, And by thy many-colour'd chasms deep. And by their shadows that for ever sleep. By yon small flaky mists that love to creep 15 Along the edges of those spots of light. Those sunny islands on thy smooth green height. And by yon shepherds with their sheep. And dogs and boys, a gladsome crowd. That rush even now with clamour loud 20 Sudden from forth thy topmost cloud, And by this laugh, and by this tear, I would, old Skiddaw, she were here ! A lady of sweet song is she. Her soft blue eye was made for thee ! 25 ancient Skiddaw, by this tear, 1 would, I would that she were here ! ' Then ancient Skiddaw, stern and proud. In sullen majesty replying. Thus spake from out his helm of cloud 30 (His voice was like an echo dying !) : — ' She dwells belike in scenes more fair. And scorns a mount so bleak and bare.' 2 1 2 ^tlm J^otnas of ColeriDge I only sigh'd when this I heard, Such mournful thoughts within me stirr'd 35 That all my heart was faint and weak, So sorely was I troubled ! No laughter wrinkled on my cheek, But O the tears were doubled ! But ancient Skiddaw green and high 40 Heard and understood my sigh ; And now, in tones less stern and rude, As if he wish'd to end the feud, Spake he, the proud response renewing (His voice was like a monarch wooing) : — 45 ' Nay, but thou dost not know her might. The pinions of her soul how strong ! But many a stranger in my height Hath sung to me her magic song, Sending forth his ecstasy 50 In her divinest melody. And hence I know her soul is free. She is where'er she wills to be, Unfetter'd by mortality ! Now to the " haunted -beach " can fly, 55 Beside the threshold scourged with waves, Now where the maniac wildly raves, " Pale moon^ thou spectre of the sky / " No wind that hurries o'er my height Can travel with so swift a flight. 60 I too, methinks, might merit t^\)t ^noix^^mop 213 The presence of her spirit ! To me too might belong The honour of her song and witching mel- ody, Which most resembles me, 65 Soft, various, and sublime. Exempt from wrongs of Time ! ' Thus spake the mighty Mount, and I Made answer, with a deep-drawn sigh : — ' Thou ancient Skiddaw, by this tear, 70 I would, I would that she were here ! * THE SNOW-DROP [a fragment] i8oo?-i833 Fear thou no more, thou timid Flower ! Fear thou no more the winter's might. The whelming thaw, the ponderous shower. The silence of the freezing night ! Since Laura murmur'd o'er thy leaves The potent sorceries of song. To thee, meek Flowret ! gentler gales And cloudless skies belong. 214 Select ^poem0 of Coleritige Her eye with tearful meanings fraught, My fancy saw her gaze on thee : lo Interpreting the spirit's thought, The spirit's eager sympathy, Now trembled with thy trembling stem And while thou droopedst o'er thy bed With sweet unconscious sympathy 15 Inclin'd the drooping head. 3 She droop'd her head, she stretch'd her arm. She whisper'd low her witching rhymes. Fame unreluctant heard the charm. And bore thee to Pierian climes ! 20 Fear thou no more the Matin Frost That sparkled on thy bed of snow : For there, mid laurels ever green. Immortal thou shalt blow. 4 Thy petals boast a white more soft, 25 The spell hath so perfumed thee, That careless Love shall deem thee oft A blossom from his Myrtle tree. Then laughing o'er the fair deceit Shall race with some Etesian wind 30 (Dtie to 8:ranquilUt^ 215 To seek the woven arboret Where Laura Jies reclin'd. 5 All them whom Love and Fancy grace, When grosser eyes are clos'd in sleep, The gentle spirits of the place 35 Waft up the insuperable steep, On whose vast summit broad and smooth Her nest the Phoenix Bird conceals. And where by cypresses o'erhung The heavenly Lethe steals. 40 6 A sea-like sound the branches breathe, Stirr'd by the Breeze that loiters there ; And all that stretch their limbs beneath. Forget the coil of mortal care. Strange mists along the margins rise, 45 To heal the guests who thither come, And fit the soul to re-endure Its earthly martyrdom. ODE TO TRANQUILLITY 1801-1801 Tranquillity ! thou better name Than all the family of Fame ! 2 1 6 Select l|Doettt0 of ColeriDge Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age To low intrigue, or factious rage ; f'or oh ! dear child of thoughtful Truth, 5 To thee I gave my early youth. And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore. Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom. Power divine, 10 Thy spirit rests ! Satiety And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope And dire Remembrance interlope. To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind : 15 The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks be- hind. But me thy gentle hand will lead At morning through the accustomed mead ; And in the sultry summer's heat Will build me up a mossy seat ; 20 And when the gust of Autumn crowds. And breaks the busy moonlight clouds. Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune. Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon. SDefmion: an elect ipoentflf of Colerttige Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth ! Thou Wind, that rav'st without, Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree. Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, loi Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, Methinks were fitter instruments for thee. Mad Lutanist ! who in this month of showers, Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song, io6 The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among. Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds ! Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold ! What tell'st thou now about ? no 'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout. With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds — At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold ! But hush ! there is a pause of deepest silence ! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, 115 With groans, and tremulous shudderings — all is over — It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud ! A tale of less affright, SDefection : an (DUe 223 And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 120 'Tis of a little child Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her way: And now moans low in bitter grief and fear. And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear. 125 VIII 'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep : Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep ! Visit her, gentle Sleep ! with wings of healing. And may this storm be but a mountain-birth. May all the stars hang bright above her dwell- ing, 130 Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth ! With light heart may she rise. Gay fancy, cheerful eyes, Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice ; To her may all things live, from pole to pole, 135 Their life the eddying of her living soul ! O simple spirit, guided from above, Dear Lady ! friend devoutest of my choice. Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice. 224 Select l^otmsi of ColeriDge THE PICTURE OR THE lover's RESOLUTION 1 802-1 802 Through weeds and thorns, and matted under- wood I force my way ; now climb, and now descend O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts ; while oft unseen. Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves. The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil, I know not, ask not whither ! A new joy, Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust. And gladsome as the first-born of the spring. Beckons me on, or follows from behind. Playmate, or guide ! The master-passion quelled, I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak, Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake Soar up, and form a melancholy vault High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea. Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse ; Here too the love-lorn man, who, sick in soul. And of this busy human heart aweary. Worships the spirit of unconscious life In tree or wild-flower. — Gentle lunatic ! ti)t ^picture 225 If so he might not wholly cease to be, He would far rather not be that he is ; But would be something that he knows not of, In winds or waters, or among the rocks ! 25 But hence, fond wretch ! breathe not conta- gion here ! No myrtle-walks are these : these are no groves Where Love dare loiter ! If in sullen mood He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore His dainty feet, the briar and the thorn 30 Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades ! And you, ye Earth-winds ! you that make at morn The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs ! 35 You, O ye wingless Airs ! that creep between The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze. Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon. The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed — Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp, 40 Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb. Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes ! With prickles sharper than his darts bemock 226 g)elect ^)Doem0 of ColeriDge His little Godship, making him perforce Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back. 45 This is my hour of triumph ! I can now With my own fancies play the merry fool, And laugh away worse folly, being free. Here will I seat myself, beside this old. Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine 5° Clothes as with net-work : here will couch my limbs. Close by this river, in this silent shade. As safe and sacred from the step of man As an invisible world — unheard, unseen, And listening only to the pebbly brook 55 That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound; Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me. Was never Love's accomplice, never raised The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow, 6o And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek ; Ne'er played the wanton — never half disclosed The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth. Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove 65 Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart Shall flow away like a dissolving thing. t^t IDicture 227 Sweet breeze ! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast. That swells its little breast, so full of song, 7° Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert stream ! no pool of thine. Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve. Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe. The face, the form divine, the downcast look 75 Contemplative ! Behold ! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow ! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree. That leans towards its mirror ! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth 80 (For fear is true-love's cruel nurse), he now With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye. Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain. E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed. But not unheeded gazed : for see, ah ! see, 86 The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow, Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells: And suddenly, as one that toys with time, 90 Scatters them on the pool ! Then all the charm Is broken — all that phantom world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, 228 Select J^otma of ColeriDge And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely dar*st lift up thine eyes ! 95 The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return ! And lo ! he stays : And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror ; and behold loo Each wildflower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree — but where, O where the virgin's snowy arm, that leaned On its bare branch ? He turns, and she is gone ! Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze 105 Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth ! Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook. Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou Behold'st her shadow still abiding there, no The Naiad of the mirror ! Not to thee, O wild and desert stream ! belongs this tale : Gloomy and dark art thou — the crowded firs t\it IDtcture 229 spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well : n5 Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream ! This be my chosen haunt — -emancipate From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone, I rise and trace its devious course. O lead, 120 Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. Lo ! stealing through the canopy of firs. How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, Isle of the river, whose disparted waves Dart off asunder with an angry sound, 125 How soon to re-unite ! And see ! they meet, Each in the other lost and found : and see Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye ! With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds, 130 The stains and shadings of forgotten tears. Dimness o'erswum with lustre ! Such the hour Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds; And hark, the noise of a near waterfall ! I pass forth into light — I find myself 135 Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful Of forest trees, the Lady of the Woods), Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock 230 Select l^otmsi of ColeriDge That overbrows the cataract. How bursts The landscape on my sight ! Two crescent hills 140 Fold in behind each other, and so make A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem, With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages. Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet. The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray, 145 Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall. How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass Swings in its winnow : All the air is calm. The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light. Rises in columns ; from this house alone, 150 Close by the waterfall, the column slants. And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this ? That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke, And close beside its porch a sleeping child, His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dog — iS5 One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers, Unfilleted, and of unequal lengths. A curious picture, with a master's haste Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin, 160 Peeled from the birchen bark ! Divinest maid ! Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries Her pencil ! See, the juice is scarcely dried On the fine skin ! She has been newly here ; And lo ! yon patch of heath has been her couch — ^^5 The pressure still remains ! O blessed couch ! For this may'st thou flower early, and the sun, Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long Upon thy purple bells ! O Isabel ! Daughter of genius ! stateliest of our maids ! 170 More beautiful than whom Alcaeus wooed, The Lesbian woman of immortal song ! O child of genius ! stately, beautiful. And full of love to all, save only me, And not ungentle e'en to me ! My heart, 175 Why beats it thus ? Through yonder coppice- wood Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straight- way On to her father's house. She is alone ! The night draws on — such ways are hard to hit — And fit it is I should restore this sketch, 180 Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn To keep the relique ? 'twill but idly feed The passion that consumes me. Let me haste ! The picture in my hand which she has left ; She cannot blame me that I follow'd her : 185 And I may be her guide the long wood through. 232 g)elect ^poenttf of ColeriDge HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI 1802-1802 Besides the Rivers, Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides ; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its < flowers of loveliest blue. ' Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc ! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful Form ! 5 Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently ! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black. An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge ! But when I look again, 10 It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity ! dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee. Till thou, still present to the bodily sense. Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer 15 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. fli^^mn before ^un^ri^e 233 Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it. Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought, Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy : 20 Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused. Into the mighty vision passing — there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven ! Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, 25 Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake, Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn. Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the- Vale ! O struggling with the darkness all the night, 3° And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink : Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald : wake, O wake, and utter praise ! 35 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth ? Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 234 Select JDoems; of Coleritjge And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! Who called you forth from night and utter death, 40 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever ? Who gave you your invulnerable life. Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your Py, 45 Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ? Ye Ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain — 50 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice. And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 55 Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? — God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations. Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice ! 60 Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ! J^^mn before g^un^ri^e 235 And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! 65 Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm ! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the element ! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! Thou too, hoar Mount ! with thy sky- pointing peaks, 70 Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard. Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast — Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 75 In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, To rise before me — Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth ! 80 Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills. Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. ^5 236 ^tlttt J^otma of ColertUge AN ODE TO THE RAIN COMPOSED BEFORE DAYLIGHT, ON THE MORNING APPOINTED FOR THE DEPARTURE OF A VERY WORTHY, BUT NOT VERY PLEASANT VISITOR, WHOM IT WAS FEARED THE RAIN MIGHT DETAIN 1802-1802 I KNOW it is dark; and though I have lain, Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain, I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes, But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies. Rain ! that I lie listening to, 5 You're but a doleful sound at best : 1 owe you little thanks, 'tis true. For breaking thus my needful rest ! Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain ! you will but take your flight, 10 ril neither rail, nor malice keep. Though sick and sore for want of sleep. But only now, for this one day. Do go, dear Rain ! do go away ! II O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound, 15 The clash hard by, and the murmur all round ! 0n (Di5e to t\)t Hain 237 You know, if you know aught, that we. Both night and day, but ill agree : For days and months, and almost years. Have limp'd on through this vale of tears, ao Since body of mine, and rainy weather, Have lived on easy terms together. Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain ! you will but take your flight. Though you should come again to-morrow, ^5 And bring with you both pain and sorrow ; Though stomach should sicken and knees should swell — ril nothing speak of you but well. But only now for this one day. Do go, dear Rain ! do go away ! 3° III Dear Rain ! I ne'er refused to say You're a good creature in your way ; Nay, I could write a book myself. Would fit a parson's lower shelf, Showing how very good you are. — 35 What then ? sometimes it must be fair ! And if sometimes, why not to-day ? Do go, dear Rain ! do go away ! IV Dear Rain ! if Fve been cold and shy, Take no offence ! Til tell you why. 4© 238 Select ^)Doem0 of Coleriuge A dear old Friend e'en nbw is here, And with him came my sister dear ; After long absence now first met, Long months by pain and grief beset — We three dear friends ! in truth, we groan 45 Impatiently to be alone. We three, you mark ! and not one more ! The strong wish makes my spirit sore. We have so much to talk about, So many sad things to let out ; 50 So many tears in our eye-corners. Sitting like little Jacky Homers — In short, as soon as it is day. Do go, dear Rain ! do go away. And this I'll swear to you, dear Rain ! 55 Whenever you shall come again. Be you as dull as e'er you could (And by the bye 'tis understood. You're not so pleasant as you're good). Yet, knowing well your worth and place, 60 I'll welcome you with cheerful face ; And though you stay'd a week or more, Were ten times duller than before ; Yet with kind heart, and right good will, I'll sit and listen to you still; 65 Nor should you go away, dear Rain ! 3Infifctiption for a ifountain 239 Uninvited to remain. But only now, for this one day, Do go, dear Rain ! do go away. INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH 1 802-1 802 This Sycamore, oft musical with bees, — Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long un- harmed May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy The small round basin, which this jutting stone Keeps pure from falling leaves ! Long may the Spring, 5 Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath. Send up cold waters to the traveller With soft and even pulse ! Nor ever cease Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance. Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page, lo As merry and no taller, dances still. Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount. Here twilight is and coolness : here is moss, A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade. Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree. 15 Drink, Pilgrim, here ! Here rest ! and if thy heart 240 Select Ifpotm^ of ColeriDge Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound. Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees ! ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION I 802-1 802 Do you ask what the birds say ? The Sparrow, the Dove, The Linnet and Thrush say, ' I love and I love ! ' In the winter they're silent — the wind is so strong ; What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, 5 And singing, and loving — all come back to- gether. [' I love, and I love,' almost all the birds say From sunrise to star-rise, so gladsome are they !] But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love. The green fields below him, the blue sky above, 10 That he sings, and he sings j and for ever sings he — ' I love my Love, and my Love loves me ! * t^t J^Kina ot ^Ittp 241 ['Tis no wonder that he's full of joy to the brim, When he loves his Love, and his Love loves him!] THE PAINS OF SLEEP 1803-1817 Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees ; But silently, by slow degrees. My spirit I to Love compose, 5 In humble trust mine eye-lids close. With reverential resignation. No wish conceived, no thought exprest, Only a seme of supplication ; A sense o'er all my soul imprest 10 That I am weak, yet not unblest, Since in me, round me, every where Eternal Strength and Wisdom are. But yester-night I pray'd aloud In anguish and in agony, 15 Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me : A lurid light, a trampling throng. Sense of intolerable wrong. 242 ^tlttt l^otm^ of Colmtige And whom I scorned, those only strong ! 20 Thirst of revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, and yet burning still ! Desire with loathing strangely mixed On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl ! 25 And shame and terror over all ! Deeds to be hid which were not hid. Which all confused I could not know Whether I suffered, or I did : For all seemM guilt, remorse or woe, 30 My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame ! So two nights passed : the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me 35 Distemper's worst calamity. The third night, when my own loud scream Had waked me from the fiendish dream, O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, I wept as I had been a child ; 40 And having thus by tears subdued My anguish to a milder mood. Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stained with sin : For aye entempesting anew 45 The unfathomable hell within a ^xtxim 243 The horror of their deeds to view. To know and loathe, yet wish and do ! Such griefs with such men well agree. But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ? 50 To be beloved is all I need. And whom I love, I love indeed. PHANTOM 1 804-1 8 34 All look and likeness caught from earth, All accident of kin and birth, Had pass'd away. There was no trace Of aught on that illumined face, Upraised beneath the rifted stone But of one spirit all her own ; — She, she herself, and only she. Shone through her body visibly. A SUNSET 1805-? Upon the mountain's edge with light touch resting, There a brief while the globe of splendour sits And seems a creature of the earth, but soon. More changeful than the Moon, To wane fantastic his great orb submits, 244 ^tltct JJDoemfif of ColeriJ)ge Or cone or mow of fire : till sinking slowly Even to a star at length he lessens wholly. Abrupt, as Spirits vanish, he is sunk ! A soul-like breeze possesses all the wood. The boughs, the sprays have stood As motionless as stands the ancient trunk ! But every leaf through all the forest flutters, And deep the cavern of the fountain mutters. MS. WHAT IS LIFE? 1805-1829 Resembles life what once was deem'd of light. Too ample in itself for human sight ? An absolute self — an element ungrounded — All that we see, all colours of all shade By encroach of darkness made ? — Is very life by consciousness unbounded ? And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, A war-embrace of wrestling life and death ? CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT 1805?-! 828 Since all that beat about in Nature's range. Or veer or vanish ; why should'st thou remain Cons^tanc^ to an 31t)eal (Bhitct 245 The only constant In a world of change, yearning Thought ! that liv'st but in the brain ? Call to the Hours, that in the distance play, 5 The faery people of the future day Fond Thought ! not one of all that shining swarm Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath, Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm, Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death ! 