Chapter 28

'A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open moonlight.' Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the moonlight and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, 5 and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern.

'It is dark, O my father!' said Enos, 'but the path under 10 our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight.'

'Lead on, my child!' said Cain; 'guide me, little child!' And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his 15 father. 'The fir branches drip upon thee, my son.' 'Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these fir-trees! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their 20 young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they leaped away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? I would be good 25 to them as thou art good to me: and I groaned to them even as thou groanest when thou givest me to eat, and when thou coverest me at evening, and as often as I stand at thy knee and thine eyes look at me?' Then Cain stopped, and stifling his groans he sank to the earth, and the child Enos 30 stood in the darkness beside him.

And Cain lifted up his voice and cried bitterly, and said, 'The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the air! 35 O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die--yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth--behold! they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his nostrils. So I might abide in darkness, and blackness, and an empty 40 space! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth far off hath a voice: and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the Mighty One 45 who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up.' Then Enos spake to his father, 'Arise, my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place where I found the cake and the pitcher.' And Cain said, 'How knowest thou!' and the child answered:--'Behold the 50 bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo.' Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise him: and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, 55 and stood upright and followed the child.

The path was dark till within three strides' length of its termination, when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open 60 air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the darkness, the child was affrighted. For the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was as the matted curls on the bison's forehead, and so glared his fierce and sullen eye beneath: and the black abundant locks on either side, a rank 65 and tangled mass, were stained and scorched, as though the grasp of a burning iron hand had striven to rend them; and his countenance told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.

The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could 70 reach it was desolate: the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of thin white sand. You might wander on and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the rocks and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, 75 no autumn: and the winter's snow, that would have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of 80 the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to prophecy mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the brook, there 85 was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the groan which the Earth uttered when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its point and the sands a tall man might 90 stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they had reached the rock they beheld a human shape: his back was towards them, and they were advancing unperceived, when they heard him smite his breast and cry aloud, 'Woe is me! woe is 95 me! I must never die again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hunger.'

Pallid, as the reflection of the sheeted lightning on the heavy-sailing night-cloud, became the face of Cain; but the child Enos took hold of the shaggy skin, his father's robe, and 100 raised his eyes to his father, and listening whispered, 'Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet voice? O my father! this is it': and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and querulous, 105 like that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. And, behold! Enos glided forward, and creeping softly round the base of the rock, stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, 110 and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother Abel whom he had killed! And Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a dream.

Thus as he stood in silence and darkness of soul, the 115 Shape fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, 'Thou eldest born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery.' Then Cain 120 closed his eyes, and hid them with his hands; and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to Enos, 'What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a voice, my son?' 'Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation.' Then Cain 125 raised up the Shape that was like Abel, and said:--'The Creator of our father, who had respect unto thee, and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken thee?' Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sands beneath their feet; 130 and he shrieked yet a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all three under the rock, and within the shadow. The Shape that was like 135 Abel raised himself up, and spake to the child, 'I know where the cold waters are, but I may not drink, wherefore didst thou then take away my pitcher?' But Cain said, 'Didst thou not find favour in the sight of the Lord thy God?' The Shape answered, 'The Lord is God of the living only, 140 the dead have another God.' Then the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. 'Wretched shall they be all the days of their mortal life,' exclaimed the Shape, 'who sacrifice worthy and acceptable sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death their toil 145 ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O my brother, who didst snatch me away from his power and his dominion.' Having uttered these words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the sands: and Cain said in his heart, 'The curse of the Lord is on me; 150 but who is the God of the dead?' and he ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outrun Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came 155 again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the child caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the ground. And Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, 'he has passed into the dark woods,' and he walked slowly back to the rocks; and when he 160 reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the ground: and Cain once more sate beside him, and said, 'Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. 165 Now, I pray thee, by thy flocks, and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou lovedst, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling? what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, 170 and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?' The Shape arose and answered, 'O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, Son of Adam! and bring thy child with thee!'

And they three passed over the white sands between the 175 rocks, silent as the shadows.

1798.

FOOTNOTES:

[285:1] _The Wanderings of Cain_ in its present shape was first published in 1828: included in 1829, and (with the omission of that part of the Prefatory Note which follows the verses) in 1834. The verses ('Encinctured', &c.) were first published in the 'Conclusion' of _Aids to Reflection_, 1825, p. 383, with the following apologetic note:--'Will the Reader forgive me if I attempt at once to illustrate and relieve the subject ["the enthusiastic Mystics"] by annexing the first stanza of the Poem, composed in the same year in which I wrote the Ancient Mariner and the first Book of Christabel.' The _prose_ was first published without the verses or 'Prefatory Note' in the _Bijou_ for 1828. [See _Poems_, 1893, _Notes_, p. 600.]

A rough draft of a continuation or alternative version of the _Wanderings of Cain_ was found among Coleridge's papers. The greater portion of these fragmentary sheets was printed by the Editor, in the _Athenaeum_ of January 27, 1894, p. 114. The introduction of 'alligators' and an 'immense meadow' help to fix the date of _The Wanderings of Cain_. The imagery is derived from William Bartram's _Travels in Florida and Carolina_, which Coleridge and Wordsworth studied in 1798. Mr. Hutchinson, who reprints (_Lyrical Ballads of 1798_, Notes, pp. 259-60) a selected passage from the MS. fragment, points out 'that Coleridge had for a time thought of shaping the poem as a narrative addressed by Cain to his wife'.

'He falls down in a trance--when he awakes he sees a luminous body coming before him. It stands before him an orb of fire. It goes on, he moves not. It returns to him again, again retires as if wishing him to follow it. It then goes on and he follows: they are led to near the bottom of the wild woods, brooks, forests etc. etc. The Fire gradually shapes itself, retaining its luminous appearance, into the lineaments of a man. A dialogue between the fiery shape and Cain, in which the being presses upon him the enormity of his guilt and that he must make some expiation to the true deity, who is a severe God, and persuades him to burn out his eyes. Cain opposes this idea, and says that God himself who had inflicted this punishment upon him, had done it because he neglected to make a proper use of his senses, etc. The evil spirit answers him that God is indeed a God of mercy, and that an example must be given to mankind, that this end will be answered by his terrible appearance, at the same time he will be gratified with the most delicious sights and feelings. Cain, over-persuaded, consents to do it, but wishes to go to the top of the rocks to take a farewell of the earth. His farewell speech concluding with an abrupt address to the promised redeemer, and he abandons the idea on which the being had accompanied him, and turning round to declare this to the being he sees him dancing from rock to rock in his former shape down those interminable precipices.

'Child affeared by his father's ravings, goes out to pluck the fruits in the moonlight wildness. Cain's soliloquy. Child returns with a pitcher of water and a cake. Cain wonders what kind of beings dwell in that place--whether any created since man or whether this world had any beings rescued from the Chaos, wandering like shipwrecked beings from another world etc.

'Midnight on the Euphrates. Cedars, palms, pines. Cain discovered sitting on the upper part of the ragged rock, where is cavern overlooking the Euphrates, the moon rising on the horizon. His soliloquy. The Beasts are out on the ramp--he hears the screams of a woman and children surrounded by tigers. Cain makes a soliloquy debating whether he shall save the woman. Cain advances, wishing death, and the tigers rush off. It proves to be Cain's wife with her two children, determined to follow her husband. She prevails upon him at last to tell his story. Cain's wife tells him that her son Enoch was placed suddenly by her side. Cain addresses all the elements to cease for a while to persecute him, while he tells his story. He begins with telling her that he had first after his leaving her found out a dwelling in the desart under a juniper tree etc., etc., how he meets in the desart a young man whom upon a nearer approach he perceives to be Abel, on whose countenance appears marks of the greatest misery . . . of another being who had power after this life, greater than Jehovah. He is going to offer sacrifices to this being, and persuades Cain to follow him--he comes to an immense gulph filled with water, whither they descend followed by alligators etc. They go till they come to an immense meadow so surrounded as to be inaccessible, and from its depth so vast that you could not see it from above. Abel offers sacrifice from the blood of his arm. A gleam of light illumines the meadow--the countenance of Abel becomes more beautiful, and his arms glistering--he then persuades Cain to offer sacrifice, for himself and his son Enoch by cutting his child's arm and letting the blood fall from it. Cain is about to do it when Abel himself in his angelic appearance, attended by Michael, is seen in the heavens, whence they sail slowly down. Abel addresses Cain with terror, warning him not to offer up his innocent child. The evil spirit throws off the countenance of Abel, assumes its own shape, flies off pursuing a flying battle with Michael. Abel carries off the child.'

LINENOTES:

[12] _moonlight_. Ah, why dost thou groan so deeply? MS. Bijou, 1828.

[25] _with me?_ Is it because we are not so happy, as they? Is it because I groan sometimes even as thou groanest? _Then Cain stopped_, &c. MS. Bijou, 1828.

[63-8] _by fire_: his hair was black, and matted into loathly curls, and his countenance was dark and wild, and _told_, &c. MS. Bijou, 1828.

[87] _by the_ terrible groan the Earth gave _when_, &c. MS. Bijou, 1828.

[92-3] _But ere they_ arrived there _they beheld_, MS. Bijou, 1828.

[94] advancing] coming up MS. Bijou, 1828.

[98-101] The face of Cain turned pale, but Enos said, '_Ere yet_, &c. MS. Bijou, 1828.

[108-9] _Enos_ crept softly round the base of the rock and _stood before_ MS. Bijou, 1828.

[114-16] _of a dream_; and ere he had recovered himself from the tumult of his agitation, _the Shape_, &c. MS. Bijou, 1828.

[160] and walked Bijou, 1828. rocks] rock MS.

[170] but] and MS.

[176] the] their MS.

TO ----[292:1]

I mix in life, and labour to seem free, With common persons pleas'd and common things, While every thought and action tends to thee, And every impulse from thy influence springs.

? 1798.

FOOTNOTES:

[292:1] First published without title in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 280 (among other short pieces and fragments 'communicated by Mr. Gutch'). First collected, again without title, in _P. and D. W._, 1877-80.

LINENOTES:

Title] To ---- 1893. The heading _Ubi Thesaurus Ibi Cor_ was prefixed to the illustrated edition of The Poems of Coleridge, 1907.

THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIÉ[293:1]

A FRAGMENT

Beneath yon birch with silver bark, And boughs so pendulous and fair, The brook falls scatter'd down the rock: And all is mossy there!

And there upon the moss she sits, 5 The Dark Ladié 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, 10 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 betrothéd Knight! Lord Falkland, it is Thou!' 20

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! O give me shelter in thy breast! O shield and shelter me!

'My Henry, I have given thee much, I 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: 40

'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!

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

* * * * *

1798.

FOOTNOTES:

[293:1] First published in 1834. 'In a manuscript list (undated) of the poems drawn up by Coleridge appear these items together: _Love_ 96 lines . . . _The Black Ladié_ 190 lines.' _Note_ to _P. W._, 1893, p. 614. A MS. of the three last stanzas is extant. In Chapter XIV of the _Biographia Literaria_, 1817, ii. 3 Coleridge synchronizes the _Dark Ladié_ (a poem which he was 'preparing' with the _Christabel_). It would seem probable that it belongs to the spring or early summer of 1798, and that it was anterior to _Love_, which was first published in the _Morning Post_, December 21, 1799, under the heading 'Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladié'. If the MS. List of Poems is the record of poems actually written, two-thirds of the _Dark Ladié_ must have perished long before 1817, when _Sibylline Leaves_ was passing through the press, and it was found necessary to swell the Contents with 'two School-boy Poems' and 'with a song modernized with some additions from one of our elder poets'.

LINENOTES:

[53-6]

And first the nodding Minstrels go With music fit for lovely Bowers, The children then in snowy robes, Strewing Buds and Flowers.

MS. S. T. C.

[57] pace] go MS. S. T. C.

KUBLA KHAN[295:1]:

OR, A VISION IN A DREAM. A FRAGMENT.

The following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity [Lord Byron], and, as far as the Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed _poetic_ merits. 5

In the summer of the year 1797[295:2], the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep 10 in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in 'Purchas's Pilgrimage': 'Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.'[296:1] The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before 20 him as _things_, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, 30 with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!

Then all the charm Is broken--all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape['s] the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes-- The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon 40 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.

[From _The Picture; or, the Lover's Resolution_, II. 91-100.]

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. Σαμερον αδιον ασω[297:1] [Αὔριον ἅδιον ἄσω _1834_]: but the to-morrow is yet to come.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the 50 dream of pain and disease.[297:2]

KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. 5 So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there 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![297:3] [297:4]And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 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: 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![298:1]

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![298:2] And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 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.

1798.

FOOTNOTES:

[295:1] First published together with _Christabel_ and _The Pains of Sleep_, 1816: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834.

[295:2] There can be little doubt that Coleridge should have written 'the summer of 1798'. In an unpublished MS. note dated November 3, 1810, he connects the retirement between 'Linton and Porlock' and a recourse to opium with his quarrel with Charles Lloyd, and consequent distress of mind. That quarrel was at its height in May 1798. He alludes to distress of mind arising from 'calumny and ingratitude from men who have been fostered in the bosom of my confidence' in a letter to J. P. Estlin, dated May 14, 1798; and, in a letter to Charles Lamb, dated [Spring] 1798, he enlarges on his quarrel with Lloyd and quotes from Lloyd's novel of _Edmund Oliver_ which was published in 1798. See _Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, 1895, i. 245, note 1. I discovered and read for the first time the unpublished note of November 3, 1810, whilst the edition of 1893 was in the press, and in a footnote to p. xlii of his _Introduction_ the editor, J. D. Campbell, explains that it is too late to alter the position and date of _Kubla Khan_, but accepts the later date (May, 1798) on the evidence of the MS. note.

[296:1] 'In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure.'--_Purchas his Pilgrimage_: Lond. fol. 1626, Bk. IV, chap. xiii, p. 418.

[297:1] The quotation is from Theocritus, i. 145:--ἐς ὕστερον ἅδιον ᾀσῶ.

[297:2] _The Pains of Sleep._

[297:3] And woman wailing for her Demon Lover. Motto to Byron's _Heaven and Earth_, published in _The Liberal_, No. II, January 1, 1823.

[297:4] With lines 17-24 compare William Bartram's description of the 'Alligator-Hole.' _Travels in North and South Carolina_, 1794, pp. 286-8.

[298:1] Compare Thomas Maurice's _History of Hindostan_, 1795, i. 107. The reference is supplied by Coleridge in the _Gutch Memorandum Note Book_ (B. M. Add. MSS., No. 27, 901), p. 47: 'In a cave in the mountains of Cashmere an Image of Ice,' &c.

[298:2] In her 'Lines to S. T. Coleridge, Esq.,' Mrs. Robinson (Perdita) writes:--

'I'll mark thy "sunny domes" and view Thy "caves of ice", and "fields of dew".'

It is possible that she had seen a MS. copy of _Kubla Khan_ containing these variants from the text.

LINENOTES:

Title of Introduction:--Of the Fragment of Kubla Khan 1816, 1828, 1829.

[1-5] om. 1834.

[8] there] here S. L. 1828, 1829.

[11] Enfolding] And folding 1816. The word 'Enfolding' is a pencil emendation in David Hinves's copy of Christabel. ? by S. T. C.

[19] In the early copies of 1893 this line was accidentally omitted.

[54] drunk] drank 1816, 1828, 1829.

RECANTATION[299:1]

ILLUSTRATED IN THE STORY OF THE MAD OX

I

An Ox, long fed with musty hay, And work'd with yoke and chain, Was turn'd out on an April day, When fields are in their best array, And growing grasses sparkle gay 5 At once with Sun and rain.

II

The grass was fine, the Sun was bright-- With truth I may aver it; The ox was glad, as well, he might, Thought a green meadow no bad sight, 10 And frisk'd,--to shew his huge delight, Much like a beast of spirit.

III

'_Stop, neighbours, stop, why these alarms? The ox is only glad!_' But still they pour from cots and farms-- 15 'Halloo!' the parish is up in arms, (A _hoaxing_-hunt has always charms) 'Halloo! the ox is mad.'

IV

The frighted beast scamper'd about-- Plunge! through the hedge he drove: 20 The mob pursue with hideous rout, A bull-dog fastens on his snout; 'He gores the dog! his tongue hangs out! He's mad, he's mad, by Jove!'

V

'STOP, NEIGHBOURS, STOP!' aloud did call 25 A sage of sober hue. But all at once, on him they fall, And women squeak and children squall, 'What? would you have him toss us all? And dam'me, who are you?' 30

VI

Oh! hapless sage! his ears they stun, And curse him o'er and o'er! 'You bloody-minded dog! (cries one,) To slit your windpipe were good fun, 'Od blast you for an _impious_ son[300:1] 35 Of a Presbyterian wh--re!'

VII

'You'd have him gore the Parish-priest, And run against the altar! You fiend!' the sage his warnings ceas'd, And north and south, and west and east, 40 Halloo! they follow the poor beast, Mat, Dick, Tom, Bob and Walter.

VIII

Old Lewis ('twas his evil day), Stood trembling in his shoes; The ox was his--what cou'd he say? His legs were stiffen'd with dismay, 45 The ox ran o'er him mid the fray, And gave him his death's bruise.

IX

The frighted beast ran on--(but here, No tale, (tho' in print, more true is) 50 My Muse stops short in mid career-- Nay, gentle Reader, do not sneer! I cannot chuse but drop a tear, A tear for good old Lewis!)

X

The frighted beast ran through the town, 55 All follow'd, boy and dad, Bull-dog, parson, shopman, clown: The publicans rush'd from the Crown, 'Halloo! hamstring him! cut him down!' THEY DROVE THE POOR OX MAD. 60

XI

Should you a Rat to madness tease Why ev'n a Rat may plague you: There's no Philosopher but sees That Rage and Fear are one disease-- Though that may burn, and this may freeze, 65 They're both alike the Ague.

XII

And so this Ox, in frantic mood, Fac'd round like any Bull! The mob turn'd tail, and he pursued, Till they with heat and fright were stew'd, 70 And not a chick of all this brood But had his belly full!

XIII

Old Nick's astride the beast, 'tis clear! Old Nicholas, to a tittle! But all agree he'd disappear, 75 Would but the Parson venture near, And through his teeth,[302:1] right o'er the steer, Squirt out some fasting-spittle.

XIV

Achilles was a warrior fleet, The Trojans he could worry: 80 Our Parson too was swift of feet, But shew'd it chiefly in retreat: The victor Ox scour'd down the street, The mob fled hurry-scurry.

XV

Through gardens, lanes and fields new-plough'd, 85 Through _his_ hedge, and through _her_ hedge, He plung'd and toss'd and bellow'd loud-- Till in his madness he grew proud To see this helter-skelter crowd That had more wrath than courage! 90

XVI

Alas! to mend the breaches wide He made for these poor ninnies, They all must work, whate'er betide, Both days and months, and pay beside (Sad news for Av'rice and for Pride), 95 A _sight_ of golden guineas!

XVII

But here once more to view did pop The man that kept his senses-- And now he cried,--'Stop, neighbours, stop! The Ox is mad! I would not swop, 100 No! not a school-boy's farthing top For all the parish-fences.'

XVIII

'The Ox is mad! Ho! Dick, Bob, Mat! 'What means this coward fuss? Ho! stretch this rope across the plat-- 105 'Twill trip him up--or if not that, Why, dam'me! we must lay him flat-- See! here's my blunderbuss.'

XIX

'_A lying dog! just now he said The Ox was only glad-- 110 Let's break his Presbyterian head!_' 'Hush!' quoth the sage, 'you've been misled; No quarrels now! let's all make head, YOU DROVE THE POOR OX MAD.'

XX

As thus I sat, in careless chat, 115 With the morning's wet newspaper, In eager haste, without his hat, As blind and blund'ring as a bat, In came that fierce Aristocrat, Our pursy woollen-draper. 120

XXI

And so my Muse per force drew bit; And in he rush'd and panted! 'Well, have you heard?' No, not a whit. 'What, _ha'nt_ you heard?' Come, out with it! 'That Tierney votes for Mister PITT, 125 And Sheridan's _recanted_!'

1798.

FOOTNOTES:

[299:1] First published in the _Morning Post_ for July 30, 1798, with the following title and introduction:--'ORIGINAL POETRY. A TALE. The following amusing Tale gives a very humourous description of the French Revolution, which is represented as an Ox': included in _Annual Anthology_, 1800, and _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817; reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, 1880, iii 963-9. First collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877-80. In a copy of the _Annual Anthology_ of 1800 Coleridge writes over against the heading of this poem, 'Written when fears were entertained of an invasion, and Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Tierney were absurdly represented as having _recanted_ because to [The French Revolution (?)] in its origin they, [having been favourable, changed their opinion when the Revolutionists became unfaithful to their principles (?)].' See _Note to P. W._, 1893.

The text is that of _Sibylline Leaves_ and _Essays on his Own Times_.

[300:1] One of the many fine words which the most uneducated had about this time a constant opportunity of acquiring, from the sermons in the pulpit and the proclamations on [in _S. L._] the ---- corners. _An. Anth._, _S. L._

[302:1] According to the common superstition there are two ways of fighting with the Devil. You may cut him in half with a straw, or he will vanish if you spit over his horns with a fasting spittle. _Note by S. T. C. in M. P._ According to the superstition of the West-Countries, if you meet the Devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw, or force him to disappear by spitting over his horns. _An. Anth._, _S. L._

LINENOTES:

[3] turn'd out] loosen'd M. P.

[9] ox] beast M. P.

[19] beast] ox M. P.

[22] fastens] fasten'd M. P.

[27] 'You cruel dog!' at once they bawl. M. P.

[31] Oh] Ah! M. P., An. Anth.

[35-6] om. Essays, &c.

[38] run] drive M. P.

[39] fiend] rogue M. P.

[42] Mat, Tom, Bob, Dick M. P.

[49] The baited ox drove on M. P., An. Anth.

[50] No . . . print] The Gospel scarce M. P., An. Anth.

[53] cannot] could M. P.

[55] The ox drove on, right through the town M. P.

[62] may] might M. P., An. Anth.

[68] any] a mad M. P.

[70] heat and fright] flight and fear M. P., An. Anth.

[71] this] the M. P.

[73] beast] ox M. P.

[75] agree] agreed M. P.

[83] scour'd] drove M. P.

[91] Alas] Alack M. P.

[99] cried] bawl'd M. P.

[103] Tom! Walter! Mat! M. P.

[109] _lying_] _bare-faced_ M. P.

[115] But lo! to interrupt my chat M. P.

[119] In came] In rush'd M. P.

[122] And he rush'd in M. P.

[125-6]

That Tierney's wounded Mister PITT, And his fine tongue enchanted!

M. P.

HEXAMETERS[304:1]

William, my teacher, my friend! dear William and dear Dorothea! Smooth out the folds of my letter, and place it on desk or on table; Place it on table or desk; and your right hands loosely half-closing,[304:2] Gently sustain them in air, and extending the digit didactic, Rest it a moment on each of the forks of the five-forkéd left hand, 5 Twice on the breadth of the thumb, and once on the tip of each finger; Read with a nod of the head in a humouring recitativo; And, as I live, you will see my hexameters hopping before you. This is a galloping measure; a hop, and a trot, and a gallop!

All my hexameters fly, like stags pursued by the stag-hounds, 10 Breathless and panting, and ready to drop, yet flying still onwards,[304:3] I would full fain pull in my hard-mouthed runaway hunter; But our English Spondeans are clumsy yet impotent curb-reins; And so to make him go slowly, no way left have I but to lame him.

William, my head and my heart! dear Poet that feelest and thinkest! 15 Dorothy, eager of soul, my most affectionate sister! Many a mile, O! many a wearisome mile are ye distant, Long, long comfortless roads, with no one eye that doth know us. O! it is all too far to send you mockeries idle: Yea, and I feel it not right! But O! my friends, my beloved! 20 Feverish and wakeful I lie,--I am weary of feeling and thinking. Every thought is worn _down_, I am weary yet cannot be vacant. Five long hours have I tossed, rheumatic heats, dry and flushing, Gnawing behind in my head, and wandering and throbbing about me, Busy and tiresome, my friends, as the beat of the boding night-spider.[305:1] 25

_I forget the beginning of the line:_

. . . my eyes are a burthen, Now unwillingly closed, now open and aching with darkness. O! what a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence! Him that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him; Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother; 30 Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber; Even for him it exists, it moves and stirs in its prison; Lives with a separate life, and 'Is it a Spirit?' he murmurs: 'Sure it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language.'

_There was a great deal more, which I have forgotten. . . . The last line which I wrote, I remember, and write it for the truth of the sentiment, scarcely less true in company than in pain and solitude:--_

William, my head and my heart! dear William and dear Dorothea! 35 You have all in each other; but I am lonely, and want you!

1798-9.

FOOTNOTES:

[304:1] First published in _Memoirs of W. Wordsworth_, 1851, i. 139-41: reprinted in _Life_ by Prof. Knight, 1889, i. 185. First collected as a whole in _P. W._ [ed. T. Ashe], 1885. lines 30-6, 'O what a life is the eye', &c., were first published in _Friendship's Offering_, and are included in _P. W._, 1834. They were reprinted by Cottle in _E. R._, 1837, i. 226. The 'Hexameters' were sent in a letter, written in the winter of 1798-9 from Ratzeburg to the Wordsworths at Goslar.

[304:2] False metre. _S. T. C._

[304:3] '_Still_ flying onwards' were perhaps better. _S. T. C._

[305:1] False metre. _S. T. C._

LINENOTES:

[28] strange] fine Letter, 1798-9, Cottle, 1837.

[29] Him] He Cottle, 1837.

[30] Him] He Cottle, 1837.

[31] Him that ne'er smiled at the bosom as babe Letter, 1798-9: He that smiled at the bosom, the babe Cottle, 1837.

[32] Even to him it exists, it stirs and moves Letter, 1798-9: Even to him it exists, it moves and stirs Cottle, 1837.

[33] a Spirit] the Spirit Letter, 1798-9.

[34] a] its Letter, 1798-9.

TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE IN OTTFRIED'S METRICAL PARAPHRASE OF THE GOSPEL

[This paraphrase, written about the time of Charlemagne, is by no means deficient in occasional passages of considerable poetic merit. There is a flow and a tender enthusiasm in the following lines which even in the translation will not, I flatter myself, fail to interest the reader. Ottfried is describing the circumstances immediately following the birth of our Lord. Most interesting is it to consider the effect when the feelings are wrought above the natural pitch by the belief of something mysterious, while all the images are purely natural. Then it is that religion and poetry strike deepest. _Biog. Lit._, 1817, i. 203-4.[306:1]]

She gave with joy her virgin breast; She hid it not, she bared the breast Which suckled that divinest babe! Blessed, blessed were the breasts Which the Saviour infant kiss'd; 5 And blessed, blessed was the mother Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes, Singing placed him on her lap, Hung o'er him with her looks of love, And soothed him with a lulling motion. 10 Blessed! for she shelter'd him From the damp and chilling air; Blessed, blessed! for she lay With such a babe in one blest bed, Close as babes and mothers lie! 15 Blessed, blessed evermore, With her virgin lips she kiss'd, With her arms, and to her breast, She embraced the babe divine, Her babe divine the virgin mother! 20 There lives not on this ring of earth A mortal that can sing her praise. Mighty mother, virgin pure, In the darkness and the night For us she _bore_ the heavenly Lord! 25

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[306:1] First published as a footnote to Chapter X of the _Biographia Literaria_ (ed. 1817, i. 203-4). First collected in 1863 (Appendix, pp. 401-2). The translation is from _Otfridi Evang._, lib. i, cap. xi, ll. 73-108 (included in Schilter's _Thesaurus Antiquitatum Teutonicarum_, pp. 50-1, _Biog. Lit._, 1847, i. 213). Otfrid, 'a monk at Weissenburg in Elsass', composed his _Evangelienbuch_ about 870 A.D. (Note by J. Shawcross, _Biog. Lit._, 1907, ii. 259). As Coleridge says that 'he read through Ottfried's metrical paraphrase of the Gospel' when he was at Göttingen, it may be assumed that the translation was made in 1799.

LINENOTES:

[5] Saviour infant] infant Saviour 1863.

CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES[307:1]

Hear, my belovéd, an old Milesian story!-- High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels, Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland; In the dim distance amid the skiey billows Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it. 5 From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating, Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland, Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple. 10 There in a thicket of dedicated roses, Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision, Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea, Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat, And with invisible pilotage to guide it 15 Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[307:1] First published in 1834. These lines, which are not 'Hendecasyllables', are a translation of part of Friedrich von Matthisson's _Milesisches Mährchen_. For the original see Note to _Poems_, 1852, and Appendices of this edition. There is no evidence as to the date of composition. The emendations in lines 5 and 6 were first printed in _P. W._, 1893.

LINENOTES:

[5] blest] plac'd 1834, 1844, 1852.

[6] bleat-resounding] bleak-resounding 1834, 1852.

[16] nightly] mighty 1834, 1844.

THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER[307:2]

DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows, Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[307:2] First published (together with the 'Ovidian Elegiac Metre', &c.) in _Friendship's Offering_, 1834: included in _P. W._, 1834. An acknowledgement that these 'experiments in metre' are translations from Schiller was first made in a Note to _Poems_, 1844, p. 371. The originals were given on p. 372. See Appendices of this edition. There is no evidence as to the date of composition.

THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE

DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

? 1799.

ON A CATARACT[308:1]

FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE

STROPHE

Unperishing youth! Thou leapest from forth The cell of thy hidden nativity; Never mortal saw The cradle of the strong one; 5 Never mortal heard The gathering of his voices; The deep-murmured charm of the son of the rock, That is lisp'd evermore at his slumberless fountain. There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil 10 At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing; It embosoms the roses of dawn, It entangles the shafts of the noon, And into the bed of its stillness The moonshine sinks down as in slumber, 15 That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven May be born in a holy twilight!

ANTISTROPHE

The wild goat in awe Looks up and beholds Above thee the cliff inaccessible;-- 20 Thou at once full-born Madd'nest in thy joyance, Whirlest, shatter'st, splitt'st, Life invulnerable.

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[308:1] First published in 1834. For the original (_Unsterblicher Jüngling_) by Count F. L. Stolberg see Note to _Poems_, 1844, pp. 371-2, and Appendices of this edition.

LINENOTES:

Title] Improved from Stolberg. On a Cataract, &c. 1844, 1852.

[2-3]

Thou streamest from forth The cleft of thy ceaseless Nativity

MS. S. T. C.

[Between 7 and 13.]

The murmuring songs of the Son of the Rock, When he feeds evermore at the slumberless Fountain. There abideth a Cloud, At the Portal a Veil, At the shrine of thy self-renewing; It embodies the Visions of Dawn, It entangles, &c.

MS. S. T. C.

[20] Below thee the cliff inaccessible MS. S. T. C.

[22-3]

Flockest in thy Joyance, Wheelest, shatter'st, start'st.

MS. S. T. C.

TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE[309:1]

IMITATED FROM STOLBERG

I

Mark this holy chapel well! The birth-place, this, of William Tell. Here, where stands God's altar dread, Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

II

Here, first, an infant to her breast, 5 Him his loving mother prest; And kissed the babe, and blessed the day, And prayed as mothers use to pray.

III

'Vouchsafe him health, O God! and give The child thy servant still to live!' 10 But God had destined to do more Through him, than through an arméd power.

IV

God gave him reverence of laws, Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause-- A spirit to his rocks akin, 15 The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein!

V

To Nature and to Holy Writ Alone did God the boy commit: Where flashed and roared the torrent, oft His soul found wings, and soared aloft! 20

VI

The straining oar and chamois chase Had formed his limbs to strength and grace: On wave and wind the boy would toss, Was great, nor knew how great he was!

VII

He knew not that his chosen hand, 25 Made strong by God, his native land Would rescue from the shameful yoke Of Slavery----the which he broke!

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[309:1] First published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834. For the original (_Bei Wilhelm Tells Geburtsstätte im Kanton Uri_) by Count F. L. Stolberg see Appendices of this edition. There is no evidence as to the date of composition.

LINENOTES:

[28] Slavery] _Slavery_, all editions to 1834.

THE VISIT OF THE GODS[310:1]

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER

Never, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! 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 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! Io Paean, I cry! 25 The wine of the Immortals Forbids me to die!

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[310:1] First published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817: included in 1828, 1829 ('Vision of the Gods', Contents, vol. i, pp. 322-3 of both editions), and in 1834. For Schiller's original (_Dithyrambe_) see Appendices of this edition.

FROM THE GERMAN[311:1]

Know'st thou the land where the pale citrons grow, The golden fruits in darker foliage glow? Soft blows the wind that breathes from that blue sky! Still stands the myrtle and the laurel high! Know'st thou it well, that land, beloved Friend? 5 Thither with thee, O, thither would I wend!

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[311:1] First published in 1834. For the original ('Mignon's Song') in Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_ see Appendices of this edition.

WATER BALLAD[311:2]

[FROM THE FRENCH]

'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.'-- 10 '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 15 I'd have thee by my side.'

The happy bridal over The wanderer ceased to roam, For, seated by her lover, The boat became her home. 20 And still they sang together As steering o'er the tide: 'Row on through wind and weather For ever by my side.'