10 Yet still thou haunt'st me ; and though well I see, She is not thou, and only thou art she, Still, still as though some dear embodied Good, Some living Love before my eyes there stood With answering look a ready ear to lend, 15 1 mourn to thee and say — ' Ah ! loveliest friend ! That this the meed of all my toils might be. To have a home, an English home, and thee ! * Vain repetition ! Home and Thou are one. The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon, 20 Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark, Without thee were but a becalmed bark. Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside. And art thou nothing ? Such thou art, as when 25 The woodman winding westward up the glen At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze 246 ^tlttt l^otmfS of Coleriuge The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze. Sees full before him, gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head ; The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues, Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues ! THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY DATE-TREE 1805-1828 A LAMENT I seem to have an indistinct recollection of having read either in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew writers, an apologue or Rabbinical tradition to the following purpose : While our first parents stood before their offended Maker, and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the begin- ning, presumptuously took on himself the character of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, exclaimed : ' Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so ! for the man was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise.' And the word of the Most High answered Satan : ' T/ie tender mercies of the ivicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend ! if with guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now coun- sellest, should have been inflicted on thyself.' The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact men- tioned by Linnaeus, of a date-tree in a nobleman's garden which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, but never pro- duced fruit, till a branch from another date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of some hundred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. liBlosf^oming of tlie SDate^tree 247 from which the poem has been transcribed, and which contained the two or three introductory stanzas, is wanting : and the author has in vain taxed his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader is requested to receive it as the substitute. It is not impossible, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed those of the Author at the time the poem was written, may find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integrity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite metre. S. T. C. Beneath the blaze of a tropical sun the moun- tain peaks are the Thrones of Frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. ' What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own.' The presence of a one, The best belov'd, who loveth me the best, is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and all without, that would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen and crushes it into flatness. 2 The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and lovelier the object pre- sented to the sense ; the more exquisite the in- dividual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and opportunities of enjoyment, the 248 Select ipoemsi of Colmoge more heavily will he feel the ache of solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him. What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them ? 23 3 Imagination ; honourable aims ; Free commune with the choir that cannot die ; 25 Science and song ; delight in little things. The buoyant child surviving in the man ; Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean, sky. With all their voices — O dare I accuse My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen, 30 Or call my destiny niggard ! O no ! no ! It is her largeness, and her overflow. Which being incomplete, disquieteth me so ! 4 For never touch of gladness stirs my heart. But tim'rously beginning to rejoice 35 Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start In lonesome tent, I listen for thy voice. Beloved ! 'tis not thine; thou art not there ! Then melts the bubble into idle air. And wishing without hope I restlessly despair. 40 t\)on^\)t ,^ugge0teD b^ a Witfs) 249 5 The mother with anticipated glee Smiles o'er the child, that, standing by her chair And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her knee, Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight 45 She hears her own voice with a new delight ; And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes aright, 6 Then is she tenfold gladder than before ! But should disease or chance the darling take, What then avail those songs, which sweet of yore 50 Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake ? Dear maid ! no prattler at a mother's knee Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee : Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me? A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY A VIEW OF SADDLEBACK IN CUMBERLAND i 1806-1833 ] On stern Blencartha's perilous height The winds are tyrannous and strong; 250 ^tlttt l|Donn0 of ColeriDge And flashing forth unsteady light From stern Blencartha's skiey height, As loud the torrents throng ! Beneath the moon, in gentle weather. They bind the earth and sky together. But oh ! the sky and all its forms, how quiet ! The things that seek the earth, how full of noise and riot ! AD VILMUM AXIOLOGUM 1806-1893 ? This be the meed, that thy song creates a thousand-fold echo ! Sweet as the warble of woods, that awakes at the gale of the morning ! List ! the Hearts of the Pure, like caves in the ancient mountains Deep, deep in the Bosom, a.nd /rom the Bosom resound it. Each with a different tone, complete or in musical fragments — All have welcomed thy Voice, and receive and retain and prolong it ! This is the word of the Lord ! it is spoken and Beings Eternal ^J^^^Ut^^TT^f^*^^^^ AFTER THE PORTRAIT BY HANCOCK PAINTED IN WORDSWORTH'S TWENTY-EIGHTH YEAR. ^0 a Gentleman 251 Live and are borne as an Infant, the Eternal begets the Immortal, Love is the Spirit of Life, and Music the Life of the Spirit ! MS. TO A GENTLEMAN COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RE- CITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND 1807-1815 Friend of the wise ! and Teacher of the Good ! Into my heart have I received that Lay More than historic, that prophetic Lay Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright) Of the foundations and the building up Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell What may be told, to the understanding mind Revealable ; and what within the mind By vital breathings secret as the soul Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart Thoughts all too deep for words ! — Theme hard as high ! Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth), 252 Select ^poems? of Colerioge Of tides obedient to external force, And currents self-determined, as might seem, 15 Or by some inner Power ; of moments awful, Now in thy inner life, and now abroad. When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received The light reflected, as a light bestowed — Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, 20 Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens Native or outland, lakes and famous hills \ Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars Were rising ; or by secret mountain-streams, 25 The guides and the companions of thy way ! Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and man beloved as man. Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst 30 Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the main. For thou wert there, thine own brows gar- landed. Amid the tremor of a realm aglow. Amid a mighty nation jubilant, 35 When from the general heart of human kind Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity ! • io a Gentleman 253 Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down, So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self, 40 With light unwaning on her eyes, to look Far on — herself a glory to behold, The Angel of the vision ! Then (last strain) Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice. Action and joy ! — An orphic song indeed, 45 A song divine of high and passionate thoughts To their own music chaunted ! O great Bard ! Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air. With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir Of ever-enduring men. The truly great 50 Have all one age, and from one visible space Shed influence! They, both in power and act, Are permanent, and Time is not with them^ Save as it worktih for them, they in it. Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old, 55 And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame Among the archives of mankind, thy work Makes audible a linked lay of Truth, Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay, Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes ! 60 254 Select iponnsf of ColeriDge Ah ! as I listenM with a heart forlorn, The pulses of my being beat anew : And even as life returns upon the drowned, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains — Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe 65 Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ; And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope ; And hope that scarce would know itself from fear ; Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain. And genius given, and knowledge won in vain ; 70 And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild. And all which patient toil had reared, and all. Commune with thee had opened out — but flowers Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same cofEn, for the self-same grave! 75 That way no more ! and ill beseems it me, Who came a welcomer in herald's guise. Singing of glory, and futurity. To wander back on such unhealthful road. Plucking the poisons of self-harm ! And ill 80 Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths Strew'd before thy advancing ! to a Gentleman 255 Nor do thou, Sage Bard ! impair the memory of that hour Of thy communion with my nobler mind By pity or grief, already felt too long ! 85 Nor let my words import more blame than needs. The tumult rose and ceased : for Peace is nigh Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms. The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours 9° Already on the wing. Eve following eve. Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home Is sweetest ! moments for their own sake hailed And more desired, more precious, for thy song. In silence listening, like a devout child, 95 My soul lay passive, by thy various strain Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, With momentary stars of my own birth. Fair constellated foam, still darting off Into the darkness ; now a tranquil sea, 100 Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon. And when — O Friend ! my comforter and guide ! 256 Select ^poems? of Coleriuge Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength ! — Thy long sustained Song finally closed, And thy deep voice had ceased — yet thou thyself 105 Wert still before my eyes, and round us both That happy vision of beloved faces — Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close I sate, my being blended in one thought (Thought was it ? or aspiration ? or resolve ?) "o Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound — And when I rose, I found myself in prayer. A DAY-DREAM i8o7?-i828 My eyes make pictures, when they are shut : I see a fountain, large and fair, A willow and a ruined hut, And thee, and me and Mary there. O Mary ! make thy gentle lap our pillow ! 5 Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow ! A wild-rose roofs the ruined shed. And that and summer well agree : And lo ! where Mary leans her head. Two dear names carved upon the tree ! 10 1 S[>a^^2r>ream 257 And Mary's tears, they are not tears of sorrow : Our sister and our friend will both be here to- morrow. 'Twas day ! but now few, large, and bright, The stars are round the crescent moon ! And now it is a dark warm night, 15 The balmiest of the month of June ! A glow-worm fall'n, and on the marge re- mounting Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain. O ever — ever be thou blest ! For dearly, Asra ! love I thee ! 20 This brooding warmth across my breast. This depth of tranquil bliss — ah, me! Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither. But in one quiet room we three are still together. The shadows dance upon the wall, 25 By the still dancing fire-flames made; And now they slumber moveless all ! And now they melt to one deep shade ! But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee : I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee ! 30 258 Select IJDonnsf of ColeriDge Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play — 'Tis Mary's hand upon my brow ! But let me check this tender lay Which none may hear but she and thou! Like the still hive at quiet midnight hum- ming, 35 Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved wo- men ! RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE 1807?-! 81 7 I How warm this woodland wild recess ! Love surely hath been breathing here : And this sweet bed of heath, my dear ! Swells up, then sinks with faint caress, As if to have you yet more near. II Eight springs have flown, since last I lay On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills, Where quiet sounds from hidden rills Float here and there, like things astray. And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills. KecoUectiottfif of JLol3e 259 III No voice as yet had made the air Be music with your name ; yet why That asking look ? that yearning sigh ? That sense of promise every where ? Beloved ! flew your spirit by ? 15 IV As when a mother doth explore The rose-mark on her long-lost child, I met, I loved you, maiden mild ! As whom I long had loved before — So deeply had I been beguiled. You stood before me like a thought, A dream remembered in a dream. But when those meek eyes first did seem To tell me. Love within you wrought — O Greta, dear domestic stream ! ^5 VI Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep, Has not Love's whisper evermore Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar ? Sole voice, when other voices sleep. Dear under-song in Clamour's hour. 30 26o Select IDoems; of ColeriDge A TOMBLESS EPITAPH 1809 ?-i8o9 'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane ! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends. Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal) 'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths. And honouring with religious love the Great Of elder times, he hated to excess. With an unquiet and intolerant scorn. The hollow puppets of an hollow age. Ever idolatrous, and changing ever Its worthless idols ! Learning, power, and time, (Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true. Whole years of weary days, besieged him close. Even to the gates and inlets of his life ! But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm. And with a natural gladness, he maintained The citadel unconquered, and in joy Was strong to follow the delightful Muse. For not a hidden path, that to the shades Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads. Lurked undiscovered by him ; not a rill There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, iO 1 IDottrait of ^it George Wtmmont 261 But he had traced it upward to its source, 25 Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell. Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone, Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, " 30 He bade with lifted torch its starry walls Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts ! O studious Poet, eloquent for truth ! 35 Philosopher ! contending wealth and death. Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love ! Here, rather than on monumental stone. This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek. 40 PORTRAIT OF SIR GEORGE BEAU- MONT 1814-1817 Zulimez {speaking of Alvar in the third person). Such was the noble Spaniard's own rela- tion. He told me, too, how in his early youth. And his first travels, 'twas his choice or chance To make long sojourn in sea-wedded Venice; 262 Select l^otm& of Coleriuge There won the love of that divine old man. Courted by mightiest kings, the famous Titian ! Who, like a second and more lovely Nature, By the sweet mystery of lines and colours Changed the blank canvas to a magic mirror, That made the Absent present ; and to Shadows lo Gave light, depth, substance, bloom, yea, thought and motion. He loved the old man, and revered his art : And though of noblest birth and ample for- tune. The young enthusiast thought it no scorn But this inalienable ornament. To be his pupil, and with filial zeal By practice to appropriate the sage lessons. Which the gay, smiling old man gladly gave. The Art, he honoured thus, requited him : And in the following and calamitous years ao Beguiled the hours of his captivity. Alhadra. And then he framed this picture ? and unaided By arts unlawful, spell, or talisman ! Alvar. A potent spell, a mighty talisman ! The imperishable memory of the deed, 25 Sustained by love, and grief, and indignation ! So vivid were the forms within his brain. His very eyes, when shut, made pictures of them ! J Jaunting ^ong 263 GLYCINE'S SONG 1815-1817 A SUNNY shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted : And poised therein a bird so bold — Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted ! He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled 5 Within that shaft of sunny mist ; His eyes of fire, his beak of gold, All else of amethyst ! And thus he sang : ' Adieu ! adieu ! Love's dreams prove seldom true. 10 The blossoms they make no delay : The sparkling dew-drops will not stay. Sweet month of May, We must away ; Far, far away! *5 To-day ! to-day ! HUNTING SONG 1815-1817 Up, up ! ye dames, and lasses gay ! To the meadows trip away. 'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn. And scare the small birds from the corn. Not a soul at home may stay : 5 264 ^tlttt IJDonns; of Colmuge For the shepherds must go With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day. Leave the hearth and leave the house To the cricket and the mouse : 10 Find grannam out a sunny seat, With babe and lambkin at her feet. Not a soul at home may stay : For the shepherds must go With lance and bow 15 To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day. TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY AN ALLEGORY 1815-1817 On the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread. Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother ! 5 This far outstript the other ; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind : For he, alas ! is blind ! O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, 10 And knows not whether he be first or last. THE KNIGHT'S TOMB i8i7?-i834 Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn ? Where may the grave of that good man be ? — By the side of a spring, on the breast of Hel- vellyn, Under the twigs of a young birch tree ! The oak that in summer w^as sweet to hear, And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year. And \vhistled and roar'd in the winter alone. Is gone, — and the birch in its stead is grown. — The Knight's bones are dust. And his good sword rust ; — His soul is with the saints, I trust. FANCY IN NUBIBUS OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS 1819-1819 O ! IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies. To make the shifting clouds be what you please. Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy ; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks j and then, a traveller, go 266 Select poems? of Coleriuge From mount to mount through Cloudland, gor- geous land ! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward light. Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. TO NATURE i82o?-i836 It may indeed be phantasy when I Essay to draw from all created things Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings ; And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety. So let it be ; and if the wide world rings In mock of this belief, it brings Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity. So will I build my altar in the fields. And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be. And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice. [I^outl^ auD 0ge 267 YOUTH AND AGE 1823-1828 Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee — Both were mine! Life went a-maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young ! 5 When I was young ? — Ah, woful When ! Ah ! for the change 'twixt Now and Then ! This breathing house not built with hands. This body that does me grievous wrong. O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, 10 How lightly then it flashed along : — Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide. That ask no aid of sail or oar. That fear no spite of wind or tide ! iS Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together. Flowers are lovely ; Love is flower-like ; Friendship is a sheltering tree ; O ! the joys, that came down shower-like, 20 Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old ! Ere I was old ? Ah woful Ere, W^hich tells me, Youth's no longer here ! 268 Select ^ppems! of Colerttige Youth ! for years so many and sweet, 25 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, ril think it but a fond conceit — It cannot be that Thou art gone ! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd : — And thou wert aye a masker bold ! 30 What strange disguise hast now put on. To make believe^ that thou art gone ? 1 see these locks in silvery slips. This drooping gait, this altered size : But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, 35 And tears take sunshine from thine eyes ! Life is but thought : so think I will That Youth and I are house-mates still. Dew-drops are the gems of morning. But the tears of mournful eve ! 40 Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve. When we are old : That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-leave, 45 Like some poor nigh-related guest. That may not rudely be dismist ; Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile. aiice 2r>u Cloflf 269 LOVE'S FIRST HOPE 1824-1834 O FAIR is Love's first hope to gentle mind ! As Eve's first star thro' fleecy cloudlet peeping ; And sw^eeter than the gentle south-vv^est vi^ind, O'er willowy meads, and shadow'd waters creeping, And Ceres' golden fields ; — the sultry hind Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping. ALICE DU CLOS OR THE FORKED TONGUE A BALLAD i825?-i834 ' One word with two meanings is the traitor's shield and shaft : and a slit tongue be his blazon ! ' Caucasian Pronjerb, ' The Sun is not yet risen, But the dawn lies red on the dew : Lord Julian has stolen from the hunters away. Is seeking. Lady, for you. Put on your dress of green. Your buskins and your quiver ; Lord Julian is a hasty man, Long waiting brook'd he never. I dare not doubt him, that he means 270 Select UDoenis; of Coleriuge To wed you on a day, lo Your lord and master for to be, And you his lady gay. Lady ! throw your book aside ! 1 would not that my Lord should chide.* Thus spake Sir Hugh the vassal knight 15 To Alice, child of old Du Clos, As spotless fair, as airy light As that moon-shiny doe. The gold star on its brow, her sire's ancestral crest ! For ere the lark had left his nest, 20 She in the garden bower below Sate loosely wrapt in maiden white. Her face half drooping from the sight, A snow-drop on a tuft of snow ! O close your eyes, and strive to see 2$ The studious maid, with book on knee, — Ah ! earliest-open'd flower ; While yet with keen unblunted light The morning star shone opposite The lattice of her bower — 30 Alone of all the starry host. As if in prideful scorn Of flight and fear he stay'd behind, To brave th' advancing morn. Met 2r>u Clo0 271 ! Alice could read passing well, 35 And she was conning then Dan Ovid's mazy tale of loves, And gods, and beasts, and men. The vassal's speech, his taunting vein, It thriird like venom thro' her brain ; 40 Yet never from the book She rais'd her head, nor did she deign The knight a single look. ' OfF, traitor friend ! how dar'st thou fix Thy wanton gaze on me ? 45 And why, against my earnest suit. Does Julian send by thee ? ' Go, tell thy Lord, that slow is sure : Fair speed his shafts to-day ! 1 follow here a stronger lure, 50 And chase a gentler prey.' She said : and with a baleful smile The vassal knight reel'd ofF — Like a huge billow from a bark Toil'd in the deep sea-trough, 55 That shouldering sideways in mid plunge, Is travers'd by a flash. And staggering onward, leaves the ear With dull and distant crash. 272 ^rlett l^otmii of Coleriuge And Alice sate with troubled mien 60 A moment ; for the scoff was keen, And thro' her veins did shiver ! Then rose and donn'd her dress of green, Her buskins and her quiver. There stands the flow'ring may-thorn tree ! 65 From thro' the veiling mist you see The black and shadowy stem ; — Smit by the sun the mist in glee Dissolves to lightsome jewelry — Each blossom hath its gem ! 7° With tear-drop glittering to a smile, The gay maid on the garden-stile Mimics the hunter's shout. ' Hip ! Florian, hip ! To horse, to horse ! Go, bring the palfrey out. 75 ' My Julian's out with all his clan, And, bonny boy, you wis, Lord Julian is a hasty man. Who comes late, comes amiss.' Now Florian was a stripling squire, 80 A gallant boy of Spain, That toss'd his head in joy and pride, Behind his Lady fair to ride. But blush'd to hold her train. ^lice 2r>u Closf 273 The huntress is in her dress of green, — 85 And forth they go ; she with her bow, Her buskins and her quiver ! — The squire — no younger e'er was seen — With restless arm and laughing een, He makes his javelin quiver. 90 And had* not Ellen stayM the race, And stopp'd to see, a moment's space. The whole great globe of light Give the last parting kiss-like touch To the eastern ridge, it lack'd not much, 95 They had o'erta'en the knight. It chanced that up the covert lane, Where Julian waiting stood, A neighbour knight prick'd on to join The huntsmen in the wood. 100 And with him must Lord Julian go, Tho' with an anger'd mind : Betroth'd not wedded to his bride, In vain he sought, 'twixt shame and pride, Excuse to stay behind. 10^ He bit his lip, he wrung his glove. He look'd around, he look'd above. But pretext none could find or frame. 2 74 Select poem0 of Colmuge Alas ! alas ! and well-a-day ! It grieves me sore to think, to say, That names so seldom meet with Love, Yet Love wants courage without a name ! Straight from the forest's skirt the trees O'er-branching, made an aisle, Where hermit old might pace and chaunt As in a minster's pile. From underneath its leafy screen, And from the twilight shade. You pass at once into a green, A green and lightsome glade. And there Lord Julian sate on steed ; Behind him, in a round. Stood knight and squire, and menial train ; Against the leash the greyhounds strain ; The horses paw'd the ground. When up the alley green. Sir Hugh Spurr'd in upon the sward. And mute, without a word, did he Fall in behind his lord. Lord Julian turn'd his steed half round, — ' What ! doth not Alice deign Met SDu Closi 275 To accept your loving convoy, knight ? Or doth she fear our woodland sleight, And joins us on the plain ? ' With stifled tones the knight replied, 135 And look'd askance on either side, — ' Nay, let the hunt proceed ! — The Lady's message that I bear, I guess would scantly please your ear, And less deserves your heed. 140 ' You sent betimes. Not yet unbarr'd I found the middle door ; — Two stirrers only met my eyes. Fair Alice, and one more. ' I came unlook'd for : and, it seem'd, i4S In an unwelcome hour ; And found the daughter of Du Clos Within the latticed bower. ' But hush ! the rest may wait. If lost. No great loss, I divine ; 150 And idle words will better suit A fair maid's lips than mine.* ' God's wrath ! speak out, man,' JuHan cried, O'ermaster'd by the sudden smart ; — 276 Select ijDoems of ColeriDge And feigning wrath, sharp, blunt, and rude, 155 The knight his subtle shift pursued. — ' Scowl not at me ; command my skill. To lure your hawk back, if you will. But not a woman's heart. ' " Go ! (said she) tell him, — slow is sure ; 160 Fair speed his shafts to-day ! I follow here a stronger lure. And chase a gentler prey." ' The game, pardie, was full in sight, That then did, if I saw aright, 165 The fair dame's eyes engage ; For turning, as I took my ways, I saw them fix'd with steadfast gaze Full on her wanton page.' The last word of the traitor knight 170 It had but entered Julian's ear, — From two o'erarching oaks between. With glist'ning helm-like cap is seen. Borne on in giddy cheer, A youth, that ill his steed can guide ; 175 Yet with reverted face doth ride. As answering to a voice. That seems at once to laugh and chide — 2[>ttt^ ^urtjibing ^elf^lLobe 277 ' Not mine, dear mistress/ still he cried, ' 'Tis this mad filly's choice.' i8o With sudden bound, beyond the boy. See ! see ! that face of hope and joy. That regal front ! those cheeks aglow ! Thou needed'st but the crescent sheen, A quiver'd Dian to have been, 185 Thou lovely child of old Du Clos ! Dark as a dream Lord Julian stood, Swift as a dream, from forth the wood. Sprang on the plighted Maid ! With fatal aim, and frantic force, 19° The shaft was hurl'd ! — a lifeless corse, Fair Alice from her vaulting horse Lies bleeding on the glade. DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE A SOLILOQUY 1826-1828 Unchanged within, to see all changed with- out, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret ? 278 ^tkct ^ponn0 of Colmuge Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, TVhile^ and on whom^ thou may'st — shine on ! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite : And though thou notest from thy safe recess Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air. Love them for what they are ; nor love them less, Because to thee they are not what they were. WORK WITHOUT HOPE LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY 1827 1827-1828 All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair — The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring ! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing. Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. ♦anu mt 31 ^atD ^im ^tra^ ' 279 Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye amaranths ! bloom for whom ye may. For me ye bloom not ! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll : And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul ? Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve. And Hope without an object cannot live. 'AND OFT I SAW HIM STRAY' 1828-1835 ' And oft I saw him stray. The bells of fox-glove in his hand — and ever And anon he to his ear would hold a blade Of that stiff grass that 'mong the heath-flower grows. Which made a subtle kind of melody, Most like the apparition of a breeze. Singing with its thin voice in shadowy worlds.' 28o Select jponnsf of Coleriuge THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO 1828-1829 Of late, in one of those most weary hours, When life seems emptied of all genial powers, A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known May bless his happy lot, I sate alone ; And, from the numbing spell to win relief, 5 Call'd on the Past for thought of glee or grief. In vain ! bereft alike of grief and glee, I sate and cow'r'd o'er my own vacancy ! And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache. Which, all else slumb'ring, seem'd alone to wake ; 10 Friend ! long wont to notice yet conceal. And soothe by silence what words cannot heal, 1 but half saw that quiet hand of thine Place on my desk this exquisite design. Boccaccio's Garden and its faery, 15 The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry ! An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm. Framed in the silent poesy of form. Like flocks adown a newly-bathed steep Emerging from a mist : or like a stream 20 Of music soft that not dispels the sleep. But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream. Gazed by an idle eye with silent might t\)t ^aruen of llBoccactio 28 1 The picture stole upon my inward sight. A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest, 25 As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast. And one by one (I know not whence) were brought All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost ; 30 Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above. Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love ; Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan Of manhood, musing what and whence is man ! Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea- worn caves 35 Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves ; Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids. That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades ; Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast ; Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest, 40 Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array. To high-church pacing on the great saint's day. And many a verse which to myself I sang. That woke the tear yet stole away the pang. Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd. 45 And last, a matron now, of sober mien, 282 Select l^omii of ColettOge Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen, Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd Even in my dawn of thought — Philosophy ; Though then unconscious of herself, pardie, 50 She bore no other name than Poesy ; And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee, That had but newly left a mother's knee. Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone. As if with elfin playfellows well known, 55 And life reveal'd to innocence alone. Thanks, gentle artist ! now I can descry Thy fair creation with a mastering eye. And all awake ! And now in fix'd gaze stand. Now wander through the Eden of thy hand ; 60 Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear See fragment shadows of the crossing deer ; And with that serviceable nymph I stoop The crystal from its restless pool to scoop. I see no longer ! I myself am there, ^5 Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. 'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings. And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings; Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells From the high tower, and think that there she dwells. 70 With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possesst. t\)t ^atuen of Boccaccio 283 And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest. The brightness of the world, O thou once free. And always fair, rare land of courtesy ! O Florence ! with the Tuscan fields and hills 75 And famous Arno, fed with all their rills ; Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy ! Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine. The golden corn, the olive, and the vine. Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old, 80 And forests, where beside his leafy hold The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn. And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn ; Palladian palace with its storied halls ; Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls ; 85 Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span. And Nature makes her happy home with man j Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed With its own rill, on its own spangled bed. And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head, 9° A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn ; — Thine all delights, and every muse is thine ; And more than all, the embrace and intertwine Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance ! 95 Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance, See ! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees 284 Select potntsi of Coleridge The new-found roll of old Maeonides ; But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart, Peers Ovid's Holy Book of Love's sweet smart ! O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, loi Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, Where, half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse ! Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, 105 And see in Dian's vest between the ranks Of the trim vines, some maid that half be- lieves The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves. With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves ! LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION I 8 29-1 8 30 O'er wayward childhood would'stthou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces ; Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces. And in thine own heart let them first keep school. !lot)e, fQopt, anu l^ntimtt 285 For as old Atlas on his broad neck places 5 Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it ; — so Do these upbear the little world below Of Education, — Patience, Love, and Hope. Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show. The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope, lo And robes that touching as adown they flow, Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow. O part them never ! If Hope prostrate lie, Love too will sink and die. But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive 15 From her own life that Hope is yet alive ; And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes, And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half sup- plies ; — Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. 20 Yet haply there will come a weary day. When overtask'd at length Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength. Stands the mute sister. Patience, nothing loth, 25 And both supporting does the work of both. 286 ^riect ^poems; of ColeriDge LINES WRITTEN IN COMMONPLACE BOOK OF MISS BAR- BOUR, DAUGHTER OF THE MINISTER OF THE U. S. A. TO ENGLAND 1829-1829 Child of my muse ! in Barbour's gentle hand Go cross the main : thou seek'st no foreign land : 'Tis not the clod beneath our feet we name Our country. Each heaven-sanctioned tie the same, Laws, manners, language, faith, ancestral blood. Domestic honour, awe of womanhood : — With kindling pride thou wilt rejoice to see Britain with elbow-room and doubly free ! Go seek thy countrymen ! and if one scar Still linger of that fratricidal war. Look to the maid who brings thee from afar ; Be thou the olive-leaf and she the dove. And say I greet thee with a brother's love ! PHANTOM OR FACT A DIALOGUE IN VERSE 1830?-! 834? AUTHOR A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed. And such a feeding calm its presence shed, lpi)antom or iFact 287 A tender love so pure from earthly leaven, That I unnethe the fancy might control, 'Twas my own spirit newly come from hea- ven, 5 Wooing its gentle way into my soul ! But ah ! the change — It had not stirr'd, and yet — Alas ! that change how fain would I forget ! That shrinking back, like one that had mis- took ! That weary, wandering, disavowing look ! lo 'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame. And still, methought, I knew, it was the same ! FRIEND This riddling tale, to what does it belong ? Is't history ? vision ? or an idle song ? Or rather say at once, within what space 15 Of time this wild disastrous change took place ? AUTHOR Call it a moments work (and such it seems) This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams ; But say, that years matur'd the silent strife. And 'tis a record from the dream of life. "^^ 288 Select potm& of Colmnge LOVE'S APPARITION AND EVANISH- MENT AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE 1833-1834 Like a lone Arab, old and blind, Some caravan had left behind, Who sits beside a ruin'd well. Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell ; And now he hangs his aged head aslant, 5 And listens for a human sound — in vain ! And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant. Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain ; — Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour, Resting my eye upon a drooping plant, 10 With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower, I sate upon the couch of camomile ; And — whether 'twas a transient sleep, per- chance. Flitted across the idle brain, the while I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope, 15 In my own heart ; or that, indeed a trance, Turn'd my eye inward — thee, O genial Hope, Love's elder sister ! thee did I behold, Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold. With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim, 20 Cpitaplft 289 Lie lifeless at my feet ! And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim, And stood beside my seat ; She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips, As she was wont to do ; — 25 Alas ! 'twas but a chilling breath Woke just enough of life in death To make Hope die anew. l'envoy In vain we supplicate the Powers above 5 There is no resurrection for the Love 30 That, nursed in tenderest care, yet fades away In the chill'd heart by gradual self-decay. EPITAPH 1833-1834 Stop, Christian passer-by ! — Stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he. — O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C. ; That he who many a year with toil of breath 5 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 ! 9M November 1833. CHRONOLOGICAL 1772. Born at Ottery St, Mary, Oct. zi. 1782. Admitted to Christ's Hospital. 1 79 1. Enters Cambridge University. 1793. Enlists in the Light Dragoons. 1 794. Returns to Cambridge ; meets Southey at Oxford ; Pantisocracy hatched ; leaves Cambridge and goes to London. 1795. Goes to Bristol ; marries Miss Fricker, and settles at Clevedon. 1796. First volume of poems ; The Watchman. 1 797. Removes to Nether Stow^ey ; first meeting with Words- worth 5 the Lyrical Ballads begun. 1798. Lyrical Ballads published} visits Germany with the Wordsworths. 1799. Returns to England ; Morning Post and JVallenstein. l8®o. Removes to Greta Hall, Keswick. 1 801. Broken health ; the '* Kendal Black Drop." 1 802. Dejection and family discord. 1803. Visits Scotland with the Wordsworths. 1804. Sails for Malta ; made secretary to Sir Alexander Ball. 1805. Visits SicUy and Rome. 1806-10. At Coleorton with Wordsworth 5 lectures on the poets at the Royal Institution, London j at Gras- mere ; projects The Friend. 1811-12. In London ; lectures on Shakespeare and Milton. 1 81 3— 16. Remorse at Drury Lane ; lectures at Bristol ; goes to Calne ; settles at Highgate with the Gillmans j publishes Christabel. 18 1 7. Biographia Liter aria and Sibylline Leaves. 18 1 8-19. Lectures in London. 1 8 20-24. Hackwork. 1825. Aids to Reflection ; Pension. 1826—34. Last years at Highgate : Visits the Rhine with Words- worth ; John Sterling his pupil ; Emerson visits him j Died July 25. NOTES 1772-1786 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at the Vicarage of Ottery Gc. Mary, in Devonsiiire, October 21, 1772. His father, Rev. John Coleridge, was vicar of the parish. Chaplain and Mas- ter of the Free Grammar School founded by Henry VIH and known as King's School. John Coleridge was twice married, having three daughters by the first marriage, nine sons, of whom Samuel was the youngest, and one daughter by the second. His second wife was a practical, thrifty, home-loving woman, with am- bitions for her many sons ; these qualities were in striking contrast to those of the Vicar who as the poet said : "In learning, good- heartedness, absentness of mind, and excessive ignorance of the world, was a perfect Parson Adams." He is still remembered at the old school as one of its most distinguished teachers. A glimpse into the heart of this remarkable family is given by the poet in his letters to Thomas Poole and his poems. He tells us that being the baby in the group he was petted by his father and brother George, and worshipped by his mother ; and because of his precocity he was the admiration of the old women j as a result he was disliked by the other children and became petulant, vain and moody. He lived quite apart from his mates, in a world of his own creation, for he was a prodigy from his earliest days, and illustrated his father's teaching, — that " the sublime is born with man and cannot be taught ; a soaring mind will wear no shackles." He fed upon romance in story and song, reading from the age of three — when he entered school — everything which ministered to his sense of the marvellous. His only play was in acting such scenes as he had found in legends and myths. He says, " I had none of a child's habits. I never thought as a child, never had the language of a child." Thus early he became a " footless bird of Paradise." Prof. Shairp asks, " Is it fanciful to imagine that 292 ^Ott& there was something in that character which accords well with the soft, mild and the dreamy loveliness that rests on the blue coombes and sea-coves of South Devon ? ' ' How the quiet old town of Ottery with its wealth of historic associations Roman, British and Norman, its noble church, its natural beauty — rivers, woods and hills — impressed him at this early age will be seen in his first poetical work. The first great experience of Coleridge's life was that by which he became a liveried school boy mid cloisters dim, in the heart of a great city. He had not reached his tenth birthday when his father died. The family was obliged to leave the vicarage 5 as the elder brother George was about to enter Oxford an old pupil of the Vicar's obtained a presentation for Samuel at the Charity School, Christ's Hospital, London. Thus rudely awakened from his idyllic dream- world he entered the great school in July 1782, ' too soon trans- planted ere his soul had fixed its first domestic loves.' The school there contained about seven hundred boys, nearly one-third being sons of clergymen. Like so many of England's educational insti- tutions this school was once a Franciscan monastery. It was con- verted into a charity by the orphan King Edward VL Naturally enough many of the ascetic customs remained as part of the order of the school. The boys wore the monkish long coats buttoned to the throat and belted, yellow silk stockings, low shoes, white stock, and the head bare. The diet was spare, and the discipline vigorous. The noble buildings, quaint customs, stately halls hung with historic portraits and armorial bearings, ample courts for play, gave the place an air of dignity and grandeur which must have impressed the shy Devonshire lad. That he was homesick is to be taken for granted, but that he soon adjusted himself to the new life is evident. As the boys were privileged to free entry to the Tower, the Abbey and St. Paul's, so they were the chief attendants upon the Lord Mayor in his civic procession at Easter when he enter- tained them at tea. The blue-coat boys were treated with special respect by the citizens who thronged the halls of the school on St. Matthew's Day when declamations were given in the classics and prizes distributed, and who attended the public supper at Lent to hear the boys sing the anthems. One of the most striking cere- monies of the school was that which occurred on the death of one of the boys. All gathered by night in the court of the hospital iliotesf 293 quarter, bearing torches and singing psalms, and solemnly moved through the echoing cloisters behind the coffin. The teaching was thorough even to severity, and woe to the lad who fell behind in any of his work. Boyer the master has received distinctive and enviable recognition at the hands of his most famous pupils Coleridge in Biographia Literaria and Lamb in his inimitable Essays on Christ Hospital. No shirking, no pretence, ever escaped his notice. He was a terrible realist and hated affectation and false- brilliancy. When Coleridge began his experiences of poetry and love at the school they naturally colored his language and con- duct, and Boyer quickly detected the causes, and would exclaim, ** Myse, boys ! Muse ! Your Nurse's daughter, you mean ! Pierian fountain ! Yes — the pump in the courtyard ! ' ' Cole- ridge had no difficulty in maintaining himself with distinction and became one of the select few known as Grecians, who read the most difficult Latin, Greek and Hebrew classics, in training for University scholarships. Alluding to the marvellous power which Coleridge exercised at that early age. Lamb, a quarter of a century later, writes : *' Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee — the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — How have I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration, to hear thee in thy deep and sweet intonations recite Homer in his Greek, or Pindar, while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents of the inspired Charity boy ! ' ' It is just three hundred and fifty years ago that the boy King Edward VI, having been moved by a sermon of Bishop Ridley's which exhorted the rich to be mindful of the poor, began the movement which resulted in the founding of Christ's Hospital, in the heart of London, and in this year, 1902, in the reign of Edward Vllth, the great city ceases to be the home of the old school. For a long time the Commissioners of Charity have been moving to take the school into the country, as by the sale of the valuable city property more healthful and spacious quarters could be provided there. The Governors, however, hesitated until at last they were forced to take the step, and in 1887 secured 1200 acres near Horsham Sussex. Here new buildings have been erected to accommodate one thousand pupils. On Sunday, March 294 jliOte0 [1786 16, a farewell service was held in the venerable Christ*s Church adjoining the Hospital in Newgate Street at which the new Bishop of London preached the sermon. On Easter Tuesday, April I, over five hundred blue coat boys trooped through Cheapside to pay their annual visit to the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House. After an address by the Lord Mayor, each Grecian (fourteen) was pre- sented with a guinea, each deputy Grecian (ten) with a half guinea, each monitor (thirty-four) with a half crown, and every other boy with a shilling, the coins being fresh from the mint. Then after two buns and a glass of lemonade or claret had been given to each lad they marched to Christ's Church followed by the Lord Mayor and the city officials, where the Bishop of St. Albans preached the 'Spital sermon. On Wednesday, April 16, at eventide the boys assembled in St. Paul's Cathedral, where they were addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Choral service was sung by the Hospital Choir of sixty voices. After the Easter holidays, which began the 1 9th of April, the school assembled in its new house at Horsham, and one of London's historic and picturesque attractions became extinct. No more will the passer-by linger at the palings to watch the eager throng of blue coat boys as (with the tails of their coats tucked tightly into their belts) they pass to their daily practice of football ; no more will their historic festivals at Guild Hall, Mansion House and Christ's Church attract the citizen or the chance visitor, for they are now a part of history or a treasure in the memories of those who have been fortunate enough to wit- ness them. I 786-1 794. GENEVIEVE. First printed in the Cambridge Intelligencey Nov. i , 1 794. Aside from his studies Coleridge's life was not without variety of incident. He rapidly made friends with kindred spirits, like Thomas Middleton, the Le Grice brothers, and Charles Lamb. There is little evidence that he took any prominent part in the sports of the school, although on holidays he joined his mates in swimming parties. On one occasion he swam New River with his clothes on and dried them on his back, with the result that he was obliged to spend much of the next year in the sick ward on account of rheu- matism. Tradition ascribes this poem to this particular year and 1788] jl^otes; 295 its subject the daughter of the nurse who attended him. While with Coleridge, as with Burns, poetry and love began early, poetry seems to have gained the start as Boyer, unlike most masters of the English schools of the time, made much of the English poets and taught that the simplicity of Shakespeare was far above the rhetoric of Virgil. An interesting copy book in which Coleridge wrote his school exercises in verse is still in the possession of Boyer's grand- son. It is valuable as showing what obstacles he had to overcome before he revealed that he was a poet ; he says of these attempts, "they are only such thoughts as any clever lad might put into verse. ' ' This poem is the earliest composition of his which has been pre- served. In the first edition of his poems is the following : " This little poem was written when the author was a boy, age fourteen." It is an interesting fact that Wordsworth's earliest poem was written at the same age when he was at the Hawkshead school. Coleridge was living in an age of literary transition. Gray, Collins and Goldsmith had struck new notes and the world was wondering ; Cowper and Burns were just publishing their first work which was to set the critics teeth on edge. The old was dead, the new being born, and the contrast between them is revealed in the work of Coleridge. 