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[311:2] First published in _The Athenaeum_, October 29, 1831. First collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877-80. For the original ('Barcarolle de Marie') of François Antoine Eugène de Planard see Appendices of this edition.

ON AN INFANT[312:1]

WHICH DIED BEFORE BAPTISM

'Be, rather than be called, a child of God,' Death whispered! With assenting nod, Its head upon its mother's breast, The Baby bowed, without demur-- Of the kingdom of the Blest Possessor, not Inheritor.

_April_ 8, 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[312:1] First published in _P. W._, 1834. These lines were sent in a letter from Coleridge to his wife, dated Göttingen, April 6, 1799:--'Ah, my poor Berkeley!' [b. May 15, 1798, d. Feb. 10, 1799] he writes, 'A few weeks ago an Englishman desired me to write an epitaph on an infant who had died before its Christening. While I wrote it, my heart with a deep misgiving turned my thoughts homeward. "On an Infant", &c. It refers to the second question in the Church Catechism.' _Letters of S. T. C._ 1895, i. 287.

LINENOTES:

[1] called] _call'd_ MS. Letter, 1799.

[3] its] the MS. letter, 1799.

[4] bow'd and went without demur MS. Letter, 1799.

SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL[313:1]

WRITTEN IN GERMANY

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. 5

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. 10

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. 15

_April_ 23, 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[313:1] First published in the Annual Anthology (1800), with the signature 'Cordomi': included in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The lines, without title or heading, were sent in a letter from Coleridge to his wife, dated Göttingen, April 23, 1799 (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i. 294-5). They are an imitation (see F. Freiligrath's Biographical Memoir to the Tauchnitz edition of 1852) of the German Folk-song Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär. For the original see Appendices of this edition. The title 'Something Childish', &c., was prefixed in the Annual Anthology, 1800.

LINENOTES:

[3] you] _you_ MS. Letter, 1799.

[6] you] _you_ MS. Letter, 1799.

HOME-SICK[314:1]

WRITTEN IN GERMANY

'Tis sweet to him who all the week Through city-crowds must push his way, To stroll alone through fields and woods, And hallow thus the Sabbath-day.

And sweet it is, in summer bower, 5 Sincere, affectionate and gay, One's own dear children feasting round, To celebrate one's marriage-day.

But what is all to his delight, Who having long been doomed to roam, 10 Throws off the bundle from his back, Before the door of his own home?

Home-sickness is a wasting pang; This feel I hourly more and more: There's healing only in thy wings, 15 Thou breeze that play'st on Albion's shore!

_May_ 6, 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[314:1] First published in the _Annual Anthology_ (1800), with the signature 'Cordomi': included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834. The lines, without title or heading, were sent in a letter from Coleridge to Poole, dated May 6, 1799 (_Letters of S. T.C._, 1895, i. 298). Dr. Carlyon in his _Early Years_, &c. (1856, i. 66), prints stanzas 1, 3, and 4. He says that they were written from Coleridge's dictation, in the Brockenstammbuch at the little inn on the Brocken. The title 'Home-Sick', &c., was prefixed in the _Annual Anthology_, 1800.

LINENOTES:

[13] a wasting pang] no baby-pang MS. Letter, 1799, An. Anth.

[15] There's only music in thy wings MS. Letter, 1799.

LINES[315:1]

WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE HARTZ FOREST

I stood on Brocken's[315:2] 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 evermore, 5 Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard, The sweet bird's song became a hollow sound; And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly, Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct 10 From many a note of many a waterfall, And the brook's chatter; 'mid whose islet-stones The dingy 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:[315:3] 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 adoréd 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 cliffs!

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 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.

_May_ 17, 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[315:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, September 17, 1799: included in the _Annual Anthology_ (1800) [signed C.], in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The lines were sent in a letter from Coleridge to his wife, dated May 17, 1799. Part of the letter was printed in the _Amulet_, 1829, and the whole in the _Monthly Magazine_ for October, 1835. A long extract is given in Gillman's _Life of S. T. C._, 1838, pp. 125-38.

[315:2] The highest Mountain in the Harz, and indeed in North Germany.

[315:3]

----When I have gaz'd From some high eminence on goodly vales, And cots and villages embower'd 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_.

LINENOTES:

[3] _surging_] _surging_ M. P.

[4] Heavily] Wearily MS. Letter.

[6] heaves] mov'd MS. Letter.

[8] a] an all editions to 1834.

[9] breeze] gale MS. Letter.

[11] waterfall] waterbreak MS. Letter.

[12] 'mid] on MS. Letter.

[16] With low and languid thought, for I had found MS. Letter.

[17] That grandest scenes have but imperfect charms MS. Letter, M. P., An. Anth.

[18]

Where the eye vainly wanders nor beholds

MS. Letter.

Where the sight, &c.

M. P., An. Anth.

[19] One spot with which the heart associates MS. Letter, M. P., An. Anth.

[19-21]

Fair cyphers of vague import, where the Eye Traces no spot, in which the Heart may read History or Prophecy

S. L. 1817, 1828.

[20]

Holy Remembrances of Child or Friend

MS. Letter.

Holy Remembrances of Friend or Child

M. P., An. Anth.

[26] eye] eyes MS. Letter.

[28-30]

Sweet native Isle This heart was proud, yea mine eyes swam with tears To think of thee: and all the goodly view

MS. Letter.

[28] O native land M. P., An. Anth.

[34] I] _I_ MS. Letter.

[38] family] brother-hood MS. Letter.

THE BRITISH STRIPLING'S WAR-SONG[317:1]

IMITATED FROM STOLBERG

Yes, noble old Warrior! this heart has beat high, Since you told of the deeds which our countrymen wrought; O lend me the sabre that hung by thy thigh, And I too will fight as my forefathers fought.

Despise not my youth, for my spirit is steel'd, 5 And I know there is strength in the grasp of my hand; Yea, as firm as thyself would I march to the field, And as proudly would die for my dear native land.

In the sports of my childhood I mimick'd the fight, The sound of a trumpet suspended my breath; 10 And my fancy still wander'd by day and by night, Amid battle and tumult, 'mid conquest and death.

My own shout of onset, when the Armies advance, How oft it awakes me from visions of glory; When I meant to have leapt on the Hero of France, 15 And have dash'd him to earth, pale and breathless and gory.

As late thro' the city with banners all streaming To the music of trumpets the Warriors flew by, With helmet and scimitars naked and gleaming, On their proud-trampling, thunder-hoof'd steeds did they fly; 20

I sped to yon heath that is lonely and bare, For each nerve was unquiet, each pulse in alarm; And I hurl'd the mock-lance thro' the objectless air, And in open-eyed dream proved the strength of my arm.

Yes, noble old Warrior! this heart has beat high, 25 Since you told of the deeds that our countrymen wrought; O lend me the sabre that hung by thy thigh, And I too will fight as my forefathers fought!

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[317:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, August 24, 1799: included in the _Annual Anthology_ for 1800: reprinted in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 276, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1848. ('Communicated to the _Bath Herald_ during the Volunteer Frenzy of 1803') (N. S. xxix, p. 60), and in _Essays on His Own Times_, iii. 988-9. First collected in _P. W._, 1877-80, ii. 200-1. The MS. is preserved in the British Museum. The text follows that of the _Annual Anthology_, 1800, pp. 173-4. For the original by Count F. L. Stolberg (_Lied eines deutschen Knaben_) see Appendices of this edition.

LINENOTES:

Title] The Stripling's War-Song. Imitated from the German of Stolberg MS. The Stripling's, &c. Imitated from Stolberg L. R. The British Stripling's War Song M. P., An. Anth., Essays, &c. The Volunteer Stripling. A Song G. M.

[1] Yes] My MS., L. R.

[2] Since] When G. M. which] that MS., L. R. our] your M. P., Essays, &c.

[3] Ah! give me the sabre [[*Falchion*]] that [which L. R.] MS., Essays, &c.

[5] O despise MS., L. R., Essays, &c.

[7] march] move MS., L. R.

[8] would] could Essays, &c. native land] fatherland L. R.

[9] fight] sight G. M.

[10] sound] shrill [[*sound*]] MS., L. R. a] the M. P., Essays, &c.

[12] Amid tumults [tumult L. R.] and perils MS. 'mid] and Essays, &c. Mid battle and bloodshed G. M.

[13]

My own eager shout in the heat of my trance

MS., MS. correction in An. Anth., L. R.

My own shout of onset, { in the heat of my trance G. M., 1893. { [*when the armies advance*] MS.

[14] visions] dreams full MS., L. R. How oft it has wak'd G. M.

[15] When I dreamt that I rush'd G. M.

[16] breathless] deathless L. R. pale, breathless G. M.

[17] city] town G. M.

[17-18]

{ with bannerets streaming { [*with a terrible beauty*] To [And L. R.] the music

MS.

[19] scimitars] scymetar MS., L.R., Essays, &c., G. M.: scymeter M. P.

[Between 20-1]

And the Host pacing after in gorgeous parade All mov'd to one measure in front and in rear; And the Pipe, Drum and Trumpet, such harmony made As the souls of the Slaughter'd would loiter to hear.

MS. erased.

[21] that] which L. R.

[22] For my soul MS. erased.

[23] I hurl'd my MS., L. R., Essays, &c. objectless] mind-peopled G. M.

[26] Since] When G. M.

[27] Ah! give me the falchion MS., L. R.

NAMES[318:1]

[FROM LESSING]

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, 'Belovéd, what are names but air? Choose thou whatever suits the line; Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, 10 Call me Lalage or Doris, Only, only call me Thine.'

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[318:1] First published in the _Morning Post_: reprinted in the _Poetical Register_ for 1803 (1805) with the signature HARLEY. PHILADELPHIA, in the _Keepsake_ for 1829, in Cottle's _Early Recollections_ (two versions) 1837, ii. 67, and in _Essays on His Own Times_, iii. 990, 'As it first appeared' in the _Morning Post_. First collected in 1834. For the original (_Die Namen_) see Appendices of this edition.

LINENOTES:

Title] Song from Lessing M. P., Essays, &c.: From the German of Lessing P. R.: Epigram Keepsake, 1829, Cottle's Early Recollections.

[1] fair] love Cottle, E. R.

[4]

Iphigenia, Clelia, Chloris,

M. P., Cottle, E. R., P. R.

Neaera, Laura, Daphne, Chloris,

Keepsake.

[5]

Laura, Lesbia, or Doris,

MS. 1799, M. P., Cottle, E. R.

Carina, Lalage, or Doris,

Keepsake.

[6] Dorimene, or Lucrece, MS. 1799, M. P., Cottle, E. R., P. R., Keepsake.

[8] Belovéd.] Dear one Keepsake.

[9] Choose thou] Take thou M. P., P. R.: Take Cottle, E. R.

[10] Call me Laura, call me Chloris MS. 1799, Keepsake.

[10-11]

Call me Clelia, call me Chloris, Laura, Lesbia or Doris

M. P., Cottle, E. R.

[10-12]

Clelia, Iphigenia, Chloris, Laura, Lesbia, Delia, Doris, But don't forget to call me _thine_.

P. R.

THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS[319:1]

I

From his brimstone bed at break of day A walking the Devil is gone, To visit his snug little farm the earth, And see how his stock goes on.

II

Over the hill and over the dale, 5 And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he switched his long tail As a gentleman switches his cane.

III

And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: 10 His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through.

IV

He saw a Lawyer killing a Viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind 15 Of Cain and his brother, Abel.

V

He saw an Apothecary on a white horse Ride by on his vocations, And the Devil thought of his old Friend Death in the Revelations.[320:1] 20

VI

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility; And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility.

VII

He peep'd into a rich bookseller's shop, 25 Quoth he! we are both of one college! For I sate myself, like a cormorant, once Hard by the tree of knowledge.[321:1]

VIII

Down the river did glide, with wind and tide, A pig with vast celerity; 30 And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, It cut its own throat. 'There!' quoth he with a smile, 'Goes "England's commercial prosperity."'

IX

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell; 35 And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint For improving his prisons in Hell.

X

He saw a Turnkey in a trice Fetter a troublesome blade; 'Nimbly,' quoth he, 'do the fingers move 40 If a man be but used to his trade.'

XI

He saw the same Turnkey unfetter a man, With but little expedition, Which put him in mind of the long debate On the Slave-trade abolition. 45

XII

He saw an old acquaintance As he passed by a Methodist meeting;-- She holds a consecrated key, And the devil nods her a greeting.

XIII

She turned up her nose, and said, 50 'Avaunt! my name's Religion,' And she looked to Mr. ---- And leered like a love-sick pigeon.

XIV

He saw a certain minister (A minister to his mind) 55 Go up into a certain House, With a majority behind.

XV

The Devil quoted Genesis Like a very learnéd clerk, How 'Noah and his creeping things 60 Went up into the Ark.'

XVI

He took from the poor, And he gave to the rich, And he shook hands with a Scotchman, For he was not afraid of the ---- 65

XVII

General ----[323:1] burning face He saw with consternation, And back to hell his way did he take, For the Devil thought by a slight mistake It was general conflagration. 70

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[319:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, September 6, 1799: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834. It is printed separately as the _Devil's Walk_, a Poem, By Professor Porson, London, Marsh and Miller, &c., 1830. In 1827, by way of repudiating Porson's alleged authorship of _The Devil's Thoughts_, Southey expanded the _Devil's Thoughts_ of 1799 into a poem of fifty-seven stanzas entitled _The Devil's Walk_. See _P. W._, 1838, iii. pp. 87-100. In the _Morning Post_ the poem numbered fourteen stanzas; in 1828, 1829 it is reduced to ten, and in 1834 enlarged to seventeen stanzas. Stanzas iii and xiv-xvi of the text are not in the _M. P._ Stanzas iv and v appeared as iii, iv; stanza vi as ix; stanza vii as v; stanza viii as x; stanza ix as viii; stanza x as vi; stanza xi as vii; stanza xvii as xiv. In 1828, 1829, the poem consists of stanzas i-ix of the text, and of the concluding stanzas stanza xi ('Old Nicholas', &c.) of the _M. P._ version was not reprinted. Stanzas xiv-xvi of the text were first acknowledged by Coleridge in 1834.

[320:1] And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, Rev. vi. 8. _M. P._

[321:1] This anecdote is related by that most interesting of the Devil's Biographers, Mr. John Milton, in his _Paradise Lost_, and we have here the Devil's own testimony to the truth and accuracy of it. _M. P._

'And all amid them stood the TREE OF LIFE High, eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold (query _paper-money_), and next to Life _Our_ Death, the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, grew fast by.--

* * * * *

* * * * *

So clomb this first grand thief-- Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life Sat like a cormorant.'--_Par. Lost_, iv.

The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of _various readings_ obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for 'LIFE' _Cod. quid. habent_, 'TRADE.' Though indeed THE TRADE, _i. e._ the bibliopolic, so called κατ' ἐξοχήν, may be regarded as LIFE sensu _eminentiori_; a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, etc., of the trade, exclaimed, 'Ay! that's what I call LIFE now!'--This 'Life, _our_ Death,' is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.--Sic nos non nobis mellificamus Apes.

Of this poem, which with the 'Fire, Famine, and Slaughter' first appeared in the _Morning Post_ [6th Sept. 1799], the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 9th, and 16th stanzas[321:A] were dictated by Mr. Southey. See Apologetic Preface [to _Fire, Famine and Slaughter_]. [Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted, as grounded on subjects which have lost their interest--and for better reasons. _1828_, _1829_.]

If any one should ask who General ---- meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel.

[321:A] The three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth _1828_, _1829_.

[323:1] In a MS. copy in the B. M. and in some pirated versions the blank is filled up by the word 'Gascoigne's'; but in a MS. copy taken at Highgate, in June, 1820, by Derwent Coleridge the line runs 'General Tarleton's', &c.

LINENOTES:

[3-4]

{ To look at his little snug farm of the Earth { To visit, &c.

1828, 1829.

And see how his stock went on.

M. P., 1828, 1829.

[7] switched] swish'd M. P., 1828, 1829.

[8] switches] swishes M. P., 1828, 1829.

[9-12] Not in M. P.

[14] On the dunghill beside his stable M. P.: On a dung-heap beside his stable 1828, 1829.

[15-16]

Oh! oh; quoth he, for it put him in mind Of the story of Cain and Abel

M. P.

[16] his] _his_ 1828, 1829.

[17] He . . . on] An Apothecary on M. P.: A Pothecary on 1828, 1829.

[18] Ride] Rode M.P., 1828, 1829. vocations] vocation M. P.

[20] Revelations] Revelation M. P.

[21] saw] past M. P.

[23] And he grinn'd at the sight, for his favourite vice M. P.

[25] peep'd] went M. P., 1828, 1829.