1788-1796. SONNET TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON. First Printed in Poems^ 1796- That Coleridge had other interests besides those of poetry may be seen from the fact that at one time he seriously contemplated apprenticing himself to a London shoemaker, and was saved only by the vigorous action of Boyer who broke up the arrangement by driving the son of Crispin from the school premises. Again when his brother Luke came up to work in the London Hospital he began to read the works on surgery and medicine, accompanied his brother on his rounds, and was delighted to hold the plaster. He then read metaphysics and Voltaire and sported infidel, but Boyer was again equal to the emergency and flogged it out of him. Coleridge said this was the only just flogging he ever received at the school. At times too he became homesick and then he lost himself in the remembrance of his rural home in Devon. He 296 jliotesf [1789 would climb to the leaden roof of Christ's Hospital and gaze upon the sky and stars. Wordsworth says of these experiences : * * Of rivers, fields And groves I speak to thee, my Friend ! to thee Who yet a liveried school boy, in the depths Of a huge city, on the leaded roof Of that wide edifice, thy school and home, Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds Moving in heaven ; or, of that pleasure tired, To shut thine eyes, and by internal light, See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream, Far distant," Prelude VI. Out of some such experience as this we may be sure the poem was written. It is much afi:er the manner of Milton's // Penseroso in its pensive quality and landscape effects. The shaping spirit of imagination is distinctly felt ; in freshness and spontaneity it reveals the new life with nature, 1 789-1834. TO THE MUSE. First printed in Poetical Works ^ 1834, About this time important influences were coming into the life of Coleridge. The first was his friendship with the Evans family, A son of this family was in a lower form in the school and Cole- ridge had protected him. Coleridge says, '* Therefore he looked up to me and taught me what it was to have a mother. I loved her much. She had three daughters, and of course I fell in love with the eldest. And oh ! from sixteen to nineteen what hours of paradise had Allen and I in escorting the Evanses home on a Saturday who were then at a milliners . . . and we used to carry thither of a summer evening, the pillage of the flower gardens within six miles of town, with sonnets or love rhymes wrapped round the nose gay. To be feminine, kind, and genteelly (what I should now call neatly) dressed, these were the only things to which my head, heart, or imagination had any polarity." He became a son and brother in the family, but for Mary there was more than family feeling. His brother George was now Master in 1789] il^otes; 297 the school at Hackney and Coleridge wrote him as follows : « You will excuse me for reminding you that, as our holidays commence next week, and I shall go out a good deal, a good pair of breeches wiU be no inconsiderable accession to my appearance, as^ my pre- sent ones are not altogether well adapted for a female eye. The second great influence was that of Bowles sonnets which were sent to him by his friend Middleton who had entered Cam- bridge. In this slight volume of twenty sonnets, he met nature, as he had not before in poetry, and was captivated by their freshness, originality, and simplicity. He copied them again and again in order that his friends might enjoy them with him. In writing ot these to one of his friends he says, '* They have done my heart more good than all the other books I ever read excepting the Bible " It is difficult for us in these days to conceive of a time when such influences could be produced by a Uttle quarto. But Coleridge was not the only one over whom it cast its spell, tor Wordsworth was not long after captivated by it. He first met the volume as he was starting for a walk, and kept his brother waiting on Westminster Bridge until he read the twenty sonnets. <« As the English romantic poets went forth to combat the classic school with its super-sense and pride of strict rules, and to endow the poetry of the fairy tale with new life, their first halt was under the shadow of Bowles." —Alois Brandl. "The first breath of Nature unsophisticated by classical tra- dition "came to Coleridge from Bowles's sonnets ; and he recognized it at once." —J. D. Campbell, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 17. The reflective morality is somewhat prominent in the concluding verses which remind one of the Gray's Elegy. In spite its eigh- teenth century elegance the poem is evidence that even now Cole- ridge was getting pleasure in his work. It is at least a '_< bud of hope and a promise of better works to come." Cf. Biographia Literaria, Chapter I. , c t- n i -^ There is a manuscript copy of this poem signed S. i . Coleridge. i789?-i834. DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE. First printed in Poetical Works, 1834. Two great influences in the life of Coleridge during these early days have been alluded to j the third and the greatest of all 13 298 il^otesf [1789 that which appears in this poem. How the early impulse of the French Revolution touched the younger minds in England should be read in Prof. Dowden's splendid work " The French Revolu- tion and English Literature," which is an expansion of Chapter I in his earlier work " Studies in English Literature," Wordsworth's Prelude, and " The Youth of Wordsworth " by E. Legouis. What we are interested in here is that phase of it by which Coleridge was moved into that larger world of life and action in which he was destined by Providence to join forces with William Wordsworth, that other child of the Muses who was at this time at Cambridge and was being stirred by the same great awakening to the scenes of " Revo- lutionary power tossed like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms." Wordsworth was born and educated in. the north country of Cumberland and Westmoreland. Having been nourished by ' ' Pre- sences of Nature in the sky and in the earth," and having com- muned with those " Visions of the hills and souls of lonely places " until his mind became peopled with forms sublime and fair, he entered Granta's Cloisters, there to be an inmate of a world within a world. He roamed " Delighted through the motley spectacle : Gowns, grave or gaudy, doctors, students, streets, Courts, cloisters, flocks of churches, gateways, towers ; Migration strange for a stripling of the hills, A northern villager." From here his vacation visits to France brought him to feel some- thing of the storm and stress, the tumult and passion of the Revo- lution. His earliest poetry, which was being written the same year as this poem of Coleridge's, is an expression of his sympathy with the cause of humanity, and Descripti've Sketches (afterwards incorpo- rated into the Prelude) reveal the first tidal impulse, moving him from the harbor life he had been living, out upon the turbulent sea of political and social controversy. How all this came about should be read in the Prelude. The Revolution was not confined to the sphere of politics : that was only one feature of the great movement toward the goal of equal rights to which the nations were tending. It was a return to Nature in all the departments of life. This enthusiasm for Nature took form in France under Rousseau's extravagant and 1789] il^otefif 299 diseased sensibility. In Germany the same feeling was manifested by Goethe, who combined the poetic with the scientific aspect of Nature, and swelled the great wave of feeling which was gathering force as it advanced. In England it had been growing into form for half a century. The heralds of the day arose from quarters and under circumstances quite unexpected, — from the sorrow and disappointment of Cowper and the untaught melodies of a plow-boy of Ayrshire, — the one in his invalid nightcap, the other in his blue bonnet and homespun. But the leaders in this ' Liberation War of Humanity ' were to be Wordsworth and Coleridge. What Prof. Dowden says of this early influence is evident in such a poem as this. ** In this passion there was, no doubt, something immature, something hectic, something turbid, much unwise heat, not a little illusion. In its vivid and immediate influence the genius of the Revolution did an injury to art ; it tended to convert the poet into a declairaer, a preacher, the missionary of an ill-considered evangel. In its remoter effects the gain was real and great." There is some doubt as to the exact date at which the poem was written, but Mr. J. Dykes Campbell gives it as possibly 1789. It could not have been earlier than this nor later than 1792, as will be seen from notes to To a Young Lady^ p. 305. Mr. Camp- bell's note is as follows : "First printed in Poetical Works, 1834. The text differs slightly from an early MS. copy with the head- ing : — * An Ode to the Destruction of the Bastile,' and signed S. T. C. In place of the asterisk is this note : (Stanza second and third are lost. We may gather from the context that they alluded to the Bastile and its inhabitants)." Mr. Alois Brandl suggests that this poem be compared with Gray's Progress of Poesy for diction and verse. There is surely more agitation here than healthy animation. Here is the first effect of the Revolution, emotional 5 the second, intellectual, will be seen in the Ode to France. The first is seen in Wordsworth's Prelude 5 the second in his political sonnets, where storm and stress pass into dignity, sim- plicity and repose of the highest art. 1789-1834. LIFE. First printed in Poetical Works^ 1834. This poem was written after a visit to his old home at Ottery where his sister Ann was in ill health. Mr. Campbell thinks 300 j]iote0 [1790 it was his first visit home since he went to Christ's Hospital. There are two early manuscripts copied of the poem and the text here differs slightly from each of these. The first two stanzas reveal how easily and naturally Coleridge could compose in verse descriptive, while the last two are weighted with his peculiarly mature though tfulness. There is little discipline yet in thinking and little restraint in expression, but the subtle souled psychologist is here. 1 790-1 794. MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON. ( In Christ's Hospital Book. ) First printed in Launcelot Sharpe's edition of Chatterton's Poems, 1794- When we consider the '* marvellous boys " of our English litera- ture, we have no hesitation in pronouncing Chatterton the most marvellous ; even Burns and Blake, Coleridge and Keats, seem ordinary in comparison to him. Although not learning to read until he was six and dying. before he was eighteen, he produced a body of poetry much of which, for romantic spirit, imaginative splendor, and captivating melody, stiU remains unsurpassed. The story of his life is the most pathetic in a literary history where pathos is by no means uncommon. In twelve years from 1767— 1770 he did all his work, the larger part of which was a mass of pseudo-antique poetry, drama, lyrics and epic fragments which he attributed to an old monk Rowley of the fifteenth century. These, now known as the Rowley Poems, gave rise to as much heated controversy as the Ossianic poetry of McPherson. Because of this hoax he left Bristol, his native place, in 1770 and went up to Lon- don as a literary adventurer : there starvation brought on madness and he took his life in August of the same year, after writing poems, essays and stories for no less than six magazines. Only three years before Coleridge wrote this poem Chatterton's works had been published and we may conjecture that they were among those read by Coleridge in that library, access to which tra- dition says was due to the fact that he was accosted in the street as a thief because while in imagination he was swimming the Helles- pont with Leander his hand touched a gentleman's pocket, and on ,79o] jl^otesi 301 hearing his defence the inquisitor subscribed for his admission to a drculafing library. Others of the poetic Guild besides Coleridge have been glad to pay Chatterton honor. " The marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride." Wordsworth. Keats dedicated Endymion to his memory, and writing to Mathew he asks him to help him to find a place << Where we may soft humanity put on. And sit and rhyme, and think of Chatterton. ' Rossetti in writing sonnets on each of the " Five English Poets," gives the following — «' Thy nested home-loves, noble Chatterton ; The angel trodden stair thy soul could trace Up Redcliffe's spire 5 and in the world's armed space Thy gallant sword play : these to many an one Are sweet forever ; as thy grave unknown ^^ And love dream of thine unrecorded face. Shelley's tribute to him in Adonais where he presents him as welcoming Keats in the realms of death is one of the most beauti- ful of the tributes of his successes in the field of romance : — *< The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, Far in the Unapparent, Chatterton Rose pale, his solemn agony had not Yet faded from him." The Rowleian accent is to be found frequently in the poetry after Chalterton's time. In the Biographia Literaria Chapter I, Coleridge risu honesto exposes his eadyUts in three sonnets : " The first had for its obLt to excite a good-natured laugh at the spirit of doleful egotism and the recurrence of favorite phrases. The second on low, creep- ing language and thoughts, under the pretence of simplicity. 1 he 302 j^otesf [1790-91 third on the indiscriminate use of elaborate and swelling language and imagery. ' ' In its cumbrous splendor this poem reveals how completely Cole- ridge was in the literary atmosphere of the eighteenth century. Mr, Alois Brandl finds in it an evidence that Coleridge was breaking with traditional views of religion. He says " The moral of the Ode is Platonic rather than Christian." This poem has an interesting history of alterations and changes until 1 794, and the student is referred to J. Dykes Campbell's edition 1893 for the facts. Cf. Lamb's Letters 1 796-1 797, edited by Canon Ainger for com- ments on the poem. 1 790-1 834. ON RECEIVING AN ACCOUNT THAT HIS ONLY SISTER* S DEATH WAS INEVITABLE. First printed in Poetical Works, 1834. The years 1 790-1 were saddened by the loss of his brother Luke who had been so much to him while they were together in London, and his sister Ann; This poem was written in the inter- val between these bereavements. It is a sincere revelation of his love, but too full of the morbid emotion of Bowles. 1 79 1 ?-i798. THE RAVEN. First printed in the Morning Post, March 10, 1798. The greatest of the poems of his school life is T/ie Ra-ven. It con- tains clear prophecy of TAe Ancient Mariner in quality of imagina- tion, exquisite music and central conception. It is one of the most fascinating child poems in the language, " The metrical movement," says Mr. Stopford Brooke, *' is like a dance of the elemental beings of Nature, now as of Satyr's wild voiced Pan ; now as of Nymphs, graceful, gay and light as summer leaves in wind ; now as of em- bodied rivers and brooks in full and rushing joy ; and now as of Ariel and his spirits footing it featly to and fro on the primitive sands." The original title was Dream. The two closing lines were added for copy of 1817 Sibylline Lea-ves. Mr. Campbell says that «79i] jl^ote0 303 in the margin of a copy of this edition now in possession of Mr. Stewart M. Samuel there is the following note in Coleridge's handwriting : '* Added through cowardly fear of the Goody ! What a Hollow, where the Heart of Faith ought to be, does it not betray — this alarm concerning Christian morality, — that it will not permit even a Raven to be a Raven, nor a Fox to be a Fox, but demands con- venticular justice to be inflicted on their unchristian conduct, or at least an antidote to be annexed. ' ' Mr. Alois Brandl says : ' ' This first poetic work by Coleridge has already a republican aim and a popular tone." 1791-1834. SONNET ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR COLLEGE. First printed in Poetical Works, 1 8 34. Notwithstanding his bereavements Coleridge must have looked forward to his early entrance into other scenes of more freedom and responsibility 5 and yet when the time arrived he naturally felt sad at leaving associations which had been so much to him, especially his friends Lamb, Robert Allen, and others. And he voices these feelings in this and th,e two following poems. 1 791-1794. First printed in Cambridge Intelligencer , Oct. 1 1 , 1 794. Cf. Wordsworth's poem on Anticipation of Leaving School, writ- ten at the same age. 1791-1834. HAPPINESS. First printed in Poetical Works, 1834. Probably written at Ottery during the interim between leaving Christ's Hospital and entering Cambridge. Mr. Campbell tells us that he has seen an early, perhaps an earlier, manuscript copy of this poem and that although the text 304 ^om [179* differs but little there is one interesting variant. The printed lines 91 and 92 are not in the manuscript where instead the passage gives : — " Ah ! doubly blest, if love supply Lustre to this now heavy eye, And with unwonted spirit grace That fat vacuity of face, Or if e'en Love, the mighty Love Shall find this change his powers above ; Some lovely maid perchance that'll find To read thy visage in thy mind." * The author was at this time aet. 17 (read 19, ed. ) remarkable for a plump face.' (Transcriber's foot-note.) 1792-1893. A WISH WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD FEB. I O, 1 792. First printed in J. Dykes Campbell's edition, 1893. Coleridge left: school in September, 179 1, and after a visit to his old home at Ottery he entered Jesus College, Cambridge in October of the same year. Life in the University at that time while, so different from that of the school, was not calculated to inspire such a youth as Coleridge. Wordsworth had just left Cambridge and was on his way to Paris, — " An idler, well content To have a house (what matter for a home .?) That owned him ; living cheerfiilly abroad, With unchecked fancy ever on the stir, And all my young affections out of doors." Landing at Paris on that great federal day he writes : — *' Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive But to be young was very heaven. ' ' Coleridge seems to have made friends rapidly, through the intro- ductions by his schoolmates Middleton and the Le Grice brothers 179*] j!iote0 305 his rooms became a centre of interest and influence. Here high discourse flourished and the young Freshman held his audience with the fascination and mystery of him who was "the first to burst into that silent sea ' ' whence would come the story of the Mariner y Kubla Khan and Christabel. Tradition says that when he was soaring on the wings of dazzling rhetoric the impressionable youth listening would cut off bits of his gown as souvenirs ; and that on one occasion he was reprimanded by Dr. Pierce fo> wearing so shameful a garb. '* Mr. Coleridge ! Mr. Coleridge ! when will you get rid of that shameful gown ? " He replied : *' Why, Sir, I think I've got rid of the greater part of it already." He cap- tured some prizes for poetry, read the philosophers, and brooded over the outburst of revolutionary spirit in France. He still kept up his friendship for the Evans family and continued in his devo- tion to Mary, — as is seen from the history of this poem given as follows by Mr. Campbell in his edition of Coleridge's poems 1893: — "Here printed from a letter written by Coleridge from Cam- bridge to Mary Evans. This letter, with several others to Mrs. Evans, and to her daughters Mary and Anne are now in the great collection of Mr. Alfred Morrison of Fonthill." He here speaks as a landscape elegist, and the feeling "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. ' ' Gray in his Eton Ode has this overwrought pensiveness j when, seeing the boys at play he is somewhat sadly reminded : " How all around them wait The ministers of human fate And black Misfortune's baleful train !" 1 792-1 796. TO A YOUNG LADY WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. First printed in the Watchman ^ 1796. The date of this is given by Coleridge as 1792 and is addressed with others to Miss F. Nesbitt, at Plymouth, whither the author had repaired accompanied by his brother George to whom he was paying a visit. George was at this time Master of the Old School at Ottery. 3o6 JliOCe0 [1793 I've not been able to find an allusion to this visit in any of the works of Coleridge, but as he was not very careful of his dates, and little is known of his Cambridge career, there may be an error here. At any rate we may feel sure that the poem on the French Revolution was that on the Destruction of the Bastile, 1. 9. Lee Boo, Prince of the Pelew Islands came to England where he died and was buried in Greenwich Churchyard, 1. 41 — Sara. This must have been added later as at the time of writing the poem he had not met Sara Fricker. 1793-1796. SONGS OF THE PIXIES. First printed in Poems, 1796. In the long vacation of 1793 Coleridge visited his family at Ottery and during this visit he wrote this poem and the two which follow. At the scene of this poem there is what is known as the Parlour of the Pixies and upon a rock in it the initials of Coleridge cut by his own hand are still legible. In this graceful little poem Coleridge is on the firm ground of creative work and is simple, sensuous, impassioned. It strikes the lyrical note of Milton in U Allegro and the songs of Comus, while the lines 92—100 distinctly reveal the lofty conception of virtue of the Comus. His ardour is not deep but his perception is fine, and his execution, though still imperfect, is wondrously beautiful in delicate fancy painting. 1793 ?-i 797. SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER. First Printed as a separate poem in Poems, 1 797, parts having appeared with another poem in the Watchman, No, V, April 2, 1796. This should be compared with Bowles's Sonnet To the River Itchin. " Itchin, when I behold thy banks again, Thy crumbling margin, and thy silver breast, On which the self-same tints still seem to rest, Why feels my heart the shiv'ring sense of pain ? 1793] 0Ott& 307 Is it that many a summer's day is past Since, in life's morn, I carol' d on thy side ? Is it that oft, since then, my heart has sigh'd. As Youth and Hope's delusive gleams flew fast ? Is it that those who circled on thy shore, Companions of my youth, now meet no more ? Whate'er the cause, upon thy banks I bend, Sorrowing, yet feel such solace at my heart. As at the meeting of some long-lost friend. From whom, in happier hours, we wept to part." 1793-?- LINES TO A BEAUTIFUL SPRING IN A VILLAGE. This evidently belongs to the same period as the preceding. It has an abundance of double epithets and turgid rhetoric, but only a little passion for nature. Speaking of these early poems which so many critics condemn Mr. Richard Garnett says : " We see in them how men of true genius would have written if the great awakenings of the Romantic school and the French Revolution had never taken place, and are able to gauge in some degree an intellectual indebtedness to these mighty mutations. The contrast is the more instructive, as these early poems are by no means unpoetical. There is scarcely one which does not give evidence of having proceeded from a true poet," 1793 ?-l 796. LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING. First printed in 1796. Title written in early youth ; the time an autumnal evening. In October, 1793, Christopher Wordsworth entered Trinity Col- lege and at once became acquainted with Coleridge. They soon joined with others in forming a Literary Society. They discussed a review in the Current Monthly of the Descriptive Sketches, verse by Christopher's brother William. At one of the meetings Cole- ridge recited this poem, which was evidently written during his vacation at Ottery. 3o8 0Ott& [1794 Here we have distinctive notes of the new feeling toward man and nature, which was awakened in the delightful scenery of his home. Mr. Stopford Brooke says : " This poem and The ^olian Harp are the first examples of the short meditative pieces in which Nature and the human affections are gently wrought together — a special kind of poetry Coleridge may be said to have invented and which no one has done so well. ' ' 11. 17-20. Mr. Campbell says : ** These lines may have been inspired by felicitations received from Mary Evans on the winning of the Browne gold medal in 1792." 1 794-1 798. LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT. First printed in the Morning Post, April 13, 1798. The years 1793-4 were eventful ones in the life of Coleridge. In December 1793 a crisis was reached — was it the. failure of Mary Evans to respond to his love, or his inability to meet his col- lege dues ? At any rate he left the college without giving warning to any one and went to London. Having spent the first night in the street hungry and wretched he spied a government poster call- ing for volunteers for the light dragoons : he went to the recruiting office where after enlisting he got his breakfast and bounty money and was sent to the Government Mews at Reading. He enrolled under the name Silas Tomkyn Comberbach. He made a sorry picture when riding and grooming his horse, neither of which exer- cise he had ever taken in his life. He never rose above the awk- ward squad. The sergeant would warn the others when Coleridge was at drill, ' ' Take care of that Cumberbatch — for he will ride over you ! " Mr. Peter Bayne asks : " Was there ever since the days of the great hunter, such a private soldier ? . . . Talk of Kilmenie among the rustics after her sojourn by the celestial streams : talk of Apollo amid the gaping herdsmen of Admetus : this of Coleridge among the dragoons beats them all." His identity was partially revealed when he wrote a Latin inscription on the stable wall, — " Eheu ! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem " ; and the Captain became interested in him and pitying him in his plight made arrangements with his brother James, who was an 1794] jl^otesf 309 officer in the army, by which he might be released. He returned to Cambridge in April, 1794, where the only punishment he received was a censure by the Master in the presence of the Fel- lows. At Oxford he soon met Southey who was an ardent revolu- tionist, and they planned a new communal life in America. He spent his vacation travelling in Wales, visited Southey at Bristol where he met and became engaged to Sara Fricker, sister of the girl to whom Southey was engaged. Pantisocracy was expanded and Coleridge was to procure part of the funds by publishing some poems. It is evident that this poem was written shortly before the visit to Wales, and that it reveals his sadness at the treatment he had received from Mary Evans, for the original draft of this poem, 1. 4, had Mary, where now Lewti stands. Mr. Campbell tells us that in another early manuscript the name Sara appears. This change was made of course after his meeting Miss Fricker. 1 794-1 8 3 6. THE FADED FLOWER. First printed in New Monthly Magazine, August, 1836, Coleridge now planned another poem in order to increase the funds at the disposal of the Pantisocrats — a Tragedy on the Fall of Robespierre. The Faded Flower was printed in the New Monthly Magazine in 1836 with a letter to Rev. Mr. Martin (to whom Robespierre was dedicated). This letter which was written in July 1794, alluded to the fact that during Coleridge's visit to Wales he saw Mary Evans only to think of her as the bride of another. Mr. Campbell thinks that the poem is not on this account to be considered as having anything to do with the events recorded in the letter. I 794-1 794. DOMESTIC PEACE. From The Fall of Robespierre. Robespierre was printed 1 794. In September Coleridge took his tragedy to London in search of a publisher but could find none. He accordingly went to Cam- bridge where he was more successful and it was printed in October. 