[27] sate myself] myself sate 1828, 1829.

[28] Hard by] Upon M. P.: Fast by 1828, 1829.

[29-33]

He saw a pig right rapidly Adown the river float, The pig swam well, but every stroke Was cutting his own throat.

M. P.

[29] did glide] there plied 1828, 1829.

[Between 33-4]

Old Nicholas grinn'd and swish'd his tail For joy and admiration; And he thought of his daughter, Victory, And his darling babe, Taxation.

M. P.

[34-5]

As he went through ---- ---- fields he look'd At a

M. P.

[37] his] the M. P. in] of M. P.

[39] Fetter] Hand-cuff M. P.: Unfetter 1834.

[40-1]

'Nimbly', quoth he, 'the fingers move If a man is but us'd to his trade.'

M. P.

[42] unfetter] unfettering M. P.

[44] And he laugh'd for he thought of the long debates M. P.

[46] saw] met M. P.

[47] Just by the Methodist meeting. M. P.

[48] holds] held M. P. key] flag[323:A] M. P.

[323:A] The allusion is to Archbishop Randolph consecrating the Duke of York's banners. See S. T. Coleridge's _Notizbuch aus den Jahren 1795-8_ . . . von A. Brandl, 1896, p. 354 (p. 25 _a_, l. 18 of _Gutch Memorandum Book_, B. M. Add. MSS. 27,901).

[49] And the Devil nods a greeting. M. P.

[50-2]

She tip'd him the wink, then frown'd and cri'd 'Avaunt! my name's ---- And turn'd to Mr. W----

M. P.

[66] General ----] General ----'s M. P.

[68] way did take M. P.

[70] general] General M. P.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM[324:1]

Nor cold, nor stern, my soul! yet I detest These scented Rooms, where, to a gaudy throng, Heaves the proud Harlot her distended breast, In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign 5 To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint; But when the long-breathed singer's uptrilled strain Bursts in a squall--they gape for wonderment.

Hark! the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate! Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer 10 My lady eyes some maid of humbler state, While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest, Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

O give me, from this heartless scene released, To hear our old Musician, blind and grey, 15 (Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kissed,) His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play, By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night, The while I dance amid the tedded hay With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light. 20

Or lies the purple evening on the bay Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees, For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied, On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease, 25 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.

But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed 30 Makes the cock shrilly in the rainstorm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead, Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures 35 Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures The things of Nature utter; birds or trees, Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. 40

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[324:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, September 24, 1799: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. There is no evidence as to the date of composition. In a letter to Coleridge, dated July 5, 1796, Lamb writes 'Have a care, good Master Poet, of the Statute _de Contumeliâ_. What do you mean by calling Madame Mara harlots and naughty things? The goodness of the verse would not save you in a Court of Justice'--but it is by no means certain that Lamb is referring to the _Lines Composed in a Concert-Room_, or that there is any allusion in line 3 to Madame Mara. If, as J. D. Campbell suggested, the poem as it appeared in the _Morning Post_ is a recast of some earlier verses, it is possible that the scene is Ottery, and that 'Edmund' is the 'Friend who died dead of' a 'Frenzy Fever' (vide _ante_, p. 76). In this case a probable date would be the summer of 1793. But the poem as a whole suggests a later date. Coleridge and Southey spent some weeks at Exeter in September 1799. They visited Ottery St. Mary, and walked through Newton Abbot to Ashburton and Dartmouth. It is possible that the 'Concert-Room,' the 'pert Captain,' and 'primmer Priest' are reminiscences of Exeter, the 'heath-plant,' and the 'ocean caves' of Dartmoor and Torbay. If so, the 'shame and absolute rout' (l. 49 of variant, p. 325) would refer to the victory of Suwaroff over Joubert at Novi, which took place August 15, 1799. See _Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 307.

LINENOTES:

[14] heartless] loathsome M. P.

[24] Around whose roots M. P., S. L.

[40] thin] then M. P.

[After line 40]

Dear Maid! whose form in solitude I seek, Such songs in such a mood to hear thee sing, It were a deep delight!--But thou shalt fling Thy white arm round my neck, and kiss my cheek, And love the brightness of my gladder eye 45 The while I tell thee what a holier joy

It were in proud and stately step to go, With trump and timbrel clang, and popular shout, To celebrate the shame and absolute rout Unhealable of Freedom's latest foe, 50 Whose tower'd might shall to its centre nod.

When human feelings, sudden, deep and vast, As all good spirits of all ages past Were armied in the hearts of living men, Shall purge the earth, and violently sweep 55 These vile and painted locusts to the deep, Leaving un---- undebas'd A ---- world made worthy of its God.

M. P.

[The words in lines 57, 58 were left as blanks in the Morning Post, from what cause or with what object must remain a matter of doubt.]

WESTPHALIAN SONG[326:1]

[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 fare finely.

When she asks, 'What! Is he sick?' 5 Say, dead!--and when for sorrow She begins to sob and cry, Say, I come to-morrow.

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[326:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, Sept. 27, 1802: reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, 1850, iii. 992. First collected in _P. W._, 1877-80, ii. 170.

HEXAMETERS[326:2]

PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XLVI

Gōd ĭs oŭr Strēngth ănd oŭr Rēfŭge: thērefŏre wīll wĕ nŏt trēmblĕ, Thō' thĕ Eārth bĕ rĕmōvĕd ănd thō' thĕ pĕrpētŭăl Moūntaīns Sink in the Swell of the Ocean! God is our Strength and our Refuge. There is a River the Flowing whereof shall gladden the City, Hallelujah! the City of God! Jehova shall help her. 5 Thē Idōlătĕrs rāgĕd, the kingdoms were moving in fury; But he uttered his Voice: Earth melted away from beneath them. Halleluja! th' Eternal is with us, Almighty Jehova! Fearful the works of the Lord, yea fearful his Desolations; But He maketh the Battle to cease, he burneth the Spear and the Chariot. 10 Halleluja! th' Eternal is with us, the God of our Fathers!

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[326:2] Now published for the first time. The lines were sent in a letter to George Coleridge dated September 29, 1799. They were prefaced as follows:--'We were talking of Hexameters with you. I will, for want of something better, fill up the paper with a translation of one of my favourite Psalms into that metre which allowing trochees for spondees, as the nature of our Language demands, you will find pretty accurate a scansion.' _Mahomet_ and, no doubt, the _Hymn to the Earth_ may be assigned to the end of September or the beginning of October, 1799.

HYMN TO THE EARTH[327:1]

[IMITATED FROM STOLBERG'S _HYMNE AN DIE ERDE_]

HEXAMETERS

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee! Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges-- Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes--green meadows and lake with green island, 5 Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness, Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain, Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom! Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses, Green-haired goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger, 10 Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs. Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, 15 Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the Sun, the rejoicer! Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not, Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee! Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured! 20 Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee! Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: 25 Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement. Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts, Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels; 30 Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward; Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains, Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[327:1] First published in _Friendship's Offering_, 1834, pp. 165-7, with other pieces, under the general heading:--_Fragments from the Wreck of Memory: or Portions of Poems composed in Early Manhood: by S. T. Coleridge._ A Note was prefixed:--'It may not be without use or interest to youthful, and especially to intelligent female readers of poetry, to observe that in the attempt to adapt the Greek metres to the English language, we must begin by substituting _quality_ of sound for _quantity_--that is, accentuated or comparatively emphasized syllables, for what in the Greek and Latin Verse, are named long, and of which the prosodial mark is ¯; and _vice versâ_, unaccented syllables for short marked ˘. Now the Hexameter verse consists of two sorts of _feet_, the spondee composed of two long syllables, and the dactyl, composed of one long syllable followed by two short. The following verse from the Psalms is a rare instance of a _perfect_ hexameter (i. e. line of six feet) in the English language:--

Gōd cāme | ūp wĭth ă | shōut: oūr | Lōrd wĭth thĕ | sōund ŏf ă | trūmpĕt.

But so few are the truly _spondaic_ words in our language, such as Ēgȳpt, ūprŏar, tūrmoĭl, &c., that we are compelled to substitute, in most instances, the trochee; or ¯ ˘, i. e. in such words as mērry̆, līghtly̆, &c., for the proper spondee. It need only be added, that in the hexameter the fifth foot must be a dactyl, and the sixth a spondee, or trochee. I will end this note with two hexameter lines, likewise from the Psalms:--

Thēre ĭs ă | rīvĕr thĕ | flōwĭng whĕre|ōf shāll | glāddĕn thĕ | cīty̆, Hāllē|lūjăh thĕ | cīty̆ | Gōd Jē|hōvăh hăth | blēst hĕr.

S. T. C.'

On some proof-sheets, or loose pages of a copy of _The Hymn_ as published in _Friendship's Offering_ for 1834, which Coleridge annotated, no doubt with a view to his corrections being adopted in the forthcoming edition of his poems (1834), he adds in MS. the following supplementary note:--'To make any considerable number of Hexameters feasible in our monosyllabic trocheeo-iambic language, there must, I fear, be other licenses granted--in the _first_ foot, at least--_ex. gr._ a superfluous ˘ prefixed in cases of particles such as 'of, 'and', and the like: likewise ¯ ˘ ¯ where the stronger accent is on the first syllable.--S. T. C.'

The _Hymn to the Earth_ is a free translation of F. L. Stolberg's _Hymne an die Erde_. (See F. Freiligrath's _Biographical Memoirs_ prefixed to the Tauchnitz edition of the _Poems_ published in 1852.) The translation exceeds the German original by two lines. The Hexameters 'from the Psalms' are taken from a metrical experiment which Coleridge sent to his brother George, in a letter dated September 29, 1799 (vide _ante_). First collected in 1834. The acknowledgement that the _Hymn to the Earth_ is imitated from Stolberg's _Hymne an die Erde_ was first prefixed by J. D. Campbell in 1893.

LINENOTES:

[8] his] its F. O. 1834.

[9] that creep or rush through thy tresses F. O. 1834.

[33] on] in F. O. 1834.

[After 33]

* * * * *

F. O. 1834.

MAHOMET[329:1]

Utter the song, O my soul! the flight and return of Mohammed, Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing, Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution, Soul-withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan And idolatrous Christians.--For veiling the Gospel of Jesus, 5 They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest. Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca, Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness. Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol;-- Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid--the people with mad shouts 10 Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd, Rushes dividuous all--all rushing impetuous onward.

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[329:1] First published in 1834. In an unpublished letter to Southey, dated Sept. 25, 1799, Coleridge writes, 'I shall go on with the Mohammed'. There can be no doubt that these fourteen lines, which represent Coleridge's contribution to a poem on 'Mahomet' which he had planned in conjunction with Southey, were at that time already in existence. For Southey's portion, which numbered 109 lines, see _Oliver Newman_. By Robert Southey, 1845, pp. 113-15.

LOVE[330:1]

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.

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 arméd man, The statue of the arméd 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.

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!

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 faultering 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

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; And so I won my Genevieve, 95 My bright and beauteous Bride.

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[330:1] First published (with four preliminary and three concluding stanzas) as the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_, in the _Morning Post_, Dec. 21, 1799 (for complete text with introductory letter vide Appendices): included (as _Love_) in the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1800, 1802, 1805: reprinted with the text of the _Morning Post_ in _English Minstrelsy_, 1810 (ii. 131-9) with the following prefatory note:--'These exquisite stanzas appeared some years ago in a London Newspaper, and have since that time been republished in Mr. Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, but with some alterations; the Poet having apparently relinquished his intention of writing the Fate of the Dark Ladye': included (as _Love_) in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The four opening and three concluding stanzas with prefatory note were republished in _Literary Remains_, 1836, pp. 50-2, and were first collected in 1844. For a facsimile of the MS. of _Love_ as printed in the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800 (i. 138-44), see _Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS._, edited by W. Hale White, 1897 (between pp. 34-5). For a collation of the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_ with two MSS. in the British Museum [Add. MSS., No. 27,902] see _Coleridge's Poems_. A Facsimile Reproduction, &c. Ed. by James Dykes Campbell, 1899, and Appendices of this edition.

It is probable that the greater part of the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_ was written either during or shortly after a visit which Coleridge paid to the Wordsworths's friends, George and Mary, and Sarah Hutchinson, at Sockburn, a farm-house on the banks of the Tees, in November, 1799. In the first draft, ll. 13-16, 'She leaned, &c.' runs thus:--

She lean'd against a grey stone rudely carv'd, The statue of an arméd Knight: She lean'd in melancholy mood Amid the lingering light.

In the church at Sockburn there is a recumbent statue of an 'armed knight' (of the Conyers family), and in a field near the farm-house there is a 'Grey-Stone' which is said to commemorate the slaying of a monstrous wyverne or 'worme' by the knight who is buried in the church. It is difficult to believe that the 'arméd knight' and the 'grey stone' of the first draft were not suggested by the statue in Sockburn Church, and the 'Grey-Stone' in the adjoining field. It has been argued that the _Ballad of the Dark Ladié_, of which only a fragment remains, was written after Coleridge returned from Germany, and that the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_, which embodies _Love_, was written at Stowey in 1797 or 1798. But in referring to 'the plan' of the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798 (_Biog. Lit._, 1817, Cap. XIV, ii. 3) Coleridge says that he had written the _Ancient Mariner_, and was preparing the _Dark Ladie_ and the _Christabel_ (both unpublished poems when this Chapter was written), but says nothing of so typical a poem as _Love_. By the _Dark Ladié_ he must have meant the unfinished _Ballad of the Dark Ladié_, which, at one time, numbered 190 lines, not the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_, which later on he refers to as the 'poem entitled Love' (_Biog. Lit._, 1817, Cap. XXIV, ii. 298), and which had appeared under that title in the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1800, 1802, and 1805.

In _Sibylline Leaves_, 1828, 1829, and 1834, _Love_, which was the first in order of a group of poems with the sub-title 'Love Poems', was prefaced by the following motto:--

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in aevo, Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus. Omnia paulatim consumit longior aetas, Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo. Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor: Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago, Voxque aliud sonat-- Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes, Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus Mens horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum. PETRARCH.

LINENOTES:

Title] Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie M. P.: Fragment, S. T. Coleridge English Minstrelsy, 1810.

Opening stanzas

O leave the Lilly on its stem; O leave the Rose upon the spray; O leave the Elder-bloom, fair Maids! And listen to my lay.

A Cypress and a Myrtle bough, This morn around my harp you twin'd, Because it fashion'd mournfully Its murmurs in the wind.

And now a Tale of Love and Woe, A woeful Tale of Love I sing: Hark, gentle Maidens, hark! it sighs And trembles on the string.

But most, my own dear Genevieve! It sighs and trembles most for thee! O come and hear what cruel wrongs Befel the dark Ladie.

The fifth stanza of the _Introduction_ finds its place as the fifth stanza of the text, and the sixth stanza as the first.

[3] All are] Are all S. L. (For _Are all_ r. _All are_. _Errata_, p. [xi]).

[5-6]

O ever in my waking dreams I dwell upon

M. P., MS. erased.

[7] lay] sate M. P.

[15] lay] harp M. P., MS., L. B.

[21] soft] sad M. P., MS. erased.

[22] sang] sung E. M.

[23] suited] fitted M. P., MS., L. B.

[24] That ruin] The Ruin M. P., MS., L. B.: The ruins E. M.

[29] that] who M. P.

[31] that] how M. P.

[34] The low, the deep MS., L. B.

[35] In which I told E. M.

[42] That] Which MS., L. B. that] this M. P., MS., L. B.

[43] And how he roam'd M. P. that] how MS. erased.

[Between 44-5]

And how he cross'd the Woodman's paths [path E. M.] Tho' briars and swampy mosses beat, How boughs rebounding scourg'd his limbs, And low stubs gor'd his feet.

M. P.

[45] That] How M. P., MS. erased.

[51] that] how M. P., MS. erased.

[53] that] how M. P., MS. erased.

[54] murderous] lawless M. P.

[59] ever] meekly M. P. For still she MS. erased.

[61] that] how M. P., MS. erased.

[78] virgin-] maiden-M. P., MS., L. B.

[79] murmur] murmurs M. P.

[Between 80-1]

{ heave I saw her bosom { [*rise*] and swell, Heave and swell with inward sighs-- I could not choose but love to see Her gentle bosom rise.

M. P., MS. erased.

[81] Her wet cheek glowed M. P., MS. erased.

[84] fled] flew M. P.

[94] virgin] maiden MS. erased.

[95] so] thus M. P.

[After 96]

And now once more a tale of woe, A woeful tale of love I sing; For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs, And trembles on the string.

When last I sang [sung E. M.] the cruel scorn That craz'd this bold and lonely [lovely E. M.] knight, And how he roam'd the mountain woods, Nor rested day or night;

I promis'd thee a sister tale Of Man's perfidious Cruelty; Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong Befel the Dark Ladie.