310 jl^ote0 [1794 This exquisite song Coleridge printed by itself, and it has been so printed in many editions of his works since his time ; as it would not be likely to become so well known if confined to the now little read tragedy. 1794-1796. ON A DISCOVERY MADE TOO LATE. First prmted in Poems, 1796, an * Effusion xxx ' but in * contents' was called To My Other Heart. It is very evident that while Coleridge was away from Sara at Cambridge the old feeling toward Mary Evans returned, for in October he wrote this poem. Mr. Campbell thinks that Cole- ridge himself began the misunderstanding when on his enlistment he had suddenly broken off all relations with the family, because he suspected she loved another. The correspondence of this time given in Mr. Campbell's life of Coleridge reveals a most unfortunate situation, but no blame is to be attached to the conduct of Mary. This episode introduces us to a life history as pathetic as is to be found in that of any other English man of letters. Lamb wrote of this poem in 1796 : "You came to town (from Cambridge late in 1794) and I saw at a time when your heart was bleeding with recent wounds. . . . You had * Many an holy lay That mourning, soothed the mourner on his way,' I had ears of sympathy to drink them in. ' ' Mr. Campbell says : " The last six lines are but a versification of a passage on an undated letter addressed to Mary Evans. ' ' Cf. Note to A Faded Floiver. Wordsworth in the meantime had been in close contact with the tumult in France ; from the rubbish of the Bastile had gathered his relic and then passed in to join the bravest youths of France linked in gallant soldiership ; and when the September massacres took place the terrible city became such a fascination to him, that had not his funds given out he would likely have perished with his friends. He returned to London in December, 1792. He visited the Isle of Wight where he saw the English fleet preparing to attack France, which caused him to pray for her defeat. 1794] j^otes; 3" " And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance I only, like an uninvited guest Whom no one owned, sate silent ; shall I add, Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come." But when later he saw France call in Napoleon he gave way to that inward searching which was his crisis. It was then 1 794-5 while at Penrith with Calvert that he was returned to the dear sister who brought him *' back to the sweet counsels between head and heart." Cf. Prelude — Book XI. I 794-1795. LAFAYETTE. First printed in the Morning Chronicle, 1794-5. Coleridge left Cambridge without his degree in 1 794 and went again to London, taking quarters in Newgate street near his old school, at the Salutation and the Cat. Here he had at least one friend who understood and sympathized with him, Charles Lamb. " We sat together in the little smoky room through the winter nights beguiling the cares of life with Poesy," writes Lamb two years later. During December 1794 and January 1795 he wrote sonnets on the political and literary character of the time, among which is this to Lafayette. These sonnets interest us chiefly as revealing the depth, but perhaps even more, the tumult of his Revolutionary feelings. This sonnet is in the manner of Milton rather than that of Bowles. 1 794-1 796. TO A FRIEND TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM. First printed in Poems, 1796. This poem was evidently the product of these weeks with Lamb, and occasioned by the fact that he was so often deprived of Lamb's company because of the terrible malady which afflicted his sister. Mr. Campbell thinks there is no doubt that the *' unfinished poem ' ' was Religious Musings. Lamb was proud of this friendship as is revealed in his letter to Coleridge in June, 1796, after the publication of Coleridge's first edition of poems. " I was glad to 312 jl^otefi! [1794 meet those lines you sent me when my sister was so ill. I had lost the copy and I felt not a little proud at seeing my name in your verse." In a note to edition of Poems, 1803, Coleridge wrote : — " I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the lines — * Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love Aught to implore were impotence of mind,' it being written in Scripture, ' Ask, and it shall be given you,' and my human reason being moreover convinced of the propriety of offering />em/o« J as well as thanksgivings to Deity." 1794, 1 829-1 834. MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON, LATEST VERSION. First published in its present form in Poems, 1834, but it had ap- peared in various forms from 1794. Cf. note p. 300, et seq. It was a little disturbing to Southey and the other Pantisocrats thus to be neglected by their comrade ; they were not even kept informed as to his whereabouts. So in January Southey left Bristol to look him up. He found him at the Angel Inn in Butcher Hall Street and induced him to return with him. In February, Southey writes: "Coleridge is writing at the same table; our names are written in the book of destiny on the same page." Coleridge began a course of lectures on Philosophy and Politics, while Southey lectured on History. Money was needed and as they had the good fortune to become acquainted with Joseph Cot- tle, a Bristol publisher, an avenue was opened up for the publi- cation of Coleridge's Poems. Through his lectures at Bristol on the French Revolution, Thomas Poole, a retired Bristol merchant became interested in the young poet. In Thomas Poole and His Friends, we find an interesting poem by Poole, the first stanza of which is : — " Hail to the Coleridge, youth of various powers ! I love to hear thy soul pour forth the line, To hear it sing of love and liberty As if fresh-breathing from the hand devine." 1795] jl^otesf 313 Rev. John Estlin of Bristol encouraged him to become a preacher, and he began at Bath preaching and lecturing. The Monody written in 1790 was revised. It had appeared altered and enlarged in Launcelot Sharpe's edition of Chatterton's poems in 1794. After the edition of 1796 it was somewhat changed from time to time until 1829, when it received the form given here. Throughout the additions we can see that he has discarded the influence of Gray for that of Spenser. Lines 1 21-124 are strangely prophetic of his life so like Chat- terton's in many ways. 1795 ?-l 796. TO THE NIGHTINGALE. First printed in Poems, 1796. We are now getting some genuinely picturesque and impassioned poems on nature in the place of the stilted and artificial etching of the previous years. Mr. Campbell says this poem '* contains one superlatively good line — that which describes the night-watchman who infested the streets a century ago." 1. Cf. Milton, To a Nightingale. Even while his head and heart were inhabiting this dreamland of hope and love, necessity with her harsh voice called him back to other worlds than that of Elysian Susquehanna, for he writes to Cottle : " Can you conveniently lend me five pounds, as we want a little more than four pounds to make up our lodging bill." 1795-1796. COMPOSED WHILE ASCENDING THE LEFT ASCENT OF BROCKLEY COOMBE, SOMERSETSHIRE, MAY 1 795. First printed in Poems, 1796, as * Effusion xxi."" He now has his feet on English grass and heather and his imagi- nation do^s not disdain the common things that round him lie ; he writes with his eye on the subject not on the form and the result is a luxury of poetic sights and sounds, — simple, fresh and life- giving. One has but to visit the scene of this poem to realize how true are its revelations. 314 ^Otta [1795 1795-1796. THE ^OLIAN HARP. First printed in Poems, 1796, as ' Effusion xxxvj* In the summer of 1795 ^^^ joint lodgings were given up, as estrangement was growing between the two enthusiasts. Cottle thinks this was mainly due to the fact that Coleridge had failed to keep his engagement on one occasion to lecture in the place of Southey. Coleridge then took up lodgings at 25 College Street. Cottle had encouraged him so much that he felt like undertaking domes- tic life and consequently he was married to Sarah Fricker in Chat- terton's old church, St. Mary Redcliffe in October, and went at once to the little cottage at Clevedon, a pretty spot on the bank of the Severn, and only a half day's walk from Bristol. How the honeymoon was spent in this primitive abode in which there were but scanty furnishings, and only Spartan fare, is revealed in the poet's letters of the time, in Cottle's Reminiscences, and in this poem, which I am bound to believe was written then, in spite of the fact that he gives the date as August. It is interesting to know that at this very time Wordsworth and his sister were settling (only thirty miles away) at Racedown Lodge for their happy reunion after a long separation, nestling like two storm-tossed birds in this shy retreat remote from men. The world had been much with them both and now they were to begin that life with nature and those who teach as nature teachers. In this blissful springtide we get the utterance of the poet in Coleridge as we have not had it before. We have hoped and believed but our faith has had no sure foundation in his actual work. Here is distinctive revelation that he has freed himself from the shackles of teachers and had become independent. In purely liter- ary characteristics, vividness of description, melody and dignity of verse, grace and beauty of language, the young poet is unmistaka- bly master, while in the more significant elements of poetry, his new life where the affections lead him on, and nature becomes alive with joy in sweetly human associations, we see the beginnings of that splendid apocalypse which is to be : the new life of man and nature, in which a hard dry naturalism is to be warmed and ennobled by the shaping power of the imagination and coarse 1795] il^otefif 315 romance is to be refined and elevated by the power of truth. Under this magic spell of love and holy passion, there came to Coleridge not only new conceptions of man and nature but a new power of utterance, the most fascinating in melodious richness and natural magic in the history of English poetry. The poem was changed somewhat in its various editions but the text here is substantially that of the original except that 11. 25-33 have been added. 1 795-1 796. REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT. First printed in Monthly Maga^iine, October, 1796. ' ' An epilogue to the Clevedon honeymoon worthy of the Prologue." — J. D. Campbell. We must remember that the lark which " Singing, singing With clouds and sky about it ringing " builds its nest upon the ground and does not despise the earth where cares abound. We are glad that Coleridge had a brief period of unalloyed pleasure for which he seems to have been created, and we must not find fault that interests of the nest upon the ground called him back to the stern realities of life. Cottle was waiting for the promised volume of verse. He says : '* Coleridge's mind was in a singular degree distinguished for the habit of projecting. . . . To project with him was commonly sufficient. The execu- tion, of so much consequence in the estimation of others, with him was a secondary point. I remember him once to have read to me, from his pocket book, a list of eighteen different works which he had resolved to write, and several of them in quarto, not one of which he ever effected. At the top of the list appeared, ' Pantisocracy ! 4to.' (^Reminiscences^. Southey had become estranged, and after marrying Edith Fricker had departed for Lisbon : thus the dream of a Pantisocracy fell in ruins. Clevedon was found too far from the Bristol library and in December was abandoned for Redcliffe Hill. We are not anxious to inquire into the reasons for all these experiences — preferring to leave that to those immoral critics who read moral object lessons on 3i6 iliotesi [1796 the failings of great men — while we turn to the enjoyment of the work done. Mr. Alois Brandl happily calls the previous poem Coleridge's U Allegro and the present one his // Penseroso, but they are much more than Milton's in that sense in which the landscape poetry of the nineteenth century possesses its peculiar charm — its truth to the universal while at the same time keeping close to the local and the particular. In consequence of this we gain new and fresh insight into the mind and art of the poets when we wander with Cowper by the languid Ouse, with Crabbe in the Suffolk Coast, with Burns in Ayrshire, with Coleridge and Wordsworth in the ^uantocks and the Lakes, and with Tennyson in Lincolnshire. The original title was Reflections on Entering into Active Life. Lamb wrote immediately on reading it : " 'Tis altogether the sweetest thing to me you ever wrote." 1796-1796. ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY. First printed in the Watchman^ No. VI, April 11, 1796. The need of funds became more pressing so his friends Cottle and Thomas Poole suggested the publication of a newspaper The Watchman^ and in January, 1796, Coleridge set out on a journey north to procure subscriptions. During this journey he preached in various Unitarian pulpits — clad " in blue coat and white waist- coat, that no rag of the woman of Babylon might be seen on him." It was on this journey that this little poem was written for The Watchman. \. 12. Chatterton. 1796 ?-i836. TO . First printed by H. N. Coleridge in The Remains, 1836, as a * Fragment.' This little poem cannot be accurately placed but Mr. Campbell gives the following note : * ' This perfect little poem was found in the 'Commonplace Book, c. 1 795-1 797' and printed by H. N, Coleridge as a 'Fragment' in the Remains (i, 280) Assuredly there is nothing fragmentary about it," 1796] ^ote0 317 1 796-1 796. TO A PRIMROSE, THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON. First printed in the Watchman No. VIII April 27, 1796. " Rescued from the Remains (i. 47) from the Watchman No. VIII, April 27, 1796, — as presumably Coleridge's, though it has no signature. — J. Dykes Campbell. 1 796-1 797. SONNET, TO A FRIEND, WHO ASKED HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME. First printed in Poems, 1797. This memorable year in Coleridge's life was to close with one more significant contribution to the Muse. The long promised volume of poems appeared in April of this year and was on the whole favorably received. The first poem in the Contents was the Monody on Death of Chatterton and the last, Religious Musings. It contained fifty-one poems all but fifteen of which were classed as Effusions, among these were four sonnets by Lamb. In May the last number of The Watchman was published with a note, "The reason is short and satisfactory — the work does not pay expenses." Anticipating this collapse, Poole had collected a purse for the editor. Cf. Thomas Poole and his Friends, i. pp. 142—145. " When the purse arrived," says Mr. Campbell, " the cupboard was empty." Coleridp^'- '' ^n engaged as assistant editor of the London Morning C'. ^,ncte, but his love for Bristol was too strong and he gave it up. Other plans were made but fell through. He visited his old home at Ottery : of this he writes : " I was received by my mother with transport, and by my brother George with joy and tenderness." While on a visit to the Lloyds making arrangements to take Charles, one of their sons into his family, a son was born to him September 19. He hastened home taking his pupil with him. His feelings on this occasion are revealed in three inconsiderable sonnets. I give the third of these chiefly for the beautiful last lines. It was addressed to Lamb, who, on receiving it, wrote : "I will keep my eyes open reluctantly a minute longer to tell you that I 31 8 jliotefli [1796 love you for those simple, tender, heart flowing lines with which you conclude. . . . Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge. ... I allow no hotbeds in the gardens of Parnassus. ' ' As Coleridge at this time had great dislike for all sacramental rites, the child was not given baptism but named David Hartley, after the great philosopher, of whom he wrote in Religious Musings : " Him of mortal kind Wisest, he first who mark'd the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain Pass in fine surges." How his feelings toward the ordinances of the church mellowed as time went on may be seen from the following from Table Talk^ August 9, 1832. "I think the baptismal service almost perfect. . . . None of the services of the church eflfect me so much as this." 1796?-! 799. LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM. First printed in the Morning Post, 1799. I have placed this poem here for it is evident from Lamb's Let- ters, Ainger I, 3 1 that it existed in whole or in part thus early. Inasmuch as he has just visited his old home at Ottery, it is quite possible that it may have some connection with the memories there recalled. I have omitted the first three stanzas as quite unworthy of the others. 1. 16. Dear Annie, Mr. J. Dykes Campbell says : " The poem may well be a recast of some early verses for the * dear Annie ' to whom it is addressed may have been his favorite sister of that name whom he lost in 1791." 1 796-1 796; ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR. First printed in the Cambridge Intelligence, December 31, 1796. Religious Musings and Ode on the Destiny of Nations belong to this year, and although they contain powerful lines they are full of 1797] jptotes; 319 dazzling imagery ; but in this Ode written in December we find that he has begun to follow Lamb's advice as to pruning. It is not free from the faults of his masters in the old school but it is distinctly new in "impetuosity of transition, and fulness of fancy and feel- ing." The metrical movement is natural and graceful, in perfect harmony with the varying moods : a solemn symphony in words. It was written for the Cambridge Intelligencer and was dedicated to Thomas Poole of Stowey. The Argument was added later. 1. 33. dread name. '* The Name of Liberty, which at the commencement of the French Revolution was both the occasion and the pretext of remembered crimes." — S. T. C. 1. 40. Northern Conqueress. Empress of Russia who perpe- trated the Massacre of Ismail. 1. 63. My soul beheld thy vision. " Thy image in a vision." S. T. C. 1. 135. Abandoned by heaven. " Of the one hundred and seven last years, fifty have been years of war." — S. T. C. 1 797-1 797. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE. First printed in Poems^ 1797- This is the annus mirabilis in the life of Coleridge. He had a desire to get away from the life of the city, to be near Poole in the country. He writes : '* My anxieties eat me up. I want con- solation. My Friend ! My Brother ! Write and console me." Poole owned a little cottage at Stowey which at first he did not think suitable, but Coleridge begged so hard saying, '* If we can but contrive to make two rooms ivarm and ^wholesome we will laugh in the faces of Gloom and Ill-lookingness," that he set about putting it in order. Coleridge moved hither on the last day of the year 1796, and wrote at once: "We are 'very happy, and my little David Hartley grows a sweet boy. I raise potatoes, and all man- ner of vegetables ; have an orchard, and shall raise corn enough for my family. We have live pigs, and ducks and geese." Poole's house was near at hand, their gardens joining. Upon this cottage occupied by Coleridge there was put in 1893 a tablet inscribed, *' Here Samuel Taylor Coleridge made his home 1 797-1 800," and funds have been raised to purchase it so that it 320 jpote0 [1797 may be preserved as has been Dove Cottage the home of Words- worth. He now set about a second edition of his poems, with a few by Lamb and Lloyd ; these were published in May, with this poem to his brother as 'Dedication.' Mr. Campbell says: " In a copy of the 1 797 edition, now in the possession of Mr. Frederick Locker- Lampson, Coleridge has written underneath this Dedication as follows : — ' N. B. — If this volume should ever be delivered according to its direction, i. e. to Posterity, let it be known that the Reverend George Coleridge was displeased and thought his character endan- gered by this Dedication. — S. T. Coleridge.' " This must be an error ; he could not have taken displeasure at the dedication, but he might have disliked some of its contents. It is a tender and beautiful tribute to his brother, full of grace and sweetness, love and loyalty : grave and gay by turns, yet dignified and calm. 1. 10. Added in 1803. 1. 20. Coleridge on his N. Welsh tour of 1794, John Hucks, addressed some lines to him in his Poems, 1798, with this line, ' * Deem not the friendship of your earlier days False, tho' chance-started." — Campbell. I. 32. T. Poole. II. 63-64. Evidently allude to congratulatory verse sent Coleridge by George when he won the Browne medal for his Sapphic Ode at Cambridge. 1 797-1 800. LINES TO WM. LINLEY, ESQ. First printed in Annual Anthology^ 1800. Mr. Campbell says, ' ' The original manuscript is dated ' Don- head, Sept. 12, 1797. To Mr. William Linley.' William Lin- ley was the brother of the beautiful Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Sir Joshua's 'St. Cecilia.' " 1 797-1 809. THE THREE GRAVES. Parts III and IV were first printed in The Friend No. VI, Sept. 21, 1809. 1797] jl^otes! 321 Coleridge also wrote early in this year a tragedy Osorio for Sheri- dan at Drury Lane ; and the life at Stowey was enlivened by visits of his friends, Lamb and his sister. At the same time he writes to Cottle : '* The mice play the very devil with us. It irks me to set a trap. By all the whiskers of all the pussies that have mewed . . , since the days of Whittington, it is not fair." It was during these days that he began The Three Gra'ves^ which was not com- pleted until I §09, when parts III and IV were printed in The Friend No. VI, Sept. 21. He called it ' A fragment of a Com- mon Ballad-Tale,' saying, "Its merits, if any, are exclusively psychological." He had been reading of the effect of witchcraft on the negroes of the West Indies and on the Copper Indians, and wished to show that such effects were not confined to them. Speaking of such revelations as we have in Coleridge's romantic poems Mr. George Dawson says : "It does appear to me that these strange and vague feelings are instruments to keep alive within us our faith in an unseen and spiritual world. We are content to feel it, and to hold it, when we have been argued out of it. These feelings, vague and mystic, fan the flame of faith, and keep it alive." It is not known if Parts V and VI were ever written, but Mr. Campbell found Parts I and II in Coleridge's papers. One needs only to read the previous poetry of the Churchyard School to see how far Coleridge has passed beyond anything which it suggests. Here is the beginning of that blank verse idyle carried to such perfection of artistic finish by Tennyson. Coleridge continues the landscape art which he began at Clevedon and which makes the region of Stowey so interesting to the lover of his poems. We can also readily discover that he is sailing at least in the harbor of the perilous seas ; the world of wonders was revealing . to him its depths. It is the beginning of a group of poems of wondrous melody, and the most weirdly fascinating in revelations of the natural and supernatural to be found in literature. It would be interesting to compare this work of Coleridge with that of Goethe after his period of Titanism and revolution in Goetz von Berlichingen and Werther had passed and he had learned that to build was better than to destroy. Mr. Campbell says : " Much of the original manuscript copy from which The Friend was printed at Penrith is in the handwrit- ing of Mrs. Wordsworth's sister Miss Sarah Hutchinson. 322 Jtote0 [1797 Part I, 11. 42-44. *' Uncertain whether this stanza is erased, or merely blotted in the MSS." — J. D. Campbell, Carme?i reUquum in futurum tempus relegatum. To-morrow ! and To-morrow ! and To-morrow ! — [NoteofS.T.C. — 1815.] 