_End of the Introduction_ M. P.

ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE[335:1]

ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER 'PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD'

And hail the Chapel! hail the Platform wild! Where Tell directed the avenging dart, With well-strung arm, that first preservst his child, Then aim'd the arrow at the tyrant's heart.

Splendour's fondly-fostered child! And did you hail the platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! 5 Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran, From all that teaches brotherhood to Man Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear! Enchanting music lulled your infant ear, 10 Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart: Emblazonments and old ancestral crests, With many a bright obtrusive form of art, Detained your eye from Nature: stately vests, That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, 15 Rich viands, and the pleasurable wine, Were yours unearned by toil; nor could you see The unenjoying toiler's misery. And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the Chapel and the Platform wild, 20 Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

There crowd your finely-fibred frame 25 All living faculties of bliss; And Genius to your cradle came, His forehead wreathed with lambent flame, And bending low, with godlike kiss Breath'd in a more celestial life; 30 But boasts not many a fair compeer A heart as sensitive to joy and fear? And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife, Some few, to nobler being wrought, Corrivals in the nobler gift of thought. 35 Yet these delight to celebrate Laurelled War and plumy State; Or in verse and music dress Tales of rustic happiness-- Pernicious tales! insidious strains! 40 That steel the rich man's breast, And mock the lot unblest, The sordid vices and the abject pains, Which evermore must be The doom of ignorance and penury! 45 But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the Chapel and the Platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! 50 Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

You were a Mother! That most holy name, Which Heaven and Nature bless, I may not vilely prostitute to those Whose infants owe them less 55 Than the poor caterpillar owes Its gaudy parent fly. You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read, 60 Which you yourself created. Oh! delight! A second time to be a mother, Without the mother's bitter groans: Another thought, and yet another, By touch, or taste, by looks or tones, 65 O'er the growing sense to roll, The mother of your infant's soul! The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides[337:1] His chariot-planet round the goal of day, All trembling gazes on the eye of God 70 A moment turned his awful face away; And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet New influences in your being rose, Blest intuitions and communions fleet With living Nature, in her joys and woes! 75 Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see The shrine of social Liberty! O beautiful! O Nature's child! 'Twas thence you hailed the Platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell 80 Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Thence learn'd you that heroic measure.

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[335:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, December 24, 1799 (in four numbered stanzas): included in the _Annual Anthology_, 1800, in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The Duchess's poem entitled 'Passage over Mount Gothard' was published in the _Morning Chronicle_ on Dec. 20 and in the _Morning Post_, Dec. 21, 1799.

[337:1] In a copy of the _Annual Anthology_ Coleridge drew his pen through ll. 68-77, but the lines appeared in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, and in all later editions (see _P. W._, 1898, p. 624).

LINENOTES:

_Ode to Georgiana_, &c.--Motto 4

Then wing'd the arrow to

M. P., An. Anth.

Sub-title] On the 24{th} stanza in her Poem, entitled 'The Passage of the Mountain of St. Gothard.' M. P.

[1-2]

Lady, Splendor's foster'd child And did _you_

M. P.

[2] you] _you_ An. Anth.

[7] your years their courses M. P.

[9] Ah! far remov'd from want and hope and fear M. P.

[11] Obeisant praises M. P.

[14] stately] gorgeous M. P.

[15] om. An. Anth.

[31 foll.]

But many of your many fair compeers [But many of thy many fair compeers M. P.] Have frames as sensible of joys and fears; And some might wage an equal strife

An. Anth.

[34-5]

(Some few perchance to nobler being wrought), Corrivals in the plastic powers of thought.

M. P.

[35] Corrivals] co-rivals An. Anth., S. L. 1828.

[36] these] _these_ S. L. 1828, 1829.

[40] insidious] insulting M. P.

[45] penury] poverty M. P., An. Anth.

[47] Hail'd the low Chapel M. P., An. Anth.

[51] Whence] Where An. Anth., S. L. 1828, 1829.

[56] caterpillar] Reptile M. P., An. Anth.

[60] each] and M. P.

[72] you] thee M. P.

[73] your] thy M. P.

[76] O Lady thence ye joy'd to see M. P.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL[338:1]

I

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, 5 A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung.

II

They told her how a glorious light, Streaming from a heavenly throng, Around them shone, suspending night! While sweeter than a mother's song, 10 Blest Angels heralded the Saviour's birth, Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III

She listened to the tale divine, And closer still the Babe she pressed; And while she cried, the Babe is mine! 15 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! 20 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?

V

And is not War a youthful king, 25 A stately Hero clad in mail? 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 agéd 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. Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn: Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.'

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[338:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, December 25, 1799: included in the _Annual Anthology_, 1800, in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834.

LINENOTES:

_A Christmas Carol_--8: a] an M. P., An. Anth.

[10] While] And M. P.

[35] War is a ruffian Thief, with gore defil'd M. P., An. Anth.

[37] fiend] Thief M. P., An. Anth.

[41] rends] tears M. P.

[After 49]

Strange prophecy! Could half the screams Of half the men that since have died To realise War's kingly dreams, Have risen at once in one vast tide, The choral music of Heav'n's multitude Had been o'erpower'd, and lost amid the uproar rude! ESTEESI.

M. P., An. Anth.

TALLEYRAND TO LORD GRENVILLE[340:1]

A METRICAL EPISTLE

[As printed in _Morning Post_ for January 10, 1800.]

To the Editor of _The Morning Post_.

MR. EDITOR,--An unmetrical letter from Talleyrand to Lord Grenville has already appeared, and from an authority too high to be questioned: otherwise I could adduce some arguments for the exclusive authenticity of the following metrical epistle. The very epithet which the wise ancients used, '_aurea carmina_,' might have been supposed likely to have determined the choice of the French minister in favour of verse; and the rather when we recollect that this phrase of '_golden verses_' is applied emphatically to the works of that philosopher who imposed _silence_ on all with whom he had to deal. Besides is it not somewhat improbable that Talleyrand should have preferred prose to rhyme, when the latter alone _has got the chink_? Is it not likewise curious that in our official answer no notice whatever is taken of the Chief Consul, Bonaparte, as if there had been no such person [man _Essays, &c., 1850_] existing; notwithstanding that his existence is pretty generally admitted, nay that some have been so rash as to believe that he has created as great a sensation in the world as Lord Grenville, or even the Duke of Portland? But the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Talleyrand, is acknowledged, which, in our opinion, could not have happened had he written only that insignificant prose-letter, which seems to precede Bonaparte's, as in old romances a dwarf always ran before to proclaim the advent or arrival of knight or giant. That Talleyrand's character and practices more resemble those of some _regular_ Governments than Bonaparte's I admit; but this of itself does not appear a satisfactory explanation. However, let the letter speak for itself. The second line is supererogative in syllables, whether from the oscitancy of the transcriber, or from the trepidation which might have overpowered the modest Frenchman, on finding himself in the act of writing to so _great_ a man, I shall not dare to determine. A few Notes are added by Your servant, GNOME.

_P.S._--As mottoes are now fashionable, especially if taken from out of the way books, you may prefix, if you please, the following lines from Sidonius Apollinaris:

'Saxa, et robora, corneasque fibras Mollit dulciloquâ canorus arte!'

TALLEYRAND, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AT PARIS, TO LORD GRENVILLE, SECRETARY OF STATE IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AUDITOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, A LORD OF TRADE, AN ELDER BROTHER OF TRINITY HOUSE, ETC.

My Lord! though your Lordship repel deviation From forms long establish'd, yet with high consideration, I plead for the honour to hope that no blame Will attach, should this letter _begin_ with my name. I dar'd not presume on your Lordship to bounce, 5 But thought it more _exquisite_ first to _announce_!

My Lord! I've the honour to be Talleyrand, And the letter's from _me_! you'll not draw back your hand Nor yet take it up by the rim in dismay, As boys pick up ha'pence on April fool-day. 10 I'm no Jacobin foul, or red-hot Cordelier That your Lordship's _un_gauntleted fingers need fear An infection or burn! Believe me, 'tis true, With a scorn like another I look down on the crew That bawl and hold up to the mob's detestation 15 The most delicate wish for a _silent persuasion_. _A form long-establish'd_ these Terrorists call Bribes, perjury, theft, and the devil and all! And yet spite of all that the Moralist[341:1] prates, 'Tis the keystone and cement of _civilized States_. 20 Those American _Reps_![342:1] And i' faith, they were serious! It shock'd us at Paris, like something mysterious, That men who've a Congress--But no more of 't! I'm proud To have stood so distinct from the Jacobin crowd.

My Lord! though the vulgar in wonder be lost at 25 My transfigurations, and name me _Apostate_, Such a meaningless nickname, which never incens'd me, _Cannot_ prejudice you or your Cousin against me: I'm Ex-bishop. What then? Burke himself would agree That I left not the Church--'twas the Church that left me. My titles prelatic I lov'd and retain'd, 31 As long as what _I_ meant by Prelate remain'd: And tho' Mitres no longer will _pass_ in our mart, I'm _episcopal_ still to the core of my heart. No time from my name this my motto shall sever: 35 'Twill be _Non sine pulvere palma_[342:2] for ever!

Your goodness, my Lord, I conceive as excessive, Or I dar'd not present you a scroll so digressive; And in truth with my pen thro' and thro' I should strike it; But I hear that your Lordship's own style is just like it. 40 Dear my Lord, we are right: for what charms can be shew'd In a thing that goes straight like an old Roman road? The tortoise crawls straight, the hare doubles about; And the true line of beauty still winds in and out. It argues, my Lord! of fine thoughts such a brood in us 45 To split and divide into heads multitudinous, While charms that surprise (it can ne'er be denied us) Sprout forth from each head, like the ears from King Midas. Were a genius of rank, like a commonplace dunce, Compell'd to drive on to the main point at once, 50 What a plentiful vintage of initiations[342:3] Would Noble Lords lose in your Lordship's orations. My fancy transports me! As mute as a mouse, And as fleet as a pigeon, I'm borne to the house Where all those who _are_ Lords, from father to son, 55 Discuss the affairs of all those who are none. I behold you, my Lord! of your feelings quite full, 'Fore the woolsack arise, like a sack full of wool! You rise on each Anti-Grenvillian Member, Short, thick and blustrous, like a day in November![343:1] 60 Short in person, I mean: for the length of your speeches Fame herself, that most famous reporter, ne'er reaches. Lo! Patience beholds you contemn her brief reign, And Time, that all-panting toil'd after in vain, (Like the Beldam who raced for a smock with her grand-child) 65 Drops and cries: 'Were such lungs e'er assign'd to a man-child?' Your strokes at her vitals pale Truth has confess'd, And Zeal unresisted entempests your breast![343:2] Though some noble Lords may be wishing to sup, Your merit self-conscious, my Lord, _keeps you up_, 70 Unextinguish'd and swoln, as a balloon of paper Keeps aloft by the smoke of its own farthing taper. Ye SIXTEENS[343:3] of Scotland, your snuffs ye must trim; Your Geminies, fix'd stars of England! grow dim, And but for _a form long-establish'd_, no doubt 75 Twinkling faster and faster, ye all would _go out_.

_Apropos_, my dear Lord! a ridiculous blunder Of some of our Journalists caused us some wonder: It was said that in aspect malignant and sinister In the Isle of Great Britain a great Foreign Minister 80 Turn'd as pale as a journeyman miller's frock coat is On observing a star that appear'd in BOOTES! When the whole truth was this (O those ignorant brutes!) Your Lordship had made his appearance in boots. You, my Lord, with your star, sat in boots, and the Spanish Ambassador thereupon thought fit to vanish. 86

But perhaps, dear my Lord, among other worse crimes, The whole was no more than a lie of _The Times_. It is monstrous, my Lord! in a civilis'd state That such Newspaper rogues should have license to prate. 90 Indeed printing in general--but for the taxes, Is in theory false and pernicious in praxis! You and I, and your Cousin, and Abbé Sieyes, And all the great Statesmen that live in these days, Are agreed that no nation secure is from vi'lence 95 Unless all who must think are maintain'd all in silence. This printing, my Lord--but 'tis useless to mention What we both of us think--'twas a curséd invention, And Germany might have been honestly prouder Had she left it alone, and found out only powder. 100 My Lord! when I think of our labours and cares Who rule the Department of foreign affairs, And how with their libels these journalists bore us, Though Rage I acknowledge than Scorn less decorous; Yet their presses and types I could shiver in splinters, 105 Those Printers' black Devils! those Devils of Printers! In case of a peace--but perhaps it were better To proceed to the absolute point of my letter: For the deep wounds of France, Bonaparte, my master, Has found out a new sort of _basilicon_ plaister. 110 But your time, my dear Lord! is your nation's best treasure, I've intruded already too long on your leisure; If so, I entreat you with penitent sorrow To pause, and resume the remainder to-morrow.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[340:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, January 10, 1800: reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, 1850, i. 233-7. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, 1880.

[341:1] This sarcasm on the writings of moralists is, in general, extremely just; but had Talleyrand continued long enough in England, he might have found an honourable exception in the second volume of Dr. Paley's _Moral Philosophy_; in which both Secret Influence, and all the other _Established Forms_, are justified and placed in their true light.

[342:1] A fashionable abbreviation in the higher circles for Republicans. Thus _Mob_ was originally the Mobility.

[342:2] _Palma non sine pulvere_ In plain English, an itching palm, not without the yellow dust.

[342:3] The word _Initiations_ is borrowed from the new Constitution, and can only mean, in plain English, introductory matter. If the manuscript would bear us out, we should propose to read the line thus: 'What a plentiful _Verbage_, what Initiations!' inasmuch as Vintage must necessarily refer to wine, really or figuratively; and we cannot guess what species Lord Grenville's eloquence may be supposed to resemble, unless, indeed, it be _Cowslip_ wine. A slashing critic to whom we read the manuscript, proposed to read, 'What a plenty of Flowers--what initiations!' and supposes it may allude indiscriminately to Poppy Flowers, or Flour of Brimstone. The most modest emendation, perhaps, would be this--for Vintage read Ventage.

[343:1] We cannot sufficiently admire the accuracy of this simile. For as Lord Grenville, though short, is certainly not the shortest man in the House, even so is it with the days in November.

[343:2] An evident plagiarism of the Ex-Bishop's from Dr. Johnson:--

'Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain: His pow'rful strokes presiding Truth confess'd, And unresisting Passion storm'd the breast.'

[343:3] This line and the following are involved in an almost Lycophrontic tenebricosity. On repeating them, however, to an _Illuminant_, whose confidence I possess, he informed me (and he ought to know, for he is a Tallow-chandler by trade) that certain candles go by the name of _sixteens_. This explains the whole, the Scotch Peers are destined to burn out--and so are candles! The English are perpetual, and are therefore styled Fixed Stars! The word _Geminies_ is, we confess, still obscure to us; though we venture to suggest that it may perhaps be a metaphor (daringly sublime) for the two eyes which noble Lords do in general possess. It is certainly used by the poet Fletcher in this sense, in the 31st stanza of his _Purple Island_:--

'What! shall I then need seek a patron out, Or beg a favour from a mistress' eyes, To fence my song against the vulgar rout, And shine upon me with her _geminies_?'

LINENOTES:

[14] With a scorn, like your own Essay, &c., 1850.

APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA[345:1]

The poet in his lone yet genial hour Gives to his eyes a magnifying power: Or rather he emancipates his eyes From the black shapeless accidents of size-- In unctuous cones of kindling coal, 5 Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim hole, His gifted ken can see Phantoms of sublimity.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[345:1] Included in the text of _The Historie and Gests of Maxilian_: first published in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, January, 1822, vol. xi, p. 12. The lines were taken from a MS. note-book, dated August 28, 1800. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877-80.

LINENOTES:

Title] The Poet's ken P. W., 1885: Apologia, &c. 1907.

[1-4]

The poet's eye in his tipsy hour Hath a magnifying power Or rather emancipates his eyes Of the accidents of size

MS.

[5] cones] cone MS.

[6] Or smoke from his pipe's bole MS.

[7] His eye can see MS.

THE KEEPSAKE[345:2]

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, 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 10 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![346:1] 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 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-- 30 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,) 35 Nor yet the enhancement 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!

? 1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[345:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, September 17, 1802 (signed, ΕΣΤΗΣΕ): included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834. 'It had been composed two years before' (1802), _Note_, 1893, p. 624. Mr. Campbell may have seen a dated MS. Internal evidence would point to the autumn of 1802, when it was published in the _Morning Post_.

[346:1] One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the _Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris_, a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany (_Vergissmeinnicht_) and, we believe, in Denmark and Sweden.

LINENOTES:

[1] om. M. P.

[2] one] _one_ M. P.

[12] Line 13 precedes line 12 M. P.