1797-1800. THIS LIME TREE BOWER MY PRISON. First printed in Annual Anthology^ 1800. We now arrive at the most important event in Coleridge's life. The Wordsworths had been living at Racedown, about thirty miles away, now for two years, and happy years they were, full of radiant enjoyment. They were separated from the world, but they had communion with each other and with nature. " With this, in their innocent frugality and courage, they faced the world like a new pair of babes in the wood." Coleridge, on hearing that the author of Descriptive Sketches was so near, took an early opportu- nity (in June) of visiting him. Dorothy tells us " the first thing that was read on that occasion was ' The Ruined Cottage ' with which Coleridge was so much delighted ; and after tea he repeated to us two acts and a half of his tragedy Osorio. The next morn- ing William read his tragedy The Borderers. That this was a clear case of love at first sight is shown by the letters written to their friends at this time. Dorothy writes : ** You had a great loss in not seeing Coleridge. He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. . . . He has more of ' the poet's eye in fine frenzy rolling ' than I ever wit- nessed. He has fine dark eyebrows and an overhanging forehead." Coleridge in his account of this visit says, ** I speak with heartfelt sincerity, and, I think, unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself a little man by his side." When the Wordsworths returned this visit and went to Nether Stowey, Coleridge gives this beautiful picture of Dorothy : " W. and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed ! in mind and heart ; for her person is such that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary ; if you expected to see an ordi- nary woman, you would think her pretty ! but her manners are 1797] jpotesf 323 simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion her most innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that vi^ho saw would say * Guilt was a thing impossible to her, ' Her information various. Her eye watchful in minutest observa- tion of nature ; and her taste a perfect electrometer. ' ' Words- worth wrote, " Coleridge is the most ivonderful man I ever met." They soon returned Coleridge's visit and found Lamb and his sister at Stowey. While they were there Coleridge, unable to take the walks with them, wrote this poem as he was seated in the bower he called Elysium. Mrs. Sandford speaking of a meeting there with Cottle says : " And pretty Mrs. Coleridge coming out to join them with her boy in her arms appeared like a poetic embodi- ment of the idea of Woman, bringing with her the ' smile of home ' to complete the charm of that delicious day. ' ' Mr. Richard Garnett says : " Coleridge was simply a great lyri- cal poet, who, throughout his annus mirabilis of 1797, and for some time afterwards, was in a state of joyous exaltation from the new world of poetry which had been disclosed to him by Words- worth." An interesting subject for consideration in connection with the study of literature would be the work poets have done in develop- ing patriotism by showing how much stronger and deeper is the love of country when thus associated with the love of home with its simple and substantial comforts and its endearments of natural associations — rivers, woods and hills, forests, lakes and vales : and also how by revealing the beauty of places in a country they have made it more beloved. There is fascinating wandering in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England for one who wishes to read such poetry in the scenes of its birth, and such wandering is the very best lesson in political as well as literary history. The region of Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, with a wealth of natural beauty, forest, and hills, cultivated farms, open sea pro- spect, and simple life, was an ideal place for the creation of such poetry as these enthusiasts on man, on nature and on human life desired to give to the world. In Dorothy's letters and journal we have the best of guides in these delightful retreats. She writes : *' There is everything here, — sea, woods, wild as fancy ever painted, brooks, clear and pebbly as in Cumberland ; villages 324 jl^ote0 [1797 romantic . . . the deer dwell here and sheep, so that we have a living prospect. . . . Wherever we turn we have woods, smooth downs, and valleys with small brooks running down them, through green meadows, hardly ever intersected with hedgerows, but scat- tered ever with trees. The hills that cradle these valleys are either covered with fern and bilberries, or oak woods, walks extend for miles over the hilltops ; the great beauty of which is their wild simplicity. ' ' 1 797-1 798. FIRE, FAMINE AND SLAUGHTER. " The Scene a desolated Tract in La Vendee. Famine is discov- ered lying on the ground ; to her enter Fire and Slaughter." First printed in the Morning Post, Jan. 8, 1 798. As early as 1 794 Coleridge became very bitter in denunciation of the policy of Burke and Pitt and wrote a sonnet upon each of these leaders full of venom. These he afterwards recalled in edi- tion of 1797. In a note to the sonnet on Burke he said : " Peace be to his spirit when he departs from us ; this is the severest pun- ishment I wish him — that he may be appointed under-porter to St. Peter and be obliged to open the gates of heaven to Brissot, Roland, Condorcet, Fayette and Priestley." It was natural, therefore, that when he published this poem it should have been regarded as a continuance of that old controversy, but when he learned this he wrote an Apologetic Preface to the edition of 1 817 in which he said : "I have merely generalized the causes of the war, and thus personified the abstract and christened it by the name which I have been accustomed to hear most often associated with its management and measures. I have had as little notion of a real person of flesh and blood ' distinguishable in number, joint and limb,' as Milton had in the grim and terrible phantoms (half person, half allegory) which he has placed at the Gates of Hell." In Cottle's Reminiscences p. 16 there is an interesting letter from Liberty to Famine which Coleridge recited at one of his Anti- Pittite lectures in Bristol i 795, which has a direct relation to the poem. 1797] ilioteflf 325 1 797-8-1 8 1 6. KUBLA KHAN. First published in 1 8 1 6 with the title Kubla Khan : or ji Vision in a Dream in the same pamphlet which contained Christabel and The Pains of Sleep. How Coleridge's genius responded to the magical influence of the new life which came through Wordsworth is one of the most interesting bits of literary history which the world has ever seen. With what joyous exaltation he enters into the new world of life and art, is revealed in this poem in which the melody of unearthly music bears us into a realm where we are laid asleep in body and become a living soul. It is but a fragment — *' a splendid curi- osity, a lyrical landscape fairy tale." It was suggested by an account given in Purchas' Pilgrimage of a palace of the thirteenth century which belong to the Tartar Khan, Kublai. With its history is associated an experience of singular nature. Being in ill-health he retired to a farmhouse between Porlock and Linton. While there an anodyne was prescribed and after reading Purchas' Pilgrimage he fell asleep and composed several hundred lines " without any sensation or consciousness of effort." On awakening he took pen to write them down and while thus employed was called out by a visitor who detained him an hour, and when he returned the remainder of the vision had perished. 1. 1-5. Leigh Hunt says : *' What a grand flood is this, flowing down through measureless caverns to a sea without a sun ! I know no other sea equal to it except Keats' in his Ode to a Nightingale.'''' Lamb in 1 81 6 wrote of Coleridge's recitation of the Kubla Khan — "which said vision he repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and Elysian bowers into my parlour when he sings or says it . . . his face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory ; an archangel a little damaged." Of Coleridge's poems of which Kubla Khan is a type Mr. Stop- ford Brooke says: "They stand alone, and all lovers of poetry keep them in their heart. They are as lovely as they are love- begetting, and while the world lasts they will ravish the imagina- 326 jliote0 [1797 tion of men. Their music is perfect, and the spirit of them is as akin to childhood as to age. The lover loves them though they do not speak of love. The lover of wisdom loves them though they do not speak of philosophy. The lover of Nature loves them, though they speak, only incidentally, of Nature, and all lovers of folklore, from those wild men who peopled the Universe with beings who were not themselves, to us who recollect these tales, that we may live in that alluring world, love them or would have loved them dearly." There is some doubt as to the exact date of this poem but it belongs to that joyous time of 1797-8. 1797, 8-1798. THE ANCIENT MARINER. First printed anonymously in First Edition oi Lyrical Ballads j 1798. After reading the expressions of delight of these two young men in each other, we are not surprised that a month later the Words- worths removed to Alfoxden near Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, where Coleridge resided. The poets rambled over the Quantock Hills and held high communion. During one of these excursions, feeling the need of money, they planned a joint production for the New Monthly Magazine. They set about the work in earnest, and selected as a subject the Ancyent Marinere^ founded upon a dream of one of Coleridge's friends. Coleridge supplied most of the incidents and almost all the lines. Wordsworth contributed the incident of the killing of the albatross and a few of the lines. They soon found that their methods did not harmonize, and the Marinere was left to Coleridge, while Wordsworth wrote upon the common incidents of everyday life. When the Marinere was finished Wordsworth had so many pieces ready that they concluded to publish a joint volume, and this they did under the title Lyrical Ballads, with the Rime of the Ancyent Marinere heading the volume. We will let each one give his version of this eventful undertaking. In the manuscript notes which Wordsworth left we find this record : — "In the autumn of 1 797, Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself 1797] i|iote0 327 started from Alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon with a view to visit Linton and the Valley of Stones near to it ; and as our united funds were very small, we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a poem to be sent to the Nenv Monthly Magazine. Accordingly, we set off, and proceeded along the Quantock Hills towards Watchet ; and in the course of this walk was planned the poem of the Ancient Mariner founded on a dream, as Mr. Cole- ridge said, of his friend Mr. Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention, but certain parts I suggested 5 for example, some crime was to be committed which should bring upon the Old Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards de- lighted to call him, the spectral persecution, as a consequence of that crime and his own wanderings. I had been reading in Shelvocke's Voyages^ a day or two before, that while doubling Cape Horn, they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort of sea fowl, some extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet. ' Suppose,' said I, ' you represent him as having killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime.' The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead men, but do not recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem. The gloss with which it was subsequently accompanied was not thought of by either of us at the time, at least, not a hint of it was given to me, and I have no doubt it was a gratuitous afterthought. We began the composition together on that, to me, memorable evening. I furnished two or three hnes at the beginning of the poem, in par- ticular. * And listened like a three years' child : The Mariner had his wUl. ' These trifling contributions, all but one, which Mr. C. has with unnecessary scrupulosity recorded, — * And thou art long and lank, and brown As is the ribbed sea-sand, ' — slipped out of his mind, as well they might. As we endeavored to proceed conjointly (I speak of the same evening), our respec- 328 jpotesi [1797 tive manners proved so widely different that it would have been quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from an undertaking upon which I could only have been a clog. . . . The Ancient Mariner grew and grew till it became too im- portant for our first object, which was limited to our expecta- tion of five pounds j and we began to think of a volume which was to consist, as Mr. Coleridge has told the world, of poems chiefly on supernatural subjects." Coleridge in the Biographia Literaria, Chap. XIV. says : — '* During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neigh- bours, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset, diffused over a known and familiar land- scape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural 5 and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affec- tions by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would natu- rally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life ; the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its vicinity where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them when they present themselves. "In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads, in which it was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic ; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of 1797] jliotesf 329 novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the won- ders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solici- tude, we have eyes yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand. ' ' With this view I wrote the Ancient Mariner, and was prepar- ing, among other poems, the Dark Ladie, and the Christabel, in which I should have more nearly realized my ideal than I had done in my first attempt. But Mr. Wordsworth's industry had proved so much more successful, and the number of his poems so much greater, that my compositions, instead of forming a balance, ap- peared rather an interpolation of heterogeneous matter. Mr. Words- worth added two or three poems written in his own character, m the impassioned, lofty, and sustained diction which is characteris- tic of his genius. In this form the Lyrical Ballads were pub- lished." TRANSLATION OF THE MOTTO FROM BURNET. I readily believe that there are more invisible beings in the uni- verse than visible. But who will explain to us the nature of all these, the rank, relationships, distinguishing characteristics and functions of each ? What is it they do ? Where is it they dwell ? Always human thought circles around the knowledge of these mys- teries, never touching the centre. Meanwhile it is, I confess, oft- times well pleasing to behold sketched upon the mind, as upon a tablet, a picture of the greater and better world ; so shall the spirit, wonted to the petty concerns of daily life, not narrow itself overmuch, nor sink utterly into trivialities. But meanwhile we must diligently s.^v,- .uth, and maintain a temperate judgment, if we would distinguish certainty from uncertainty, day from night. T. Burnet: Archaol. Phil., p. 68. The Ancient Mariner was first printed anonymously in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, with the title : The Rime of the Ancyent Mariner in Sen; en Parts. An Advertisement, which was the germ of Wordsworth's famous Prefaces, and an Argu- 33® jl^otes; [1797 ment, introduced the poem. In the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1800), the title was changed to The Ancient Mariner^ a Poet'' s Re-verie. The Argument was altered, the text was much changed, and the extreme archaisms in spelling disappeared. The text was reprinted in Lyrical Ballads, 1802 and 1805, but the Argument was omitted. It next appeared in Sibylline Lea-ves, with the Motto from Burnet, a few changes of text, the element of the horrible made less prominent, the marginal gloss added, and the Argument of 1798 restored. The Ancient Mariner and Christabel are charged with the spirit of the old romance, which returned to England in the ballad litera- ture of Percy's Reliques, Macpherson's Ossian and the imaginative mediaevalism of Chatterton. " In Coleridge personally," says Mr. Walter Pater, *' this taste had been encouraged by his odd and out-of-the-way reading in the old-fashioned literature of the marvellous — books like Purchas's Pilgrims, early voyages like Hakluyt's, old naturalists and visionary moralists, like Thomas Burnet, from whom he quotes the motto of the Ancient Mariner. Fancies of the strange things which may very well happen, even in broad daylight, to men shut up alone in ships far off on the sea, seem to have occurred to the human mind in all ages with a peculiar readiness." Mr. J. Dykes Campbell says that besides the indebtedness to a dream of their Stowey friend Cruikshank, the passage in Shel- vocke, and the handling of the ship by the spirits, Mr. J. F. Nicholls, City Librarian of Bristol, has suggested a very probable hint from Captain Thomas James's Strange and Dangerous Voy- age . . . in his Intended Disccvery of the North-West Passage into the South Sea : London, 1 63 3. Mr. Nicholls says : *' It is very likely indeed that S. T. Coleridge, who was a regular fre- quenter of our City Library, devised his marrow-chilling scenes de- picted in that unique and immortal poem. The Ancient Mariner^ from Captain James's Strange and Dangerous Voyage. Mr. Ivor James, in an article, The Source of the Ancient Mariner (^Athe- naum, 1890), makes much of this theory." Still, again, it has been suggested that the idea may have been stimulated by '' The Letter of Saint Paulinus to Macarius, in which he relates astounding wonders concerning the shipwreck of an old man." This document is to be found in La Bigne's Magna 1797] ilioce^ 331 Bibliotheca Veterum Pairum, 1 6 18. In this story the old man is the sole survivor of the ship's crew ; the ship was navigated by a " Crew of Angels," " steered by the Pilot of the World to the Lucanian Shore." While it is not impossible that Coleridge derived some hints from the above, yet I fancy he would say to all this wool gathering as did Tennyson : " There is, I fear, a prosaic set growing up among us — editors of booklets, book-worms, index-hunters, or men of great memories and no imagination — who impute themsel'ves to the poet, and so believe that he, too, has no imagination, but is forever poking his nose between the pages of some old volume in order to see what he can appropriate." The natural analogy to this influence of early associations upon Coleridge is to be found in the life of Scott. Scott was born in literary Edinburgh, but on account of physical infirmity he was early taken to the farm of his paternal grandfather at Sandy- knowe, on the slopes of Smailholm crags. At the summit of the crags stood the grim old sentinel, Smailholm tower, guard- ing the Borderland, where '* every field has its battle and every rivulet its song." Not far away was the venerable Abbey of Dryburgh, the Eildons, and the stretches of Lammermoor, Mel- rose, ** like some tall rock with lichens gay," almost encircled by the Tweed, while the vales of Ettrick and Yarrow, fragrant with song and ballad, could be seen in the distance. '* And rising from those lofty groves, Behold a Ruin hoary ! The shattered front of Newark's Towers, Renowned in Border story." Such were the sights that fed the wandering eyes of Scott's in- fancy and boyhood, while his ear was trained to ballad, song, and story by the grandmother and her auld gudeman. His aunt fired his imagination by the tales of Jamie Telfer, Wat of Harden, wight Willie, and by the old ballads. *' Hardiknute," says Scott, *' was the first poem I ever learnt, and the last I shall ever forget." Scott confesses his indebtedness to Coleridge. " Coleridge's beautiful and tantalizing fragments of Chrhtabel (then in MS.), which, from the irregularity of the stanzas, and the liberty which it allowed the author to adapt the sound to the 332 0Ott& [»797 sense, seemed to be exactly suited to such an extravaganza as I meditated, and it is to Mr. Coleridge that I am bound to make the acknowledgment due from the pupil to his master." Part I. Compare other sea poetry with this poem ; the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, Tennyson's The Re-venge, The Sailor Boy, and Longfellow's ff^reck of the Hesperus. The Ancient Mariner is in direct line with that remarkable strain of the sea in English poetry, which extends ftom the Wan- derer to Kipling's Se'ven Seas. Coleridge says of his early home : "We could hear At silent noon, and eve, and early morn. The sea's faint murmur." 13. He holds him tvith his glittering eye. Coleridge was re- markable for his power to attract listeners to his marvellous conver- sation. At Christ's Hospital and at Cambridge his large grey eye sparkled with a noble madness which held his comrades as if by magic. Of his later power in the same direction, Carlyle says : <' He distinguished himself to all that ever heard him as at least the most surprising talker extant in this world. His thoughts did not seem to come with labour and effort, but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination lifted him from his feet." Wordsworth alludes to him as '' The rapt one of the godlike forehead. The heaven-eyed creature." " Let the dullest clod that ever vegetated," says Christopher North, " be shut up in a room with Coleridge, or in a wood, an-d subjected for a few minutes to the ethereal influence of that won- derful man's monologue, and he will begin to believe himself a poet. . . . While he is discoursing, the world loses all its common- places, and you and your wife imagine yourself Adam and Eve lis- tening to the affable Archangel, Raphael, in the Garden of Eden." In My First Acquaintance ivith the Poets, Hazlitt alludes to a visit of Coleridge to his father's house in 1798. He says: 1797] ^om 333 "When the poet preacher took leave I accompanied him six miles on the road. It was a fine morning in the middle of winter, and he talked the whole way. The scholar in Chaucer is described as going " Sounding on his way." So Coleridge went on his. In digressing, in dilating, in passing from subject to subject, he appeared to me to float in air, to slide on ice. . . . On my way back I had a sound in my ears — it was the voice of Fancy ; I had a light before me — it was the face of Poetry." This stanza was contributed by Wordsworth. 25-28. The sun came up^ etc. What is the effect of the mono- syllabic words here ? 41-44. And noiv the Storm-blast came, etc. Mr. J. Dykes Campbell has changed the gloss here from dratvn, as most editions give it, to dri'ven. The Storm-blast chased the ship along, and hence dri'ven seemed the natural word to use here. 51-70. And noiv there came, etc. Mr. Traill says: ''The details of the voyage are all chronicled with such order and regu- larity, there is such a diary-like air about the whole thing, that we accept it almost as if it were a series of extracts from a ship's log. Mr. J. Dykes Campbell gives the following data from the log of Captain James' 'Northwest passage.' The reader may judge as to the probability that Coleridge had read them. " ' All day and all night it snowed hard 5 ' 'the nights are very fold ; so that our rigging freezes ; ' ' It proved very thick foule weather, and the next day we found ourselves encompassed about with ice ; ' ' We had ice not farre off about us, and some pieces as high as our Top-mast-head ; ' ' We heard the rutt against a bank of ice that lay on the shoare. It made a hollow and hideous noise ; ' ' The ice cracked all over the Bay with a fearfull noyse. ' ' ' 63. Suggested by Wordsworth. 79-82. God sa-ve thee^ etc. Cf. The Ra-ven. Part II. 97, 98. Nor dim nor red, etc. Professor Dowden says of these two lines : " The sunrise at sea is like the solemn apparition of one of the chief actors in the drama of crime, and agony, and 334 ipotes; [1797 expiation, and in the new sense of wonder with which we witness that oldest spectacle of the heavens we can well believe in other miracles." 104. The furroiv folloived free. In Sibylline Lea-ves (^iSlj) the line was printed — "The fiirrow stream' d off free." And Coleridge added this footnote, " In the former editions the line was — " The furrow follow' d 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 ivake appears like a brook flowing off from the stern." In the edition of 1828 and later ones the earlier reading was restored. 1 19-122. f^ater, water, e'veryiv here, etc. Cf. Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 3. 127-130. About, about, etc. A touch of Middleton and Shakespeare here. " Black spirits and white j Red spirits and gray ; Mingle, mingle, mingle. You that mingle may. ' ' Thomas Middleton, The Witch. ** Fair is foul and foul is fair : Hover through the fog and filthy air." Macbeth, Act i. Sc. I. Part III. 164. They for joy did grin. " I took the thought of grinning for joy from my companion's (Berdmare of Jesus Coll., Cam- bridge) remark to me when we had climbed to the top of Plin- limmon, and were fairly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction tiU we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me, ' You grinned like an idiot ! ' He had done the same." — Table Talk, May 31, 1830. 1 84. Gossamer es. The fine film network to be seen in the air on summer evenings. The old legend says these are the remnants of the Virgin Mary's winding sheet, which fell from her when she was translated. '797] jfiotefl? 335 185-189. Are those her ribs, etc. A MS. correction by Cole- ridge of the corresponding stanza in edition of 1798 was, — " Are those her ribs which fleck' d the sun Like bars of a dungeon grate ? Are those two all, all of the crew, That woman and her mate ? ' ' •' The following stanza was found in Coleridge's handwriting on the margin of a copy of the Bristol (1798) edition of Lyrical Bal- lads.'"'' — J. Dykes Campbell, " This ship it was a plankless thing, A bare Anatomy ! A plankless Spectre, and it mov'd Like a being of the Sea ! The woman and a fleshless man Therein sate merrUy." " The two palpable intruders from a spiritual world in almost all ghost literature — in Scott and Shakespeare even — have a kind of crudity or coarseness. Coleridge's power is in the very fineness with which, as by some really ghostly finger, he brings home to our inmost sense his inventions, daring as they are." — Walter Pater. 193. The Night-mare, etc. "The Night-mare Life-in-Death, she it was who, with her numbing spell, haunted Coleridge himself in after days." — Dow- den. In the edition of 1798, after this stanza will be found another very gruesome and hideous. " Coleridge felt," says Professor Dowden, ' * that these hideous incidents of the grave only detracted from the finer horror of the voluptuous beauty of his white devil, the Night- mare Life-in-Death." 199-202. The Suns rim dips, etc. Lowell alludes to these lines as having the " unashamed nakedness of Scripture, of the Eden of diction ere the voluble serpent had entered it." 201-208. With far-heard ivhisper, etc. Mr. J. Dykes Camp- bell gives another cast of these lines found in some papers of Cole- ridge, dated 1806, 1807, 18 10. " With never a whisper on the main Off shot the spectre ship : 33^ ^Ott& [1797 And stifled words and groans of pain ,,. ,, , murmuring ,. Mix d on each ... ° lip. tremblmg '^ And we look'd round, and we look'd up, And fear at our hearts, as at a cup, The Life-blood seem'd to sip — The sky was dull, and dark the night, The helmsman's face by his lamp gleam' d bright, From the sails the dews did drip." 222, 223. And every soul^ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. I. King. * How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience ! ' Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. i : Macb. * How is 't with me, when every noise appals me } ' Part IV. 224-227. I fear thee, etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 3, 18-25: " I will drain him dry as hay," etc. " For the last two lines of this stanza I am indebted to Mr. Wordsworth." Note of S. T. C. — Siby/lifie Lea'ves. 232-235. Alone, alone, etc. The terror of this scene is equal to that oi Macbeth, Act v. Sc. I, the Sleep-walking Scene ; and Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. B. 3, where the King is at prayer. 244, 245. I looked to Hea'ven, etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 3: *' Pray can I not. Though inclination be as sharp as will : My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent." 248-256. I closed my lids, etc. Cf. Tennyson, Palace of Art : " But in dark corners of her palace stood Uncertain shapes ! " etc. 257, 258. An orphan s curse, ttc. Cf. .^schylos, Choephorae, Ant. i. : " Full clear a spectre came That made each single hair to stand on end," etc. 259, 260. But oh ! more horrible, etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4. ^797] jl^otesf 337 263-266. The mo'ving Moon, etc. For equally clear observa- tion of Nature, cf. Christabel, Part the First. Read the gloss here carefully for additional illustration of imaginative power. 267, 268. Her beams bemocked, etc. Cf. Frost at Midnight. 274—276. They moved, etc. Coleridge has the eye of a scien- tist here. Cf. Christabel, Part the Second : ** A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy," etc. ** In these monsters he seems to have particular interest, and to have consulted various zoological works ; for the note book of this date contains long paragraphs upon the alligators, boas, and croco- diles of antediluvian times." — Alois Brandl. 279—287. Blue, glossy green, etc. "Coleridge's strange crea- tures of the sea are not the hideous worms which a vulgar dealer in the supernatural might have invented. Seen in a great calm by the light of the moon, these creatures of God are beautiful in the joy of their life." — E. Dowden. 288—291. The self-same moment, etc. Here is the dramatic centre of the story, as in Shakespeare's five-act plays it is in the third act. Part V. 305-308. I moved, etc. ** Certainly there are strange things in the other world, and so there are in all the steps to it ; and a little glimpse of Heaven, — a moment's conversing with an angel, — any ray of God, any communication from the Spirit of Comfort, which God gives to his servants in strange and unknown manners, are infinitely far from illusions. We shall understand them when we feel them, and when, in new and strange needs, we shall be re- freshed by them" (Note-book, p. 27). 