[17] they] all M. P.

[19] joyous] joyless S. L. 1828.

[19-21]

joyous restlessness, Leaving the soft bed to her sister, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, Her fair face flushing in the purple dawn, Adown the meadow to the woodbine bower

M. P.

[Between 19-20] Leaving the soft bed to her sleeping sister S. L. 1817.

[25] scarcely moving] scarcely-flowing M. P.

[39] thenceforth] henceforth M. P.

A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY A VIEW[347:1]

OF SADDLEBACK IN CUMBERLAND

On stern Blencartha's perilous height The winds are tyrannous and strong; And flashing forth unsteady light From stern Blencartha's skiey height, As loud the torrents throng! 5 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!

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[347:1] First published in the _Amulet_, 1833, reprinted in _Friendship's Offering_, 1834: included in _Essays on His Own Times_, 1850, iii. 997. First collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877-80. These lines are inserted in one of the Malta Notebooks, and appear from the context to have been written at Olevano in 1806; but it is almost certain that they belong to the autumn of 1800 when Coleridge made a first acquaintance of 'Blencathara's rugged coves'. The first line is an adaptation of a line in a poem of Isaac Ritson, quoted in Hutchinson's _History of Cumberland_, a work which supplied him with some of the place-names in the Second Part of _Christabel_. Compare, too, a sentence in a letter to Sir H. Davy of Oct. 18, 1800:--'At the bottom of the Carrock Man . . . the wind became so fearful and _tyrannous_, etc.'

LINENOTES:

Title] A Versified Reflection F. O. 1834. In F. O. 1834, the lines were prefaced by a note:--[A Force is the provincial term in Cumberland for any narrow fall of water from the summit of a mountain precipice. The following stanza (it may not arrogate the name of poem) or versified reflection was composed while the author was gazing on three parallel _Forces_ on a moonlight night, at the foot of the Saddleback Fell. _S. T. C._] A ---- by the view of Saddleback, near Threlkeld in Cumberland, Essays, &c.

[1] Blencartha's] Blenkarthur's MS.: Blencarthur's F. O.: Blenharthur's Essays, &c., 1850.

[2] The wind is F. O.

[4] Blencartha's] Blenkarthur's MS.: Blencarthur's F. O.: Blenharthur's Essays, &c., 1850.

[8] oh!] ah! Essays, &c.

THE MAD MONK[347:2]

I heard a voice from Etna's side; Where o'er a cavern's mouth That fronted to the south A chesnut spread its umbrage wide: A hermit or a monk the man might be; 5 But him I could not see: And thus the music flow'd along, In melody most like to old Sicilian song:

'There was a time when earth, and sea, and skies, The bright green vale, and forest's dark recess, 10 With all things, lay before mine eyes In steady loveliness: But now I feel, on earth's uneasy scene, Such sorrows as will never cease;-- I only ask for peace; 15 If I must live to know that such a time has been!' A silence then ensued: Till from the cavern came A voice;--it was the same! And thus, in mournful tone, its dreary plaint renew'd: 20

'Last night, as o'er the sloping turf I trod, The smooth green turf, to me a vision gave Beneath mine eyes, the sod-- The roof of Rosa's grave!

My heart has need with dreams like these to strive, 25 For, when I woke, beneath mine eyes I found The plot of mossy ground, On which we oft have sat when Rosa was alive.-- Why must the rock, and margin of the flood, Why must the hills so many flow'rets bear, 30 Whose colours to a _murder'd_ maiden's blood, Such sad resemblance wear?--

'_I struck the wound_,--this hand of mine! For Oh, thou maid divine, I lov'd to agony! 35 The youth whom thou call'd'st thine Did never love like me!

'Is it the stormy clouds above That flash'd so red a gleam? On yonder downward trickling stream?-- 40 'Tis not the blood of her I love.-- The sun torments me from his western bed, Oh, let him cease for ever to diffuse Those crimson spectre hues! Oh, let me lie in peace, and be for ever dead!' 45

Here ceas'd the voice. In deep dismay, Down thro' the forest I pursu'd my way.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[347:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, October 13, 1800 (signed _Cassiani junior_): reprinted in _Wild Wreath_ (By M. E. Robinson), 1804, pp. 141-4. First collected in _P. W._, 1880 (ii, Supplement, p. 362).

LINENOTES:

Title] The Voice from the Side of Etna; or the Mad Monk: An Ode in Mrs. Ratcliff's Manner M. P.

[8] to] an M. P.

[14] sorrows] motions M. P.

[16] Then wherefore must I know M. P.

[23] I saw the sod M. P.

[26] woke] wak'd M. P.

[27] The] That M. P.

[28] On which so oft we sat M. P.

[31] a wounded woman's blood M. P.

[38-9]

It is the stormy clouds above That flash

M. P.

[After 47]

The twilight fays came forth in dewy shoon Ere I within the Cabin had withdrawn The goatherd's tent upon the open lawn-- That night there was no moon.

M. P.

INSCRIPTION FOR A SEAT BY THE ROAD SIDE HALF-WAY UP A STEEP HILL FACING SOUTH[349:1]

Thou who in youthful vigour rich, and light With youthful thoughts dost need no rest! O thou, To whom alike the valley and the hill Present a path of ease! Should e'er thine eye Glance on this sod, and this rude tablet, stop! 5 'Tis a rude spot, yet here, with thankful hearts, The foot-worn soldier and his family Have rested, wife and babe, and boy, perchance Some eight years old or less, and scantly fed, Garbed like his father, and already bound 10 To his poor father's trade. Or think of him Who, laden with his implements of toil, Returns at night to some far distant home, And having plodded on through rain and mire With limbs o'erlaboured, weak from feverish heat, 15 And chafed and fretted by December blasts, Here pauses, thankful he hath reached so far, And 'mid the sheltering warmth of these bleak trees Finds restoration--or reflect on those Who in the spring to meet the warmer sun 20 Crawl up this steep hill-side, that needlessly Bends double their weak frames, already bowed By age or malady, and when, at last, They gain this wished-for turf, this seat of sods, Repose--and, well-admonished, ponder here 25 On final rest. And if a serious thought Should come uncalled--how soon _thy_ motions high, Thy balmy spirits and thy fervid blood Must change to feeble, withered, cold and dry, Cherish the wholesome sadness! And where'er 30 The tide of Life impel thee, O be prompt To make thy present strength the staff of all, Their staff and resting-place--so shalt thou give To Youth the sweetest joy that Youth can know; And for thy future self thou shalt provide 35 Through every change of various life, a seat, Not built by hands, on which thy inner part, Imperishable, many a grievous hour, Or bleak or sultry may repose--yea, sleep The sleep of Death, and dream of blissful worlds, 40 Then wake in Heaven, and find the dream all true.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[349:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, October 21, 1800 (Coleridge's birthday) under the signature VENTIFRONS: reprinted in the _Lake Herald_, November 2, 1906. Now first included in Coleridge's _Poetical Works_. Venti Frons is dog-Latin for Windy Brow, a point of view immediately above the River Greta, on the lower slope of Latrigg. Here it was that on Wednesday, August 13, 1800, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy, and Coleridge 'made the Windy Brow seat'--a 'seat of sods'. In a letter to his printers, Biggs and Cottle, of October 10, 1800, Wordsworth says that 'a friend [the author of the _Ancient Mariner_, &c.] has also furnished me with a few of these Poems in the second volume [of the _Lyrical Ballads_] which are classed under the title of "Poems on the Naming of Places"' (_Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS._, Ed. W. Hale White, 1897, pp. 27, 28). No such poems or poem appeared, and it has been taken for granted that none were ever written. At any rate _one_ 'Inscription', now at last forthcoming, was something more than a 'story from the land of dreams'!

A STRANGER MINSTREL[350:1]

WRITTEN [TO MRS. ROBINSON,] A FEW WEEKS BEFORE HER DEATH

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 5 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-- In that sweet mood of sad and humorous thought A form within me rose, within me wrought 10 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 e'en 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 O ancient Skiddaw, by this tear, I 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.'

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,[352:1] 55 Beside the threshold scourged with waves, Now where the maniac wildly raves, "_Pale moon, thou spectre of the sky!_"[352:2] No wind that hurries o'er my height Can travel with so swift a flight. 60 I too, methinks, might merit The presence of her spirit! To me too might belong The honour of her song and witching melody, 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!'

_November_, 1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[350:1] First published in _Memoirs of the late Mrs. Robinson_, Written by herself. With some Posthumous Pieces, 1801, iv. 141: reprinted in _Poetical Works of the late Mrs. Mary Robinson_, 1806, i. xlviii, li. First collected in _P. W._, 1877-80.

[352:1] 'The Haunted Beach,' by Mrs. Robinson, was included in the _Annual Anthology_ for 1800.

[352:2] From 'Jasper', a ballad by Mrs. Robinson, included in the _Annual Anthology_ for 1800.

LINENOTES:

[1] Skiddaw's] Skiddaw 1801.

[8] wrinkles] wrinkle 1801.

[13] chasms so deep 1801.

[17] sunny] sunshine 1801.

[32] in] by 1801.

[38] on] now 1801.

[57] Now to the maniac while he raves 1801.

ALCAEUS TO SAPPHO[353:1]

How sweet, when crimson colours dart Across a breast of snow, To see that you are in the heart That beats and throbs below.

All Heaven is in a maiden's blush, 5 In which the soul doth speak, That it was you who sent the flush Into the maiden's cheek.

Large steadfast eyes! eyes gently rolled In shades of changing blue, 10 How sweet are they, if they behold No dearer sight than you.

And, can a lip more richly glow, Or be more fair than this? The world will surely answer, No! 15 I, SAPPHO, answer, Yes!

Then grant one smile, tho' it should mean A thing of doubtful birth; That I may say these eyes have seen The fairest face on earth! 20

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[353:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, November 24, 1800: reprinted in _Letters from the Lake Poets_, 1889, p. 16. It is probable that these lines, sent in a letter to Daniel Stuart (Editor of the _Morning Post_), dated October 7, 1800, were addressed to Mrs. Robinson, who was a frequent contributor of verses signed 'Sappho'. A sequence of Sonnets entitled 'Sappho to Phaon' is included in the collected edition of her _Poems_, 1806, iii. 63-107.

THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMBSTONE[353:2]

The Devil believes that the Lord will come, Stealing a march without beat of drum, About the same time that he came last, On an Old Christmas-day in a snowy blast: Till he bids the trump sound neither body nor soul stirs, 5 For the dead men's heads have slipt under their bolsters.

Oh! ho! brother Bard, in our churchyard, Both beds and bolsters are soft and green; Save one alone, and that's of stone, And under it lies a Counsellor keen. 10 'Twould be a square tomb, if it were not too long; And 'tis fenced round with irons sharp, spear-like, and strong.

This fellow from Aberdeen hither did skip With a waxy face and a blubber lip, And a black tooth in front, to show in part 15 What was the colour of his whole heart. This Counsellor sweet, This Scotchman complete, (The Devil scotch him for a snake!) I trust he lies in his grave awake. 20 On the sixth of January, When all around is white with snow, As a Cheshire yeoman's dairy, Brother Bard, ho! ho! believe it, or no, On that stone tomb to you I'll show 25 Two round spaces void of snow. I swear by our Knight, and his forefathers' souls, That in size and shape they are just like the holes In the house of privity Of that ancient family. 30 On those two places void of snow, There have sat in the night for an hour or so, Before sunrise, and after cock-crow, He kicking his heels, she cursing her corns, All to the tune of the wind in their horns, 35 The Devil and his Grannam, With a snow-blast to fan 'em; Expecting and hoping the trumpet to blow, For they are cock-sure of the fellow below!

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[353:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, December 4, 1800: reprinted in _Fraser's Magazine_ both in February and in May, 1833, and in Payne Collier's _Old Man's Diary_, i. 35. First collected in _P. W._, 1834, with the following Prefatory Note:--'See the apology for the "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter", in first volume. This is the first time the author ever published these lines. He would have been glad, had they perished; but they have now been printed repeatedly in magazines, and he is told that the verses will not perish. Here, therefore, they are owned, with a hope that they will be taken--as assuredly they were composed--in mere sport.' These lines, which were directed against Sir James Mackintosh, were included in a letter to [Sir] Humphry Davy, dated October 9, 1800. There is a MS. version in the British Museum in the handwriting of R. Heber, presented by him to J. Mitford. Mr. Campbell questions the accuracy of Coleridge's statement with regard to his never having published the poem on his own account. But it is possible that Davy may have sent the lines to the Press without Coleridge's authority. Daniel Stuart, the Editor of the _Morning Post_, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for May, 1838, says that 'Coleridge sent one [poem] attacking Mackintosh, too obviously for me not to understand it, and of course it was not published. Mackintosh had had one of his front teeth broken and the stump was black'. Stuart remembered that the lines attacking his brother-in-law had been suppressed, but forgot that he had inserted the rest of the poem. The poem as printed in 1893, despite the heading, does not follow the text of the _Morning Post_.

LINENOTES:

Title] Skeltoniad (To be read in the Recitative Lilt) MS. Letter: The Two Round Spaces; A Skeltoniad M. P.

[1] The Devil believes the Fraser (1).

[3] time] hour MS. Letter, M. P., Fraser (1), Collier. At the same hour MS. H.

[4] an Old] a cold Fraser (1): On Old MS. H.

[5] neither] nor MS. Letter, M. P.: Till he bids the trump blow nor Fraser (2): Till the trump then shall sound no Collier: Until that time not a body or MS. H.

[6] their] the Collier.

[7] Oh! ho!] Ho! Ho! M. P., MS. H.: Oho Fraser (1). Brother Collier. our] _our_ MS. Letter.

[8] Both bed and bolster Fraser (2). The graves and bolsters MS. H.

[9] Except one alone MS. H.

[10] under] in Fraser (2).

[11] This tomb would be square M. P.: 'Twould be a square stone if it were not so long Fraser (1). It would be square MS. H. tomb] grave Collier.

[12] And 'tis railed round with iron tall M. P.: And 'tis edg'd round with iron Fraser (1): 'Tis fenc'd round with irons tall Fraser (2): And 'tis fenc'd round with iron tall Collier. 'tis] its MS. H.

[13-20] om. M. P.

[13] From Aberdeen hither this fellow MS. Letter. hither] here Fraser (2).

[14] blubber] blabber MS. Letter, Fraser (1), (2), MS. H.

[15] in front] before MS. H.

[17] Counsellor] lawyer so MS. H.

[19] The Devil] Apollyon MS. Letter. scotch] _scotch_ Collier.

[20] trust] hope Collier.] (A humane wish) Note in MS. Letter.

[21] sixth] seventh M. P., Collier: fifth MS. H.

[22] When all is white both high and low MS. Letter, M. P., Fraser (2), Collier, MS. H.: When the ground All around Is as white as snow Fraser (1).

[23] As] Or Fraser (1): Like MS. H.

[24] ho! ho!] oho! Fraser (1). it] me M. P.

[25] stone] tall MS. Letter, M. P., Fraser (2), Collier. On the stone to you MS. H.

[25-6] om. Fraser (1).

[Between 25-6] After sunset and before cockcrow M. P. Before sunrise and after cockcrow Fraser (2).

[26] void] clear M. P.

[27] I swear by the might Of the darkness of night, I swear by the sleep of our forefathers' souls Fraser (1). souls] soul MS. H.

[26-8] om. Fraser (2).

[28] Both in shape and size MS. Letter: Both in shape and in size M. P.: That in shape and size they resembled Fraser (1), Collier: That in shape and size they are just like the Hole MS. H.

[29] In the large house M. P.

[29-30]

In mansions not seen by the general eye Of that right ancient family.

Fraser (1).

[31] two] round MS. Letter. places] spaces Collier, MS. H. void] clear M. P.

[32] Have sat Fraser (1), (2): There have sat for an hour MS. H.

[33] om. MS. Letter, M. P.

[36] Devil] De'il M. P.

[37] With the snow-drift M. P.: With a snow-blast to fan MS. Letter.

[38] Expecting and wishing the trumpet would blow Collier.

THE SNOW-DROP[356:1]

1

Fear 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 5 The potent sorceries of song, To thee, meek Flowret! gentler gales And cloudless skies belong.

2

Her eye with tearful meanings fraught, She gaz'd till all the body mov'd 10 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.[357:1]

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 perfuméd thee, That careless Love shall deem thee oft A blossom from his Myrtle tree. Then, laughing at the fair deceit, Shall race with some Etesian wind 30 To seek the woven arboret Where Laura lies 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 Phœnix 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.

7*

The margin dear to moonlight elves Where Zephyr-trembling Lilies grow, 50 And bend to kiss their softer selves That tremble in the stream below:-- There nightly borne does Laura lie A magic Slumber heaves her breast: Her arm, white wanderer of the Harp, 55 Beneath her cheek is prest.

8*

The Harp uphung by golden chains Of that low wind which whispers round, With coy reproachfulness complains, In snatches of reluctant sound: 60 The music hovers half-perceiv'd, And only moulds the slumberer's dreams; Remember'd LOVES relume her cheek With Youth's returning gleams.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[356:1] First published in _P. W._, 1893. The two last stanzas[*] were omitted as 'too imperfect to print'. The MS. bears the following heading: LINES WRITTEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE PERUSAL OF MRS. ROBINSON'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 [_sic_] immediately on the perusal of her beautiful poem 'The Snow Drop'.--ZAGRI.

The 'Lines' were never sent or never appeared in the _Morning Post_.

To the Snow Drop.

1

Fear thou no more the wintry storm, Sweet Flowret, blest by LAURA'S song: She gaz'd upon thy slender form, The mild Enchantress gaz'd so long; That trembling as she saw thee droop, Poor Trembler! o'er thy snowy bed, With imitation's sympathy She too inclin'd her head.

2

She droop'd her head, she stretch'd her arm, She whisper'd low her witching rhymes: A gentle Sylphid heard the charm, And bore thee to Pierian climes! Fear thou no more the sparkling Frost, The Tempest's Howl, the Fog-damp's gloom: For thus mid laurels evergreen Immortal thou shalt bloom!

3 [Stanza 2]

With eager [*feelings*] unreprov'd With [*steady eye and brooding thought*] Her eye with tearful meanings fraught, [*My Fancy saw her gaze at thee*] She gaz'd till all the body mov'd [*Till all the moving body caught,*] Interpreting, the Spirit's sympathy-- The Spirit's eager sympathy Now trembled with thy trembling stem, And while thou drooped'st o'er thy bed, With sweet unconscious sympathy Inclin'd { her [*portraiture*] { the drooping head. First draft of Stanzas 1-3. _MS. S. T. C._

[357:1] The second stanza of Mrs. Robinson's ('Perdita') 'Ode to the Snow-drop' runs thus:

All weak and wan, with head inclin'd, Its parent-breast the drifted snow, It trembles, while the ruthless wind Bends its slim form; the tempest lowers, Its em'rald eye drops crystal show'rs On its cold bed below.

_The Poetical Works of the late Mrs. Mary Robinson_, 1806, i. 123.

LINENOTES:

[36] insuperable] unvoyageable MS. erased.

[53-4]

Along that marge does Laura lie Full oft where Slumber heaves her breast

MS. erased.

[64] With Beauty's morning gleams MS. erased.

ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE[359:1]

AFTER LONG ABSENCE, UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT TO BATHE

God be with thee, gladsome Ocean! How gladly greet I thee once more! Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion, And men rejoicing on thy shore.

Dissuading spake the mild Physician, 5 'Those briny waves for thee are Death!' But my soul fulfilled her mission, And lo! I breathe untroubled breath!

Fashion's pining sons and daughters, That seek the crowd they seem to fly, 10 Trembling they approach thy waters; And what cares Nature, if they die?

Me a thousand hopes and pleasures A thousand recollections bland, Thoughts sublime, and stately measures, 15 Revisit on thy echoing strand:

Dreams (the Soul herself forsaking), Tearful raptures, boyish mirth; Silent adorations, making A blessed shadow of this Earth! 20

O ye hopes, that stir within me, Health comes with you from above! God is with me, God is in me! I cannot die, if Life be Love.

_August_, 1801.

FOOTNOTES:

[359:1] First published in the _Morning Post_ (signed Εστησε), September 15, 1801: included in the _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The lines were sent in an unpublished letter to Southey dated August 15, 1801. An autograph MS. is in the possession of Miss Arnold of Foxhow.

LINENOTES:

Title] A flowering weed on the sweet Hill of Poesy MS. Letter, 1801: Ode After Bathing in the Sea, Contrary to Medical Advice M. P. After bathing in the Sea at Scarborough in company with T. Hutchinson. Aug. 1801 MS. A.

[3] ceaseless] endless MS. Letter, M. P., MS. A.

[4] men] life MS. Letter, M. P., MS. A.

[5]

{ mild MS. A. Gravely said the { sage Physician MS. Letter:

Mildly said the mild Physician M. P.

[6] To bathe me on thy shores were death MS. Letter, M. P., MS. A.

[10] That love the city's gilded sty MS. Letter, M. P., MS. A.

[13] hopes] loves MS. Letter, MS. A.

[16] echoing] sounding MS. Letter, M. P., MS. A.

[18] Grief-like transports MS. Letter, M. P., MS. A.

ODE TO TRANQUILLITY[360:1]

Tranquillity! thou better name Than all the family of Fame! Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age To low intrigue, or factious rage; For 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 behind.

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.

The feeling heart, the searching soul, 25 To thee I dedicate the whole! And while within myself I trace The greatness of some future race, Aloof with hermit-eye I scan The present works of present man-- 30 A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!

1801.

FOOTNOTES:

[360:1] First published in the _Morning Post_ (with two additional stanzas at the commencement of the poem), December 4, 1801: reprinted in _The Friend_ (without heading or title), No. 1, Thursday, June 1, 1809: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The stanzas were not indented in the _Morning Post_ or _The Friend_.

LINENOTES:

Title] _Vix ea nostra voco_ M. P.

[Before 1]

What Statesmen scheme and Soldiers work, Whether the Pontiff or the Turk, Will e'er renew th' expiring lease Of Empire; whether War or Peace Will best play off the CONSUL'S game; What fancy-figures, and what name Half-thinking, sensual France, a natural Slave, On those ne'er-broken Chains, her self-forg'd Chains, will grave;

Disturb not me! Some tears I shed When bow'd the Swiss his noble head; Since then, with quiet heart have view'd Both distant Fights and Treaties crude, Whose heap'd up terms, which Fear compels, (Live Discord's green Combustibles, And future Fuel of the funeral Pyre) Now hide, and soon, alas! will feed the low-burnt Fire.

M. P.

[8] tempest] storm-wind M. P.

[15] To] And The Friend, 1809. slumbers] slumber M. P., The Friend.

[17] thy gentle hand] the power Divine M. P.

[21] Autumn] Summer M. P.

[23] The best the thoughts will lift M. P.

[26] thee] her M. P.

[28] some] a M. P.

[29] hermit] hermit's M. P.

TO ASRA[361:1]

Are there two things, of all which men possess, That are so like each other and so near, As mutual Love seems like to Happiness? Dear Asra, woman beyond utterance dear! This Love which ever welling at my heart, 5 Now in its living fount doth heave and fall, Now overflowing pours thro' every part Of all my frame, and fills and changes all, Like vernal waters springing up through snow, This Love that seeming great beyond the power 10 Of growth, yet seemeth ever more to grow, Could I transmute the whole to one rich Dower Of Happy Life, and give it all to Thee, Thy lot, methinks, were Heaven, thy age, Eternity!

1801.

FOOTNOTES:

[361:1] First published in 1893. The Sonnet to 'Asra' was prefixed to the MS. of _Christabel_ which Coleridge presented to Miss Sarah Hutchinson in 1804.

THE SECOND BIRTH[362:1]

There are two births, the one when Light First strikes the new-awaken'd sense-- The other when two souls unite, And we must count our life from then.

When you lov'd me, and I lov'd you, 5 Then both of us were born anew.

? 1801.

FOOTNOTES:

[362:1] First published from a MS. in 1893.

LOVE'S SANCTUARY[362:2]

This yearning heart (Love! witness what I say) Enshrines thy form as purely as it may, Round which, as to some spirit uttering bliss, My thoughts all stand ministrant night and day Like saintly Priests, that dare not think amiss.

? 1801.

FOOTNOTES:

[362:2] First published from a MS. in 1893.

DEJECTION: AN ODE[362:3]

[WRITTEN APRIL 4, 1802]

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms; And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. _Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence._

I

Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, 5 Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this Æolian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon winter-bright! And overspread with phantom light, 10 (With swimming phantom light o'erspread But rimmed and circled by a silver thread) I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling The coming-on of rain and squally blast. And oh! that even now the gust were swelling, 15 And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast! Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad, Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give, Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live! 20

II

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear-- O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, 25 To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd, All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky, And its peculiar tint of yellow green: And still I gaze--and with how blank an eye! 30 And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen: Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew 35 In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

III

My genial spirits fail; And what can these avail 40 To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win 45 The passion and the Life, whose fountains are within.

IV

O Lady! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live: Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud! And would we aught behold, of higher worth, 50 Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth-- 55 And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

V

O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be! 60 What, and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power. Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given, Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, 65 Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power, Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower A new Earth and new Heaven, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-- 70 Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud-- We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colours a suffusion from that light. 75

VI

There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, 80 And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth; But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, 85 My shaping spirit of Imagination. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can; And haply by abstruse research to steal From my own nature all the natural man-- 90 This was my sole resource, my only plan: Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

VII

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! 95 I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without, Bare crag, or mountain-tairn,[367:1] or blasted tree, 100 Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, 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, 105 Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song, The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among. Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about? 110 '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, 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.

VIII

'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep: 126 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 dwelling, 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.

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[362:3] First published in the _Morning Post_, October 4, 1802. Included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The Ode was sent in a letter to W. Sotheby, dated Keswick, July 19, 1802 (_Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 379-84). Two other MS. versions are preserved at Coleorton (_P. W. of W. Wordsworth_, ed. by William Knight, 1896, iii. App., pp. 400, 401). Lines 37, 38 were quoted by Coleridge in the _Historie and Gests of Maxilian_ (first published in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ for January, 1822, and reprinted in _Miscellanies, &c._, ed. by T. Ashe, 1885, p. 282): l. 38 by Wordsworth in his pamphlet on _The Convention of Cintra_, 1809, p. 135: lines 47-75, followed by lines 29-38, were quoted by Coleridge in _Essays on the Fine Arts_, No. III (which were first published in _Felix Farley's Bristol Journal_, Sept. 10, 1814, and reprinted by Cottle, _E. R._, 1837, ii. 201-40); and lines 21-28, _ibid._, in illustration of the following _Scholium_:--'We have sufficiently distinguished the beautiful from the agreeable, by the sure criterion, that when we find an object agreeable, the _sensation_ of pleasure always precedes the judgment, and is its determining cause. We _find_ it agreeable. But when we declare an object beautiful, the contemplation or intuition of its beauty precedes the _feeling_ of complacency, in order of nature at least: nay in great depression of spirits may even exist without sensibly producing it.' Lines 76-93 are quoted in a letter to Southey of July 29, 1802; lines 76-83 are quoted in a letter to Allsop, September 30, 1819, _Letters, &c._, 1836, i. 17. Lines 80, 81 are quoted in the _Biographia Literaria_, 1817, ii. 182, and lines 87-93 in a letter to Josiah Wedgwood, dated October 20, 1802: see Cottle's _Rem._, 1848, p. 44, and _Tom Wedgwood_ by R. B. Litchfield, 1903, pp. 114, 115.

[367:1] Tairn is a small lake, generally if not always applied to the lakes up in the mountains and which are the feeders of those in the valleys. This address to the Storm-wind [wind _S. L._], will not appear extravagant to those who have heard it at night and in a mountainous country.

LINENOTES:

Title] Dejection, &c., written April 4, 1802 M. P.

[2] grand] dear Letter to Sotheby, July 19, 1802.

[5] Than that which moulds yon clouds Letter, July 19, 1802. cloud] clouds M. P., S. L.

[6] moans] drones Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.

[12] by] with Letter, July 19, 1802.

[17-20] om. Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.

[21-8] Quoted as illustrative of a 'Scholium' in Felix Farley's Journal, 1814.

[22] stifled] stifling Letter, July 19, 1802.

[23] Which] That Letter, July 19, 1802, F. F.

[Between 24-7]

This, William, well thou knowst Is the sore evil which I dread the most And oft'nest suffer. In this heartless mood To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd That pipes within the larch-tree, not unseen, The larch, that pushes out in tassels green Its bundled leafits, woo'd to mild delights By all the tender sounds and gentle sights Of this sweet primrose-month and vainly woo'd! O dearest Poet in this heartless mood.

Letter, July 19, 1802.

[25] O Edmund M. P.: O William Coleorton MS.: O dearest Lady in this heartless mood F. F.

[26] by yon sweet throstle woo'd F. F.

[28] on] at F. F.

[29] peculiar] celestial F. F. yellow green] yellow-green Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.

[30] blank] black Cottle, 1837.

[35-6]

Yon crescent moon that seems as if it grew In its own starless, cloudless

F. F.

[Between 36-7] A boat becalm'd! thy own sweet sky-canoe Letter, July 19, 1802: A boat becalm'd! a lovely sky-canoe M. P.

[38] I _see_ not _feel_ M. P., Letter, July 19, 1802: _I see . . . they are_ F. F.

[45-6] Quoted in the _Gests of Maxilian_, Jan. 1822, and _Convention of Cintra_, 1809, p. 135.

[47] Lady] Wordsworth Letter, July 19, 1802: William Coleorton MS.: Edmund M. P., F. F. we _receive_ but what we _give_ Coleorton MS., F. F.

[48] our] _our_ M. P., F. F.

[51] allowed] _allow'd_ Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.

[57] potent] powerful Letter, July 19, 1802, F. F.

V] Stanza v is included in stanza iv in M. P.

[60] What] _What_ Letter, July 19, 1802.

[61] exist] subsist F. F.

[64] virtuous Lady] blameless Poet Letter, July 19, 1802: virtuous Edmund M. P. Joy, O belovéd, Joy that F. F.

[66] om. Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.: Life of our life the parent and the birth F. F. effluence] effulgence S. L. Corr. in _Errata_ p. [xii], and in text by S. T. C. (MS.).

[67] Lady] William Letter, July 19, 1802: Edmund M. P.: om. F. F.

[68] Which] That Letter, July 19, 1802.

[69] A new heaven and new earth F. F.

[71] om. Letter, July 19, 1802: _This_ is the strong voice, this the luminous cloud F. F.

[72] We, we ourselves Letter,July 19, 1802, M. P.: Our inmost selves F. F.

[73] flows] comes Letter, July 19, 1802. charms] glads F. F.

[74] the echoes] an echo Letter, July 19, 1802.

[After 75]

Calm steadfast Spirit, guided from above, O Wordsworth! friend of my devoutest choice, Great son of genius! full of light and love Thus, thus dost thou rejoice. To thee do all things live from pole to pole, Their life the eddying of thy living soul Brother and friend of my devoutest choice Thus may'st thou ever, evermore rejoice!

Letter, July 19, 1802.

[Before 76] Yes, dearest poet, yes Letter, July 19, 1802: Yes, dearest William! Yes! Coleorton MS. [Stanza v] Yes, dearest Edmund, yes M. P.

[76] The time when Letter, Sept. 30, 1819.

[77] This] The Letters, July 19, 1802, Sept. 30, 1819. I had a heart that dallied Letter to Southey, July 29, 1802.

[80] For] When Biog. Lit., Letter, Sept. 30, 1819. twining] climbing Letters, July 19, 29, 1802, Biog. Lit.

[80-1] Quoted in Biog. Lit., 1817, ii. 180.

[81] fruits] fruit Letter, July 19, 1802.

[82] But seared thoughts now Letter, Sept. 30, 1819.

[83] care] car'd Letter, July 19, 1802.

[86] In M. P. the words 'The sixth and seventh stanzas omitted' preceded three rows of four asterisks, lines 87-93 (quoted in Letter to Josiah Wedgwood, Oct. 20, 1802) being omitted. The Coleorton MS. ends with line 86.

[87] think] _think_ Letters, July 19, 29, 1802.

[91] was] is Letter, Sept. 30, 1819. only] wisest Letters, July 19, 29, 1802.

[92] Till] And Letters, July 19, 29, 1802.

[93] habit] temper Letters, July 19, 29, Oct. 20, 1802.

[94-5]

Nay [O M. P.] wherefore did I let it haunt my mind This dark distressful dream.

Letter, July 19, 1802.

[96] you] it Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.

[99] That lute sent out! O thou wild storm without Letter, July 19, 1802. O Wind M. P.

[104] who] that Letter, July 19, 1802.

[112] With many groans from men Letter, July 19, 1802: With many groans of men M. P.

[115] Again! but all that noise Letter, July 19, 1802.

[117] And it has other sounds less fearful and less loud Letter, July 19, 1802.

[120] Otway's self] thou thyself Letter, July 19, 1802: Edmund's self M. P.

[122] lonesome] heath Letter, July 19, 1802.

[124] bitter] utter Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.

[125] hear] _hear_ Letter, July 19, 1802, M. P.

VIII] om. Letter, July 19, 1802.

[126] but] and M. P.

[128] her] him M. P.