318-326. j4nd the coming ivind, etc. The minute realism of description here reveals Coleridge's sensitive apprehension of natural scenery. 359, / heard the skylark sing. Cf. Wordsworth, To a Skylark ; Shelley, To a Skylark. The last stanza suggests the special revelation of nature which it was the mission of Wordsworth and Coleridge to give. Cf. Wordsworth, It 'was an April Morning, The Leech Gatherer, Lines on Early Spring. 33^ jfiote0 [1797 Coleridge often upbraids those poets who project themselves into nature. Cf. The Nightingale. 402-405, The spirit, etc. " But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee ; And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee j Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee ; And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee j Who knoweth not in all these That the hand of the Lord hath wrought this." Job, First Cycle of Speeches. Part VI. 446—451. Like one, that on a lonesome road, etc. This stanza introduces us into the realm of the supernatural much as does Shakespeare's Macbeth. Mr. Stopford Brooke says : *' I never met a sailor whose ship had been among the lonely places of the sea who did not know of these hauntings." 467. Is this mine otvn countree ? Cf. Fears in Solitude. 472-479. The harbor-hay, etc. The quiet of the harbor is the symbol of return to the life of love after the storms of sin. " How pleasantly, how reassuringly, the whole night-mare story is made to end among the clear, fresh sounds and lights of the bay where it began. ' ' — Walter Pater. 490, etc. A mass all light, etc. The idea of working the ship by this means was suggested by Wordsworth. 500-504. But soon I heard, etc. Mr. J. Dykes Campbell says that in a copy of the edition of 1798 Coleridge crossed out the stanza which followed this, and wrote in the margin the fol- lowing : " Then vanish'd all the lovely sights, The spirits of the air ; No souls of mortal men were they, But spirits bright and fair." 510, 511. He singeth, etc. ** He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own." Wordsworth, Poefs Epitaph. 1797] ipotesf 339 514-518. T/iis Hermit, etc. Cf. CAristaM, P^itt U. 535. /'zy'-^o^ ; ivy-bush or clump. *^ The wealthy miller's early face Like the moon in an ivy-tod. " Tennyson, The Miller' s Daughter, 1833. Part VII. 560-569. I mo'ved my lips, etc. How marvellously, and as it were by a single stroke, does Coleridge create for us the physical effects of the mariner's long agony, when he makes the sight of him so startling and tragic. 578-581. Forthivith this frame of mine ivas ivrenched. '* Remorse is as the heart in which it grows ; If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance ; but if proud and gloomy It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison." Remorse, Act i. Sc. I. 584, 585. And, till my ghastly tale is told, etc. Cf. Words- worth : *' A timely utterance gave that thought relief — And I again am strong." 601-609. 0, stueeter than the marriagefeast, etc. Cf. Ten- nyson's The T1U0 Voices, 549-624. 614-618. He pray eth best, etc. Cf. Coicridge : ** There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy name is Love. Truth of subliming import ! with the which Who feeds and saturates his constant soul He from his small particular orbit flies With blest outstarting ! from himself he flies, Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze Views all creation ; and he loves it all, And blesses it, and calls it very good ! Religious Musings, 340 0Ott& [1797 Cf. Wordsworth : '* The Being, that is in the clouds and air, That is in the green leaves among the groves, Maintains a deep and reverential care For the unoffending creatures whom he loves." Hart-Leap Well. Valentine Le Grice, one of Coleridge's Cambridge friends, ex- pressed in his commemoration speech the creed of the young poets. " The end of poetry is to delight, to ennoble, to elevate, and im- prove the heart. Let us therefore contemplate nature with the eye of Thomson, stimulate our energy by Gray, awaken our finer feel- ings by Bowles, lose ourselves in sympathy with Burns, and enlarge our higher sentiment with Cowper. " In the following noble passage from Cardinal Newman we have the same idea as that which Coleridge voices : " Can anything," says Newman, " be more marvellous or star- tling, unless we were used to it, than that we should have a race of beings about us whom we do but see, and as little know their state, or can describe their interests, or their destiny, as we can tell of the inhabitants of the sun and moon ? It is indeed a very over- powering thought, when we get to fix our minds on it, that we familiarly use, I may say, hold intercourse with creatures who are as much strangers to us, as mysterious, as if they were fabulous, unearthly beings." ** We are sharers not only of animal but of vegetable life j sharers with the higher brute animals in common instincts and feel- ings and affections. ... I fancy that human beings may be more humane when they realize that, as their dependent associates live a life in which man has a share, so they have rights which man is bound to respect." — Prof. Asa Gray, Natural Science and Reli- gion. *' The spirit of Romance that came as the salvation of modern poetry found magical expression in The Ancient Mariner. Old age renews itself with memories of youth 5 and the inspiration of the new life of poetry was from the far-off fields and fountains of the neglected folk-lore of the North. In The Ancient Mariner are the two great elements of the folk-tale : love of the marvellous — the supernatural — and love of the lower animals. Wonder is 1797] jl^otes; 341 the essence of both, and both are of the essence of religion. True to the world's heart is the recognition of something rea/ above and beyond the actual in life ; equally true is the reverent awe with which primitive men regarded the migrations and strange instincts of birds and beasts. When man did animals a favor, knowledge of their language was revealed to him, and they saved him from the perils of the forest, the morass, and the flood. Love reads the secret of Nature. Man is not placed in a dead world, but in a uni- verse where living links bind order to order j where there are duties as well as rights ; and where, if duties are neglected, interests are injured." — E. Charlton Black. 1797, 1800-1816. CHRISTABEL. First printed in a pamphlet with Kuhla Khan and The Pains of Sleep, 1 8 16. The more we read the poems of this eventful year the more we wonder how it was that Wordsworth and his gifted sister influenced Coleridge, and yet the fact is everywhere evident. The essential spirit of poetry has never been more clearly revealed t^ian in these poems, which conduct us to the heights of thz English Romantic Movements. There was hardly a suggestion of the ineffable charm, the spiritual vision and natural magic of these poems in any work of his before the meeting with the quiet, wholesome and homely children of the North country. They are of imagination all compact, and wither at the frosty breath of critical analysis. We are a bit surprised at the influence which came to him from Wordsworth, and when we ask those who know these poets best just what the influence was, they leave us still in wonder. Mr. Stopford Brooke says: '* The moment Coleridge, under Words- worth's influence, began to express himself only for the pleasure he had in his emotion, or to shape the beauty he saw for the love of it alone, he ceased to be the man of talent and rose into the man of genius. ... It was the influence of a more original, of a simpler and steadier swell in another, of one who had better principles of art rooted in him than Coleridge had found as yet, and of one who had already re-conceived and reopened the deep sources of poetry." Mr. Richard Garnett says : " Wordsworth assuredly did not teach 342 ^otta [1797 Coleridge out of a book, and Coleridge's regeneration can be ascribed to nothing else than the perception that his friend was leading where he could follow him. He came after Wordsworth as one bird might follow another through an open window — a bird of more gorgeous plumage certainly, though not of sweeter voice. Mr. J. Dykes Campbell says : ** It was a rich and fruitful time for aU three — seed-time at once and harvest ; and its happy influ- ences spread far beyond their own individual selves. The gulf- stream which rose in the Quantocks warmed and is still warming distant shores. Dorothy's quick sympathy, keen observation, and rapid suggestion were invaluable to both. . . . Nor was the influ- ence, in action and reaction, of the men on one another less po- tent. Coleridge was by far the more active, as well as the finer and more penetrating, and the immense receptiveness of Words- worth must have acted as a strong incentive to its exercise. And this is true, I believe, notwithstanding that there are more dis- tinct traces of Wordsworth's influence on Coleridge's poetry than of the converse." Mr. Alois Brandl says : "The two new friends were very unlike ; they did not rush into each other's arms like two ardent, raw youths, but they grasped each other by the hand with a feeling of profound mutual recognition. Coleridge was the ivy which at last found the oak on which it could lean and unfold its luxuriance." In 1 801 Coleridge wrote : '* If I die and the booksellers will give you anything for my life, be sure to say : ' Wordsworth de- scended on him like a TvwO creauT<$v from heaven, by showing to him what true poetry was, he made him know that he himself was no Poet.' " Of the influence of Coleridge on Wordsworth we have evidence throughout the Prelude, where the most touching tributes to his capacious soul, prompt sympathy, and quick intuition are to be found in every book. In the delightful associations of the Quantocks where they ** wan- toned in wild poesy," beauty came to Coleridge in the garb of truth, while to Wordsworth truth came in the attire of beauty. Coleridge became the poetic philosopher, Wordsworth the philo- sophic poet. The history of literature gives us no more interesting or sugges- tive picture than that of the fi-iendship of these two men. A study '797] Jl^Otefif 343 of the means by which this love was fostered and sustained, and in consequence of which each attained heights from which is shed ever-enduring radiance, cannot fail to be rewarding. The Alfoxden "Journal of Dorothy reveals many sights and sounds which became the common property of both poets, and each would have subscribed to the sentiment, " She gave me eyes, she gave me ears," of Wordsworth's later poem. We find the fol- lowing characteristic touches in th& "J ournal : '* William called me into the garden to observe a singular appearance about the moon. A perfect rainbow, within the bow one star, only of colours more vivid. , . . Walked to Stowey with Coleridge, returned by wood- lands. . . . Walked alone to Stowey. Returned in the evening with Coleridge. Went to Stowey with Coleridge, heard the night- ingale." . . . Lines 49-54 are given as follows in the yoz^rwa/ ; *' Only one leaf upon the top of the tree, the sole remaining leaf danced round like a rag blown by the wind." Again, lines 16-20 appear as follows : " When we left home the moon was immensely large, the sky scattered over with clouds. These soon closed in, contracting the dimensions of the moon without concealing her." The baron's mastiff may be in this sketch : " The manufacturer's dog makes a strange, uncouth howl, which it continues many minutes, after there is no noise near it but that of the brook. It hov/ls at the murmur of the village stream. We walked in the woods into the Coombe to fetch some eggs. The whole appearance of the woods was enchanting, and each tree, taken singly, was beautiful. ' ' For a revelation of what William was doing we must read the Lyrical Ballads, especially the poem which is re- lated to his mind and art as Chrhtabel is to that of Coleridge — Lines Composed a Feiv Miles abo-ve Tintern Abbey. While we are considering the mutual influence of these three friends we must not forget that other which came from the gen.le and frolicsome Lamb. This was more immediate and direct upon Coleridge than upon the Wordsworths, but it was not more sym- pathetic or helpful. The world can never know the full signifi- cance of this joyous and radiant comradeship. In the cheerful talk of the patient toUer at the India House, in the wizard fascina- tion of the dreamer of dreams, and the healing calm of the child of Nature, we feel something of mighty impulse which helped life onward in its noblest aim. 344 iliote0 [1797 Mr. Gillman says Coleridge told him that Christabel was founded on the notion that the " virtuous of this world save the wicked." We know that the poets pre-eminently dear to Wordsworth, Lamb and Coleridge were the great masters of human passion, in- tellectual vigor, penetrative imagination, and bewitching melody, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. Kubla Khan^ The Ancient Mariner^ and Christabel therefore naturally enough breathe the finest atmosphere of these poets while having a life unborrowed and their own. The Faerie ^eene, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Comus, all contribute something of the natural and supernatural to the divine philosophy of these inim- itable creations. Imaginative conception and technical expression are in perfect harmony. In Kubla Khan the natural prevails, in The Ancient Mariner natural and supernatural penetrate through the medium of the hu- man, while in Christabel the supernatural element is supreme : — ' * It springs as a level of bowery lawn. And the mountain draws it from Heaven above. And it sings a song of undying love." The spirit of the old romantic ballads is here refined and made subtle by delicate modern reflection. Lowell, in speaking of Coleridge's best work, says : *' It seems pure, visual ecstacy, the very beatitude of tireless simplicity, and is the most finished product of art. I know nothing so perfect of its kind since Dante." William Watson says: '* The First Part of Christabel is not less wonderful than The Ancient Mariner in its power of producing an equally full and rich effect by infinitely more frugal means." Only the Part First of the poem was written at Stowey, 1797, 8 — the others were written at the Lakes in 1800. Lamb dreaded a continuation, lest the heavy foot of fact should tread upon the rustling train of romance. This heavy foot is what levels down the parts written later. Mr. A. C. Swinburne, in an essay which every student of Coleridge should have by heart, has said of the poems of this period : " When it has been said that such melodies were never heard, such dreams never dreamed, and such speech never spoken, 1797] jl^otesf 345 the chief thing remains unsaid and unspeakable. There is a charm upon these poems which can only be felt in silent submission of wonder. Were we compelled to the choice I for one would rather preserve Kubla Khan and Christabel than any other of Coleridge's poems. . . . The former is the most wonderful of the poems, while the loveliest is assuredly Christabel.'''' 1. 238. Leigh Hunt, in ** What is Poetry," cites this line as illustrating that type of imagination * which by a single expression, apparently of the vaguest kind, not only meets but surpasses in effect the extremest force of most particular description.' He says : *' A perfect verse surely, both for feeling and music. The very smoothness and gentleness of the lines is in the series of the letter I's." As to the music of C/6r/i?<2^e/, he says : " Coleridge restored the octo-syllabic measure to the beautiful freedom of which it was capable. He varied it with alternate rhymes and stanzas, with rests and omissions analogous to those in music." The history of the various attempts to complete the poem, the alterations and explanations covering a period of nearly twenty years, must be read in Mr. J. Dykes Campbell's edition of the poet's works, 1893. Scott heard Christabel recited by John Stoddart at Lasswade in 1 80 1, and was so fascinated by it that he reproduced its melody as best he could in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805. In his In- troduction to the edition of 1830 he says: " Mr. Stoddart was able to repeat to me, among others, the striking fragment called Christabel^ by Mr. Coleridge, which, from the singularly irregular structure of the stanzas and the liberty which it allowed the au- thor, to adapt the sound to the sense, geemed exactly suited to such an extravaganza as I meditated . . . and it is to Mr. Coleridge that I am bound to make the acknowledgment due from the pupil to his master." When the Lay was published Southey wrote : *' The beginning of the story is too like Coleridge's Christabel, which he (Scott) had seen j the very line ' Jesu Maria, shield her well,' is caught from it." It was through the influence of Byron that Murray published the poem in 1816. Part II., 11. 77-95. Alas ! etc. Lamb told the Gillmans : ♦' I was very angry with Coleridge 346 0ott& [1798 when first I heard that he had written a second canto, and that he intended to finish it ; but when I read the beautiful apostroph of the two friends it calmed me." 1798-1825. ENCINCTURED WITH A TWINE OF LEAVES. ( From T^e fVanderings of Cain. ) These verses first published in a note to the '* Conclusion " of Aids to Reflection^ 1825. The quaint prose poem The Wanderings of Cain has a history not unlike that of The Ancient Mariner^ in that it was intended to be a joint production of Coleridge and Wordsworth, and also in that it is a study of the great forces of retributive justice. It was to be in three cantos : Wordsworth was to write the first, and Coleridge the second, while the third was to be the work of that one who completed his canto first. The result shows how ludicrous the plan was ; Coleridge's muse could fly to such heights while that of Wordsworth was preparing to walk. He says (1828) : *'Me- thinks I see his (Wordsworth's) grand and noble countenance as at the moment when having despatched my own portion of the task at full finger-speed, I hastened to him with my manuscript, — that look of humorous despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent mock-piteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme — which broke up in a laugh." Later Coleridge undertook to compose the whole anew in verse, and made, as he says, *' some progress when adverse gales drove my bark ofi^the ' Fortunate Isles ' of the muses. And then other and more momentous interests prompted a different voyage, to firmer anchorage and a securer port. I have in vain tried to recover the lines from the palimsest tablet of my memory ; and I can only offer the introductory stanza which had been committed to writing for the purpose of procuring a friend's judgment on the metre as a specimen." Thus we have another exquisite "fragment," in which is the rare essence of pure poetry. At his best Coleridge had that supreme gift which M. Edmond 1798] jl^otesf 347 Scherer calls '* the pinion-stroke which sweeps Ganymede into the Empyrean and casts him panting at Jupiter's feet." Mr. A. C. Swinburne says : " It is natural that there should be nothing like these poems discoverable in any human work ; natu- ral that his poetry at its highest should be, as it is, beyond all praise and all words of men. He who could define it could unweave a rainbow. ' ' 1798-1798. FRANCE : AN ODE. First printed in the Morning Post, April 16, 1798. While the two poets were murmuring near the running brooks a music sweeter than their own, somewhat of a sensation was caused in the quiet community of Stowey by the advent there of a young Republican by the name of Thelwall, with whom Cole- ridge had some correspondence. When he arrived Coleridge was with the Wordsworths ; and he writes to his wife: *' So after sleeping at Coleridge's cot, Sara and I went to Alfoxden in time enough to call Samuel and Wordsworth up to breakfast." Coleridge says of Thelwall {Table Talk, July, 1830): <* We were once sitting in a beautiful recess in the Quantocks, when I said to him, ' Citizen John, this is a fine place to talk treason in !' * Nay, Citizen Samuel,' he replied, ' it is rather a place to make a man forget that there is any necessity for treason.' " Coleridge's lectures and preaching and Wordsworth's secluded life with his sister had, even before the arrival of ' Citizen ' Thel- wall, aroused suspicions of the good people. They thought Words- worth a smuggler, a conjurer, and as he was " so silent and dark," a French Jacobin. Poole was blamed for harboring such suspects (it was through Poole that Wordsworth secured Alfoxden), and now a government spy was sent down to watch their movements. The Anti-Jacobin published the following : — ' ' Thelwall and ye that lecture as ye go, And for your pains get pelted, Praise Lepaux ! 1 And ye five other wandering bards that move In sweet accord of harmony and love, 1 A French charlatan. 348 0Ott^ [1798 C — dge, and S-th-y, L — d and L — b, and Co., Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux." Coleridge, writing to Cottle of the experience of Wordsworth, says : " Whether we shall be able to procure him a house and furni- ture near Stowey we know not, and yet we must 5 for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the shores, would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not strain every nerve to keep their poet among them." The first product of the new year (1798) was this magnificent ode which he called Recantation, revealing the fact that Coleridge had now clearly seen the horrid delusion, the vile mockery of the whole affair. Here are no entrancing notes of liquid melody, but the strong, deep, tumultuous tones of the organ, — a wail of de- spair at the perfidy of those who, after singing paeans to Freedom, could enslave a sister Republic. Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet, *' I grievedfor Buonaparte " (1802), and "Anotheryear, another deadly blow," &c. (1806), and Shelley's Ode to Liberty. Cf. S. A. Brooke's edition of Wordsworth's Poems of Independence and Lib- erty. While Coleridge was in Germany, 1798-99, he found satisfac- tion in the fact that the aged Klopstock had written odes on the French Revolution, and had received presents from France, but when success turned to tyranny he wrote palinodia and returned the presents. Cf. Prelude XI. 320-369, for a revelation of Wordsworth's feelings at being disillusioned. In Coleridge's early odes he had been under the influence of Gray, but here he is on the heights to which he has climbed by his own efforts, and is as supreme now in this type of poetry as in that which we have just passed. He has perfect command of the keys of the most complex musical instrument, and the result is the complete union of thought and feeling in sphere-born har- monies, verse and voice. <* He now spoke with contempt of Gray," says Hazlitt, ** and intolerance of Pope. He observed that the * ears of these couplet- writers might be charged with having short memories, that could not retain the harmony of whole passages.' " 11. 53, 54. These lines were the occasion of a very unwarranted 1798] jl^otes? 349 charge of plagiarism preferred by De Quincey. He claimed that Coleridge took them from Samson Agonistes, 136-139, ** When insupportably his foot advanced," &c., but that he refused to acknowledge the obligation. Cf. De Quin- cey. The Lake Poets, p. 44. Henry Nelson Coleridge answered this charge of what De (^uincey called * Coleridge's infirmity ' in the Preface to Table Talk. 1798-1798. FROST AT MIDNIGHT. First printed in a pamphlet with France : An Ode^ in 1798. With the disappointment revealed in the Ode to France came a distinct weakening in Coleridge's interest in the larger social and political life of his time. In place of these human interests came the quieter aspects of nature and his own soul. The picture which we have in this poem reveals the pensive and paternal tenderness of that great soul whose food was Human Love. It is full of what Professor Dowden calls * his affluent and sweet humanity. ' Mrs. Sandford says his pensive Sara " betrayed to sympathizing friends how trying it was when Samuel ivould walk up and down composing poetry instead of coming to bed at proper hours. I have sometimes thought Ophelia might have been like Mrs. Coleridge if she and Hamlet had lived to be married. In her girlish grace and softness she belonged to the very type of woman that a Hamlet in early youth most easily falls in love with, for she personifies womanhood to him." Coleridge once said : " Every one wishes a Desdemona or Ophe- lia for a wife — creatures who, though they may not always under- stand you, do always feel you, and feel with you." 11. 44 et seq. These lines were prophetic, as at this time he had no prospect of ever living in the Lake country. The version of 1798 had the following six lines in conclusion : " Like thee, my babe ! which ere to-morrow's warmth Have capp'd their sharp, keen points with pendulous drops, Will catch thine eye, and with their novelty Suspend thy little soul ; then make thee shout. And stretch and flutter from thy mother's arms. As thou would'st fly for very eagerness." 350 iPotefif [1798 The story of Hartley's joyous life in the peaceful and solemn grandeur of rivers, lakes, and hills, should be read in Canon Rawnsley's Literary Associations of the English Lakes. Cf. Hartley Coleridge, Essays and Poems. 1798-1798. FEARS IN SOLITUDE. First printed in pamphlet with France : An Ode, and Frost at Midnight, 1798. Written in April, 1798, during the Alarm of the Invasion. — The scene the hill near Stowey. — S. T. C. There is no poem of Coleridge which so clearly reveals the in- fluence of Wordsworth's splendid patriotic principles based on love of Nature and Man in England as does this. The severest criticisms on the policy of their country at times was entirely con- sistent with this noble patriotism. ** Such patriotism," said Pro- fessor Dowden, ' ' can only be uprooted together with the very foundations of our moral being." Something of the natural atmosphere of this poem is found in Dorothy's Journal : ' ' Went to the hill-top. Sat a considerable time overlooking the country toward the Sea. The air blew pleasantly round us. The Welsh hills capped by a huge range of tumultuous white clouds. The sea spotted with white, of a bluish grey in general, and streaked with darker lines. The near shores clear ; scattered farm houses, half concealed by green, mossy orchards, fresh straw lying at the doors ; haystacks in the fields. Brown fallows, the springing wheat, like a shade of green over the brown earth ; and the choice meadow plots, full of sheep and lambs, of a soft and vivid green} a few wreaths of blue smoke spreading along the ground; the oaks and beeches in the hedges retaining their green leaves ; the distant prospect on the land side, islanded with sun- shine ; the sea, like a basin fuU to the margin. ' ' There is something distinctly Wordsworthian in the contrast be- tween the poet's agitated feelings and the calm of the heathy dell. 11. 222-229. -^" allusion to the home of his friend Poole, and his own Stowey cottage. Coleridge's poems are as good a guide to this district as are Wordsworth's to that of the Lakes. 1798] jl^otesf 351 1798-1798. THE NIGHTINGALE : A CONVERSATION POEM. First printed in Lyrical Ballads, 1798. Young Hazlitt, who came to know Coleridge the preacher at this time, has given us a characteristic sketch in My First Ac- quaintance ivith the Poets. Coleridge went to preach at Shrews- bury, ten miles from even Hazlitt's home. Hazlitt walked the ten miles through mud to hear this celebrated person preach. He says : "When I got there the organ was playing the looth Psalm, and when it was done, Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text, ' And He went up into the mountain, to pray. Himself alone. ' As he gave out this text his voice ' rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes,' and when he came to the last two 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 that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe." Coleridge visited Hazlitt on the Tuesday following. It was while there that he received the offer from Josiah Wedgewood of ;^I50 a year if he would abandon preaching and give him- self up to the study of poetry and philosophy. Hazlitt says : " He was henceforth to inhabit the Hill of Parnassus, to be a shepherd on the Delectable Mountain. Alas ! I knew not the way thither." In accepting this splendid gift Coleridge wrote of his success as a preacher at Shrewsbury, and added, "but one shrewd fellow remarked that he would rather hear me talk than preach.'" Coleridge once asked Lamb if he had ever heard him preach, and Lamb replied, " I 've never heard you do anything else." In this last poem of the Stowey period, so radiant with the love and hope of the three friends, there is an exquisitely tender pathos. The Lyrical Ballads were rapidly taking shape. Wordsworth, Dorothy and Coleridge had decided to visit Germany to study the language, and the thought of breaking up the Elysian re- pose among the Quantocks throws the poet into one of his pen- sive moods, in which the affections gently lead him on. Here he returns, "to his love and his nest," and finds joy in the 352 jiiotes; [1798 thoughts that spring from the simple domestic affections, from the delightful associations with man and nature in the sylvan re- treats of the land he loved. Wordsworth thus alludes to this period. Prelude^ Book i. " That summer, under whose indulgent skies Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved Uncheck'd, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs, Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart. Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man, The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes Didst utter of the Lady Christabel j And I, associate with such labor, steeped In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours. Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found, After the perils of his moonlight ride, Near the loud waterfall j or her who sate In misery near the miserable Thorn." 1. 13. a. II Penseroso, 1. 61. In vindication of the expression in the following lines, Coleridge says that with Milton the speaker is a melancholy man, and the expression has a dramatic propriety. Wordsworth said these lines of Coleridge would rectify the false notions which had prevailed with regard to the nightingale. 1. 40. "My Friend and My Friend's Sister! " was the early form of this line. Of course the allusion is to Wordsworth and Dorothy. The Wordsworths left Alfoxden in midsummer, and after stay- ing a time with Coleridge, visited the Wye and returned to Bristol, where they were attending to the publication oi the. Lyrical Ballads. In May Coleridge's second son was born and named ' Berkeley,' in honor of the philosopher. Lamb had been estranged by some injudicious remarks of Lloyd, and on hearing a remark of Coleridge relating to the estrangement, *' Poor Lamb, if he wants any knoiv- ledge, he may apply to me," in irony and anger sent him, *' Theses quadam Theologica to be defended or oppugned (or both), as Lamb said at Leipsic or Gottingen." Among them were: '* Whether God or lying angel better than a true man ? Whether the higher order of Seraphim illuminati ever sneer ? " The Lyrical Ballads were published by Cottle in September 1799 ] ^om 353 anonymously. The first six poems were by Coleridge, the remain- der by Wordsworth. The following is an exact reprint of the table of contents : CONTENTS. Page The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere ------- i The Foster-Mother's Tale ---------- 53 Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite ----------- ^^ The Nightingale j a Conversational Poem ----- 63 The Female Vagrant ---.------- 69 Goody Blake and Harry Gill --- 85 Lines written at a small distance from my House, and sent by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed 95 Simon Lee, the old Huntsman --------- 98 Anecdote for Fathers -----------105 We are seven -------------no Lines written in early spring ---------n^ The Thorn ----- 117 The last of the Flock --I33 The Dungeon ------------- 139 The Mad Mother ----- --141 The Idiot Boy ------------- 149 Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Even- ing ------------- ---180 Expostulation and Reply ----------183 The Tables turned j an Evening Scene on the same subject 186 Old Man travelling ------------189 The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman - - - - 1^3 The Convict- -------------177 Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey - - - - 20 1 1799?-?. WESTPHALIAN SONG. Before the reviewers had brought their guns to bear upon the frail craft of the Lyrical Ballads, the two poets and Dorothy, hav- ing left Mrs. Coleridge and the children with Poole, departed for Germany, where they soon received the cheerful news from Sara 354 jl^oceflf .1799 that *' the Lyrical Ballads are not liked at all by any." And yet through the quiet revolution in poetic taste which this little vol- ume wrought, the Bastile of the old poetic tyranny was destined to fall to the ground. " So stupendous was the importance of the verse written on the guantocks in 1797 and 1798," says Edmund Gosse, "that if Wordsworth and Coleridge had died at the close of the latter year, we should, indeed, have lost a great deal of valuable poetry, especially of Wordsworth's ; but the direction taken by literature would scarcely have been modified in the slightest degree. The association of these intensely brilliant and inflammatory minds at what we call the psychological moment, produced full-blown and perfect the exquisite new flower of romantic poetry. ' ' At Hamburg they met the aged Klopstock. Coleridge, in one of his letters, writes of his discussions on poetry with the author, of Messiah, and alluding to the fact that a German preacher had called Klopstock a German Milton, says : *' I could not help mut- tering to myself — ' a very German Milton indeed ! ! ! ' " Soon Coleridge left the Wordsworths for Ratzeburg, where he remained during the winter, while they went to the old impe- rial town of Goslar, where, though cold and homesick, Words- worth wrote his inimitable poems on English girlhood. Wordsworth sent these poems to Coleridge, who, while think- ing of the future and hoping that their homes would be in the same neighborhood, wrote : " Whenever I spring forward into the fu- ture with noble affections, I always alight by your side." In February Coleridge entered Gottingen, where he studied chiefly German language and literature. As a result, he tried his hand at translating German poetry, and even Old Gothic, of which this song is a good illustration. His studies in metaphysics, too, be- gan to stifle the bard in him, but his reading of Lessing stimulated his critical instinct, especially in the interpretation of Shakespeare. In order to know something of the life of the peasants in Ger- many, Coleridge visited the country, frequented the beer-houses, joined in their festivals, danced and sang with them. Mr. Alois Brandl says : ** He lived for days upon potatoes and pancakes, and slept at night upon straw in the village inns, which had nothing better." As a result of this life we have some of the popular songs reproduce-d for us. This one he learned from the lips of a peasant. 1799. il^otesf 355 1799-1817. THE VISIT OF THE GODS. First printed in Sibylline Leaves , 181 7. This little poem is an imitation of Schiller's Dithyrambe. Nimmer, das glaubt mir Erscheinen die Gotter Nimmer allein, Kaum dasz ich Bucchus der Lustigen habe, Kommt auch schon Amor, der lachelnde Knabe. Phobus, der Herrliche, findel sich ein ! Sie nahen, sie kommen, — Wie Himmlischen alle, Mit Gottern erfiillt sich Die irdische Halle; 1799-1799. NAMES. First printed in Morning Post, August 17, 1799. This is a translation of Lessing's Die Namen. It has been set as a four-part song by F. Champneys (Neville, c. 1884.") — J. D. Campbell. 1799 ?-i 831. WATER BALLAD. First printed in the Athenaum, October 9, 183 1. This little poem first appeared in the Athenaum, October 9, 1 83 1. There is no information in regard to it. I put it here be- cause there is a possibility that it is a translation from the German. 1799-1799. LINES WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE IN THE HARTZ FOREST. First printed in the Morning Post, September 17, 1799. While Coleridge was in Gottingen he was visited by some young Englishmen, and they, with students, made an excursion to the 356 jPOte0 [»799 Hartz Mountains. While at an inn he wrote (May 17) these verses in the album or Stamm-Buch : * When I have gazed From some high eminence on goodly vales, And cots and villages embowered below, The thought would rise that all to me was strange Amid the scenes so fair, nor one small spot Where my tired mind might rest and call it home.' Southey's Hymn to the Penates. * ' Came to Elbingerode from Great Brocken, the highest mountain in all North Germany, and the seat of innumerable superstitions. On the first of May all the witches dance here at midnight. Gillman's Life of Coleridge. 1799-1800. SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL. First printed in Ann. Anthology, 1800. This poem was sent to Mrs. Coleridge in a letter April 23,1 799, from Gottingen, It is a translation of the German popular song, Wenn ich ein V'dglein ivar, in Des Knaben Wunderborn. 1799-1802. THE DAY DREAM. First printed in Morning Post, October 19, 1802. Next, in The Poems, 1852, with the following editorial note : *' This little poem first appeared in the Morning Post, in 1802, but was doubtless composed in Germany. It seems to have been forgotten by its author, for this was the only occasion on which it saw the light through him. The editors think that it will plead against paternal neglect in the mind of most readers." Little Berkeley died in February, and on receiving the news Cole- ridge is prostrated with grief. Writing to Poole he quotes the lines which Wordsworth had sent him from Goslar : "A slumber did my spirit seal," and thinks they may have been suggested to Wordsworth by the thought of Dorothy's death. It is possible that A Day Dream may have been in some way related to his feel- 1799] iliotesf 357 ings at this time, for he wrote of Hartley, ** Dear lamb, I hope he won't be dead before I get home." 1799-1799. LOVE. First printed in the Morning Post, December 21, 1799, under the title, " Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie." The Wordsworths had returned to England in the spring of 1 799, and had gone to live with the Hutchinsons at Sockburn (cf. Pre- lude Book I. ) ; Coleridge left Gottingen in June and arrived at Stowey about the middle of July. Southey and his wife visited them here for two or three weeks. After this Coleridge visited the Wordsworths at Sockburn. Mr. Ernest Coleridge believes this poem was written at Sockburn during Coleridge's visit. It may be said that here closes the second period of his work. And it is not a little significant that it coincided with the setting out of the two poets upon new experiences iK. life and new lines of poetic activity, which in the one case was to be characterized by storm and stress, and in the other by dignity, serenity and peace — ' * An eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy," whence came the vision into the life of things. This poem, so full of the felicity and beauty of melody, the warm poetic joy in human feeling, set in the rich framework of Nature, might be considered as symbolizing Coleridge's life with poetry during the last three years, as it retains all the glow and passion of poetic youth, *' docile, childlike, full of Life and Love." There is here just a hint of what must come when his life will be revealed in ** Songs that make us grieve," and we can imagine him repeating to himself the sad lines of Shakespeare : ** My grief lies onward, and my joy behind. ' ' 358 iliotefif [1799 11. 9, 10. "We entered the wood through a beautiful mossy path ; the moon above us blending with the evening lights, and every now and then a nightingale would invite the others to sing." — Letters to his fVife, May I J, ^799t deicribing his ascent of the B roc ken (Campbell). 1799-1834. THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE. First printed in Poems, 1834. As has been said, the previous poem Lo-ve was an introduction to this. " In a manuscript list (undated) of his poems drawn up by Coleridge, appear these three together : Lcve, 96 lines (exactly the number printed). The Black Ladie, 190 lines. The Black Ladi'e doubtless, was The Dark Ladie, so that the asterisks stand for about two thirds of the whole " ( Campbell). 1799-1799. A CHRISTMAS CAROL. First printed in Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1799. On the conclusion of the visit to Sockburn, Cottle, Coleridge, and Wordsworth started on a tour of the Lake Country. Cottle left the party at Greta Bridge, and they were joined by Words- worth's brother John. They were especially delighted with Gras- mere, and as Wordsworth was ready to begin housekeeping with his sister, he rented Dove Cottage at Pavement End and took up his abode there in December. Cf. On Nature''s In-vitation do I Come, and Bleak Season ivas it. Turbulent and Wild. Coleridge, having received an offer to write political articles for the Morning Post, went immediately to London after returning to Sockburn. Southey was at this time engaged on the second volume of his Annual Anthology, and Coleridge got together fourteen poems for it. Among the number was A Christmas Carol. While in Gottingen he had translated a passage in Ottfried's Gospel. Mr. Campbell thinks this little poem was inspired by Ottfried. i8oo] ji^otesf 359 1 800-1 800. thekla's song from the piccolomini. Act II., Sc. 4. First printed in 1800. Mrs. Coleridge and Hartley had joined Coleridge in London in December at 21 Buckingham Street, Strand. He made an engage- ment to translate Schiller's fVallenstein, and in February, 1800, he gave up his position on the Morning Post. Mrs. Coleridge and Hartley returned to Stowey, while he went to the Lambs at Pentonville. Lamb writes of this visit : *' I am living in a con- tinuous feast, Coleridge has been with me now for nigh three weeks. ' ' While his German studies had produced but little poetry, ihey stimulated his love of Schiller, and now he shows what he had learned of the language by attempting the difficult task of transla- tion. At the very time Schiller's MSS. were in London and sup- posed to be in other hands for translation, they came into the possession of the Longmans, and Schiller was surprised to find Coleridge's translation, so he wrote asking where he got the MSS. Many have maintained that Coleridge's Wallemtein is superior to Schiller's. Coleridge says : *' I found it not in my power to translate this song with literal fidelity, preserving at the same time the Alcaic Movement." 1800-1802. THE KEEPSAKE. First printed in the Morning Post, Sept. 17, 1802. In April he is with the Wordsworths at Dove Cottage for a visit. It is more than probable that this little poem was written at Grasmere during this visit, as Emmeline was Wordsworth's poetical name for his sister Dorothy, and the natural setting of the poem is most assuredly that of the Grasmere gardens and walks. 1. 10. I believe Wordsworth makes no mention of this flower in his poetry. 1800-1831. A STRANGER MINSTREL. First printed in the Memoirs of the late Mrs. Robinson, written by herself, with some posthumous poems, 1 8 3 1 . 360 ^ottiS [1800 In June, Coleridge, his wife, and little Hartley came to Dove Cottage on their way to Keswick. Dorothy wrote in the Journal, June 22, 1800 : "On Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. Coleridge and Hart- ley came. The day was very warm. We sailed to the foot of Loughrigg. They staid with us three weeks, and till the Thursday following, from 1st till 23rd of July." Greta Hall was only part built at this time. It was the property of a very interesting ' yeo- man of the old school,' whose character has been celebrated by Wordsworth in the *' Waggoner." " William Jackson, Carrier, Whitehaven, to Kendal and Lancaster," was the sign on his waggon. * Him o' Rydal ' has written thus, for he, *' Through all the changes of the year. Had seen ' it ' through the mountains go, In pomp of mist or pomp of snow, Majestically huge and slow." He occupied a part of the House, and was glad to have a phi- losopher and poet occupy the rest as soon as finished, for, as Coleridge afterward wrote of him, '* He was from a boy a lover of learning." Mr. Richard Garnett thinks that while Coleridge's decision to live in the Lakes was made in order to be near Wordsworth, yet it was "supplemented, perhaps, by another, his admiration for Dorothy Wordsworth, who would in all probability have become his wife, but for the unfortunate precipitation, under strong pressure from well-meaning and much-mistaken Southey, which had al- ready made him the husband of an excellent woman entirely unsuited to him." He was sorry to leave his friend Poole, but, as Mrs. Sandford says : ' * Coleridge would never been contented to live in the west of England whilst Wordsworth was living in the north.'* His delight with his new environment was unbounded. He writes : " Here I am with Skiddaw at my back ; on my right hand the Bassenthwait Water, with its majestic case of mountains — all of simplest outline. . . . My God ! What a scene ! Right before me is a great Camp of mountains, each in shape resembling a Giant's tent. . . . Hartley is all health and ecstacy. . . . My wife will not let me stay — I must go and unpack a trunk for her. ' ' In September his third son was born, i8oo] ^Otta 361 and he named him Derwent, for the lake near. Dorothy's Gras- mere journal is full of revelations of these days. She says : *' At 1 1 Coleridge came when I was walking in the still clear moonshine in the garden. He came over Helvellyn. We sate and chatted till half past three . , . Coleridge reading a part of Christabel.'''' Sept. I. " After dinner Coleridge discovered a rock seat in the orchard." Oct. 4. *' Coleridge came in while we were at dinner, very wet. We talked till twelve o'clock. He had sat all the night before writing essays for the newspaper." Oct. 11. *' Wm composed without much success at the Sheepfold ( Michael) . Cole- ridge came in to dinner. . . . Wm read Ruth^ etc., after supper. Coleridge read Christabel (Part II.)." The subject of this poem, The Stranger Minstrel^ was a Mrs. Robinson, whom Coleridge had met in London. She was a friend of the Godwins, had been unhappily married, and, assisted by Garrick, had gone upon the stage. She became known as * Perdita,' because of a successful interpretation of that character. She wrote for the Morning Post. Coleridge naturally sympathized with her struggle, and she returned the feeling with admiration. They had an active correspondence in verse. She alluded to Cole- ridge thus : *'Thee, O favored child of minstrelsy, sublimely wild," and again, alluding to Kubla Khan : " Spirit divine ! with thee will I wander. I '11 mark thy sunny dome, and view Thy caves of ice, thy fields of dew." This led her to visit the Lakes, with which she at once became fascinated. Soon after leaving in November, 1800, she wrote Coleridge on her deathbed, revealing her homesickness for a glimpse of Skiddaw. Mr. Campbell thinks this poem was a response to the letter. She died a few weeks later. When her poems were pub- lished Coleridge wrote another plaint describing what he felt at her loss. Cf. The Mad Monk. Lines 9-14 show a marked resemblance to Wordsworth's Ode On Intimations of hnmortality, 1-7. 362 0Ott& [1800 1800 ?-i893. THE SNOW DROP. First printed in J. D. Campbell's edition of the poet's works, 1893. Mr. Campbell gives the following note to this fragment, which he found in MS. : — ** In quality it is very unequal, but there are some lines which no one but Coleridge could have written. The draft title and the letter explain the motive and intention of the verses. There are five stanzas more, but they are too imperfect for print. * Lines written immediately after the Perusal of Mrs. Robin- son's Snow Drop. To the Editor of the Morning Post : Sir, — I am one of your many readers who have been highly gratified by some extracts from Mrs. Robinson's * Walsingham ' : You will oblige me by inserting the following lines (composed) immediately on the perusal of her beautiful poem. The Snow Drop.' " Coleridge was only twelve miles from the Wordsworths, and it was an easy matter for them to meet at the halfway trysting ground on Lake Thirlmere. There is a very significant memorial of these happy days spent with the Wordsworths by the side of the coach road at Thirl- mere. On The Rock of Names, which was preserved by Dr. Rawnsley (the guardian of all things sacred on the Lakes), when demolition threatened it at the hands of the workmen as Thirl- mere was being transformed into a reservoir for the city of Man- chester, was engraved the initials, W. W., S. T. C, D. W., J. W., M. H., and S. H. Wordsworth says : " We worked until the initials took Shapes that defied a scornful look, For they were graven on thy smooth breast By hands of those my soul loved best. ' ' Of one of these excursions Dorothy writes under date of May 14, 1802, " We rested several times by the way, read, and repeated The Leechgatherer. . . . We saw Coleridge on the Wytheburn side of the water j he crossed the beck to us. . . . We rested i8oo] ^ote0 363 upon a moss-covered rock rising out of the bed of the river. There we lay, ate our dinner, and stayed there until about four o'clock or later. William and Coleridge repeated and read verses. We parted from Coleridge at Sara's Crag. . . . William deepened the X (middle strokes) with C.'s penknife. . , . C. looked well and parted from us cheerfully, hopping upon the sides of the stone." It was near here toward Wytheburn that Gray, on that eventful morning of his visit to the Lakes on October 8, 1769, coming from Keswick, saw Grasmere. " One of the greatest landscapes that art ever attempted to imitate. . . . Not a single red tile, no flaming gentleman's house, or garden walls break in upon the re- pose of this little unsuspected paradise, but all is peace, rusticity and happy poverty in its neatest, most becoming attire. ' ' — Journal on the Lakes. Here at Nag's Head Inn Keats slept (June, 1 81 8), after hav- ing been disappointed at not finding Wordsworth at home. He writes his brother Tom, saying : — *' I wrote a note and left it on his mantelpiece, thence on we came to the foot of Helvellyn, where we slept, but could not ascend for the mist. ' ' From the old inn in 1830 set out a merry party for a tramp over the hills to the " wide glimmering sea." Matthew Arnold, his sister '*Fausta," his brother Tom, his father Dr. Arnold, and Captain Hamilton, the history of which is given in Arnold's Resignation. " High on the^bank our leader stands, Reviews and ranks his motley bands, Makes clear our goal to every eye, — The valley's western boundary. And now, in front, behold outspread Those upper regions we must tread ! Mild hollows, and clear heathy swells. The cheerful silence of the fells." On this spot stands a simple memorial of the event erected by Dr. Rawnsley. 1801-1801. ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. First printed in the Morning Post, Dec. 4, 1801. 364 il^otesf [1802 This year is full of trouble for Coleridge. He has many plans for work, but little comes of them. Now it is The Rise and Condition of the German Boors, the study of Chemistry, a work Concerning Poetry, completion of Christabel, &c. Clearly enough, there is not much income in this speculating. He becomes ill, laudanum, which he calls the ' Kendal Black Drop,' is pre- scribed, and terrible results follow. Cf. Wordsworth, Stanzas ivritten in my Pocket Copy of Thomson s Canto of Indolence. He wants to go to the Azores for his health, and Wordsworth inter- cedes for him with Poole. Yet at this very time he writes : *' My Spirits are good, I am generally cheerful ; and when I am not it is because I have exchanged it for a deeper and more pleasurable tranquillity," and Mr. Campbell adds: — "a periphrasis, one fears, for opium dreams." Under such conditions we may ima- gine this poem to have been written. It must now be evident that the poetic impulse which carried him to such heights in 1797-98 has well nigh spent itself. Gleams of the great ideals like the flashing of a shield come, but only for a moment, and they serve but to illumine the sur- rounding darkness. This poem breathes the spirit which came upon him while in the happy seclusion and calm repose of Dove Cottage, a spirit which induced him to give up the tumult of political agitation. Mr. Campbell says that in the first version of this ode there were two introductory stanzas which were never reprinted by Cole- ridge. 1802-1802. DEJECTION : AN ODE. First printed in Morning Post Oct. 4, 1802, in Poems, 1817. There are three versions of this poem : the first in Coleorton Papers of Coleridge, the second, that of Morning Post, and the third, that of Poems, 181 7, given here. New sorrows came to Coleridge which moved him still farther from the harbor of tranquillity. Domestic estrangement, which all who knew the conditions of his marriage foresaw with trembling, now became chronic, filling his cup of woe to the brim. All the more bitter it was because of the new life of love which was i8o2] pom 365 now permeating Dove Cottage, where all activity was centred around the approaching marriage of Wordsworth to Mary Hutch- inson. In Prelude VI., after alluding to Dorothy, Wordsworth says : — "Another maid there was, who also shed A gladness o'er that season, then to me, By her exulting outside look of youth And placid under-countenance, first endeared ; That other spirit, Coleridge ! who is now So near to us, that meek confiding heart, So reverenced by us both." The three stages of Wordsworth's relation to her should be read in the beautiful poem, SAe ivas a Phantom of Delight. For this greatest blight in the life of two souls we are not required to fix responsibility. More than enough has been written of Coleridge's faults as a husband, and of Mrs. Coleridge's fretfial- ness and disposition to worry him with swarms of petty cares j but certain it is that the sustenance of love had been removed, and there was not even sympathy in mind and taste to prevent the union becoming one of chains and fetters. Thomas Poole once wrote apropos of the impracticability of genius : <