[130] her] his M. P.

[131] watched] _watch'd_ M. P.

[132] she] he M. P.

[After 133]

And sing his lofty song and teach me to rejoice! O Edmund, friend of my devoutest choice, O rais'd from anxious dread and busy care, By the immenseness of the good and fair Which thou see'st everywhere, 5 Joy lifts thy spirit, joy attunes thy voice, To thee do all things live from pole to pole, Their life the eddying of thy living soul! O simple Spirit, guided from above, O lofty Poet, full of life and love, 10 Brother and Friend of my devoutest choice, Thus may'st thou ever, evermore rejoice! ΕΣΤΗΣΕ.

M. P.

[_Note._--For lines 7, 8, 11, 12 of this variant, vide _ante_, variant of lines 75 foll.]

THE PICTURE[369:1]

OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION

Through weeds and thorns, and matted underwood I force my way; now climb, and now descend O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts;[369:2] while oft unseen, Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves, 5 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, 10 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 15 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 20 In tree or wild-flower.--Gentle lunatic! 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 contagion 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 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 50 Clothes as with net-work: here will I 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, 60 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.

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, 70 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, (For Fear is true-love's cruel nurse), he now 81 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, 85 But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see, 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, And each mis-shape 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 100 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, 110 The Naiad of the mirror! Not to thee, O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale: Gloomy and dark art thou--the crowded firs Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well: 115 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 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 water-fall, 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 pillowed on a sleeping dog-- 155 One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers, Unfilletted, 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-- 165 The pressure still remains! O blesséd 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 straightway 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 followed her: 185 And I may be her guide the long wood through.

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[369:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, September 6, 1802: included in the _Poetical Register_ for 1802 (1804), in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834.

It has been pointed out to me (by Mr. Arthur Turnbull) that the conception of the 'Resolution' that failed was suggested by Gessner's Idyll _Der feste Vorsatz_ ('The Fixed Resolution'):--_S. Gessner's Schriften_, i. 104-7; _Works_, 1802, ii. 219-21.

[369:2] _Vaccinium Myrtillus_, known by the different names of Whorts, Whortle-berries, Bilberries; and in the North of England, Blea-berries and Bloom-berries. [_Note by S. T. C._ 1802.]

LINENOTES:

[3] wild] blind M. P., P. R.

[17-26] om. M. P., P. R.

[17-25] Quoted in Letter to Cottle, May 27, 1814.

[18] love-lorn] woe-worn (heart-sick _erased_) Letter, 1814.

[20] _unconscious life_ Letter, 1814.

[22] _wholly cease_ to BE Letter, 1814.

[27] these] here M. P.

[28] For Love to dwell in; the low stumps would gore M. P., P. R.

[31-3]

till, like wounded bird Easily caught, the dusky Dryades With prickles sharper than his darts would mock. _His little Godship_

M. P., P. R.

[34-42, 44] om. M.P., P.R.

[51] here will couch M. P., P. R., S. L.

[55] brook] stream M. P., P. R., S. L. (for _stream_ read _brook_ _Errata_, S. L., p. [xi]).

[56-7]

yet bell-like sound Tinkling, or bees

M. P., P. R., S. L. 1828.

[58] The] This M. P., P. R., S. L.

[70] That swells its] Who swells his M. P., P. R., S. L.

[75] the] her downcast M. P., P. R. Her face, her form divine, her downcast look S. L.

[76-7]

Contemplative, her cheek upon her palm Supported; the white arm and elbow rest

M. P., P. R.

Contemplative! Ah see! her open palm Presses

S. L.

[79-80]

He, meanwhile, Who from

M. P., P. R., S. L.

[86] om. M. P., P. R., S. L.

[87] The] She M. P., P. R., S. L.

[91-100] These lines are quoted in the prefatory note to _Kubla Khan_.

[94] mis-shape] mis-shapes M. P.

[108] love-yearning by] love-gazing on M. P., P. R.

[114] Spire] Tow'r M. P., P. R., S. L.

[118] my] thy S. L. (for _thy_ read _my_ _Errata_, S. L., p. [xi]).

[121] and] to M. P., P. R.

[124] waves] waters P. R., S. L.

[126-32]

_How soon to re-unite!_ They meet, they join In deep embrace, and open to the sun Lie calm and smooth. Such the delicious hour

M. P., P. R., S. L.

[133] Of deep enjoyment, foll'wing Love's brief quarrels M. P., P. R. Lines 126-33 are supplied in the _Errata_, S. L. 1817 (p. xi).

[134] And] But _Errata_, S. L. (p. xi).

[135] I come out into light M. P., P. R.: I came out into light S. L. For _came_ read _come_ _Errata_, S. L. (p. xi).

[144] At] Beneath M. P., P. R., S. L. (for _Beneath_ read _At_ _Errata_, S. L., p. [xi]).

[152] this] _this_ M. P., P. R.: THIS S. L. 1828, 1829.

[162] those] these P. R.

[174] me] one M. P., P. R.

[177] straightway] away M. P., P. R.

[184] The] This M. P., P. R.

TO MATILDA BETHAM FROM A STRANGER[374:1]

['One of our most celebrated poets, who had, I was told, picked out and praised the little piece 'On a Cloud,' another had quoted (saying it would have been faultless if I had not used the word _Phoebus_ in it, which he thought inadmissible in modern poetry), sent me some verses inscribed "To Matilda Betham, from a Stranger"; and dated "Keswick, Sept. 9, 1802, S. T. C." I should have guessed whence they came, but dared not flatter myself so highly as satisfactorily to believe it, before I obtained the avowal of the lady who had transmitted them. _Excerpt from 'Autobiographical Sketch'._]

Matilda! I have heard a sweet tune played On a sweet instrument--thy Poesie-- Sent to my soul by Boughton's pleading voice, Where friendship's zealous wish inspirited, Deepened and filled the subtle tones of _taste_: 5 (So have I heard a Nightingale's fine notes Blend with the murmur of a hidden stream!) And now the fair, wild offspring of thy genius, Those wanderers whom thy fancy had sent forth To seek their fortune in this motley world, 10 Have found a little home within _my_ heart, And brought me, as the quit-rent of their lodging, Rose-buds, and fruit-blossoms, and pretty weeds, And timorous laurel leaflets half-disclosed, Engarlanded with gadding woodbine tendrils! 15 A coronal, which, with undoubting hand, I twine around the brows of patriot HOPE!

The Almighty, having first composed a Man, Set him to music, framing Woman for him, And fitted each to each, and made them one! 20 And 'tis my faith, that there's a natural bond Between the female mind and measured sounds, Nor do I know a sweeter Hope than this, That this sweet Hope, by judgment unreproved, That our own Britain, our dear mother Isle, 25 May boast one Maid, a poetess _indeed_, Great as th' impassioned Lesbian, in sweet song, And O! of holier mind, and happier fate.

Matilda! I dare twine _thy_ vernal wreath Around the brows of patriot Hope! But thou 30 Be wise! be bold! fulfil my auspices! Tho' sweet thy measures, stern must be thy thought, Patient thy study, watchful thy mild eye! Poetic feelings, like the stretching boughs Of mighty oaks, pay homage to the gales, 35 Toss in the strong winds, drive before the gust, Themselves one giddy storm of fluttering leaves; Yet, all the while self-limited, remain Equally near the fixed and solid trunk Of Truth and Nature in the howling storm, 40 As in the calm that stills the aspen grove. Be bold, meek Woman! but be wisely bold! Fly, ostrich-like, firm land beneath thy feet, Yet hurried onward by thy wings of fancy Swift as the whirlwind, singing in their quills. 45 Look round thee! look within thee! think and feel! What nobler meed, Matilda! canst thou win, Than tears of gladness in a BOUGHTON'S[376:1] eyes, And exultation even in strangers' hearts?

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[374:1] First printed in a 'privately printed autobiographical sketch of Miss Matilda Betham', preserved in a volume of tracts arranged and bound up by Southey, now in the Forster Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum: reprinted (by J. Dykes Campbell) in the _Athenaeum_ (March 15, 1890): and, again, in _A House of Letters_, by Ernest Betham [1905], pp. 76-7. First collected in 1893 (see Editor's _Note_, p. 630). Lines 33-41 are quoted in a Letter to Sotheby, September 10, 1802. See _Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 404.

[376:1] Catherine Rose, wife of Sir Charles William Rouse-Boughton, Bart. Sir Charles and Lady Boughton visited Greta Hall in September, 1802.

LINENOTES:

[7] murmur] murmurs 1893.

[16] coronal] coronel P. Sketch.

[34] stretching] flexuous MS. Letter, Sept. 10, 1802.

[35] pay] yield MS. Letter, 1802.

[39] solid] parent MS. Letter, 1802.

[40] Of truth in Nature--in the howling blast MS. Letter, 1802.

HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI[376:2]

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 [liveliest _Friend, 1809_] 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! O 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 I worshipped the Invisible alone.

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,[378:1] 30 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 filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

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 joy, 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[379:1] 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! 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, Oft from whose feet the avalanche,[380:1] unheard, 71 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. 85

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[376:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, Sept. 11, 1802: reprinted in the _Poetical Register_ for 1802 (1803), ii. 308, 311, and in _The Friend_, No. XI, Oct. 26, 1809: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. Three MSS. are extant: (1) _MS. A_, sent to Sir George Beaumont, Oct. 1803 (see _Coleorton Letters_, 1886, i. 26); (2) _MS. B_, the MS. of the version as printed in _The Friend_, Oct. 26, 1809 (now in the Forster Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum); (3) _MS. C_, presented to Mrs. Brabant in 1815 (now in the British Museum). The _Hymn before Sunrise, &c._, 'Hymn in the manner of the Psalms,' is an expansion, in part, of a translation of Friederika Brun's 'Ode to Chamouny', addressed to Klopstock, which numbers some twenty lines. The German original (see the Appendices of this edition) was first appended to Coleridge's _Poetical Works_ in 1844 (p. 372). A translation was given in a footnote, _P. W._ (ed. by T. Ashe), 1885, ii. 86, 87. In the _Morning Post_ and _Poetical Register_ the following explanatory note preceded the poem:--

'CHAMOUNI, THE HOUR BEFORE SUNRISE.

'[Chamouni is one of the highest mountain valleys of the Barony of Faucigny in the Savoy Alps; and exhibits a kind of fairy world, in which the wildest appearances (I had almost said horrors) of Nature alternate with the softest and most beautiful. The chain of Mont Blanc is its boundary; and besides the Arve it is filled with sounds from the Arveiron, which rushes from the melted glaciers, like a giant, mad with joy, from a dungeon, and forms other torrents of snow-water, having their rise in the glaciers which slope down into the valley. The beautiful _Gentiana major_, or greater gentian, with blossoms of the brightest blue, grows in large companies a few steps from the never-melted ice of the glaciers. I thought it an affecting emblem of the boldness of human hope, venturing near, and, as it were, leaning over the brink of the grave. Indeed, the whole vale, its every light, its every sound, must needs impress every mind not utterly callous with the thought--Who _would_ be, who _could_ be an Atheist in this valley of wonders! If any of the readers of the MORNING POST [Those who have _P. R._] have visited this vale in their journeys among the Alps, I am confident that they [that they _om. P. R._] will not find the sentiments and feelings expressed, or attempted to be expressed, in the following poem, extravagant.]'

[378:1] I had written a much finer line when Sca' Fell was in my thoughts, viz.:--

O blacker than the darkness all the night And visited _Note to MS. A._

[379:1] The _Gentiana major_ grows in large companies a stride's distance from the foot of several of the glaciers. Its _blue_ flower, the colour of Hope: is it not a pretty emblem of Hope creeping onward even to the edge of the grave, to the very verge of utter desolation? _Note to MS. A._

[380:1] The fall of vast masses of snow, so called. _Note MS. (C)._

LINENOTES:

Title] Chamouny The Hour before Sunrise A Hymn M. P., P. R.: Mount Blanc, The Summit of the Vale of Chamouny, An Hour before Sunrise: A Hymn MS. A.

[3] On thy bald awful head O Chamouny M. P., P. R.: On thy bald awful top O Chamouny MS. A: On thy bald awful top O Sovran Blanc Friend, 1809.

[4] Arve] Arvè M. P., P. R., MS. (C).

[5] dread mountain form M. P., P. R., MS. A. most] dread Friend, 1809.

[6] forth] out MS. A.

[8] Deep is the sky, and black: transpicuous, deep M. P., P. R.: Deep is the sky, and black! transpicuous, black. MS. A.

[11] is thine] seems thy M. P., P. R.

[13] Mount] form M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[14] the bodily sense] my bodily eye M. P., P. R.: my bodily sense MS. A.

[16] Invisible] INVISIBLE M. P., P. R., Friend, 1809, MS. A.

[17]

Yet thou meantime, wast working on my soul, E'en like some deep enchanting melody

M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[19 foll.]

But [Now MS. A] I awake, and with a busier mind, And active will self-conscious, offer now Not as before, involuntary pray'r And passive adoration! Hand and voice, Awake, awake! and thou, my heart, awake! Awake ye rocks! Ye forest pines awake! (Not in MS. A.) Green fields

M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[29-30]

And thou, O silent Mountain, sole and bare O blacker than the darkness all the night

M. P., P. R.

[29] And thou, thou silent mountain, lone and bare MS. A. The first and chief, stern Monarch of the Vale _Errata to 'Hymn', &c._, The Friend, No. XIII, Nov. 16, 1809.

[38] parent] father M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[41] From darkness let you loose and icy dens M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[46] Eternal thunder and unceasing foam MS. A.

[48] 'Here shall the billows . . .' M. P., P. R.: Here shall your billows MS. A.

[49] the mountain's brow] yon dizzy heights M. P., P. R.

[50] Adown enormous ravines steeply slope M. P., P. R., MS. A. [A _bad_ line; but I hope to be able to alter it Note to MS. A].

[56]

with lovely flowers Of living blue

M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[Between 58-64]

GOD! GOD! the torrents like a shout of nations Utter! the ice-plain bursts and answers GOD! GOD, sing the meadow-streams with gladsome voice, And pine-groves with their soft and soul-like sound, The silent snow-mass, loos'ning thunders God!

M. P., P. R.

These lines were omitted in MS. A.

[64] Ye dreadless flow'rs that fringe M. P., P. R. living] azure MS. A. livery S. L. (corrected in _Errata_, p. [xi]).

[65] sporting round] bounding by M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[66] mountain-storm] mountain blast M. P., P. R.

[69] God] GOD. M. P., P. R.

[Between 70-80]

And thou, O silent Form, alone and bare Whom, as I lift again my head bow'd low In adoration, I again behold, And to thy summit upward from thy base Sweep slowly with dim eyes suffus'd by tears, Awake thou mountain form! rise, like a cloud

M. P., P. R.

And thou thou silent mountain, lone and bare Whom as I lift again my head bow'd low In adoration, I again behold! And from thy summit upward to the base Sweep slowly, with dim eyes suffus'd with tears Rise, mighty form! even as thou _seem'st_ to rise.

MS. A.

[70] Thou too] And thou, Errata, Friend, No. XIII. Once more, hoar Mount MS. (C), S. L. (For _once more_, read _Thou too_ _Errata_, S. L., p. [xi]).

[72] through] in Friend, 1809. In the blue serene MS. (C).

[74] again] once more MS. (C).

[75] That as once more I raise my Head bow'd low Friend, No. XI, 1809 (see the _Errata_, No. XIII).

[83-4] Tell the blue sky MS. A.

[84] yon] the M. P., P. R., MS. A.

[85] praises] calls on M. P., P. R., MS. A.

THE GOOD, GREAT MAN[381:1]

'How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains! It sounds like stories from the land of spirits If any man obtain that which he merits Or any merit that which he obtains.' 5

REPLY TO THE ABOVE

For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain! What would'st thou have a good great man obtain? Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain? Or throne of corses which his sword had slain? 10 Greatness and goodness are not _means_, but _ends_! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man? _three_ treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT, And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant's breath: And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, 15 HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL DEATH!

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[381:1] First published in the _Morning Post_ (as an 'Epigram', signed ΕΣΤΗΣΕ), September 23, 1802: reprinted in the _Poetical Register_ for 1802 (1803, p. 246): included in _The Friend_, No. XIX, December 28, 1809, and in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 53. First collected in 1844.

LINENOTES:

Title] Epigram M. P.: Epigrams P. R.: Complaint Lit. Rem., 1844, 1852: The Good, &c. 1893.

[6] Reply to the above M. P.: Reply The Friend, 1809: Reproof Lit. Rem., 1844.

INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH[381:2]

This Sycamore, oft musical with bees,-- Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed May all its agéd 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,[382:1] Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page, 10 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 Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound, Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[381:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, September 24, 1802: reprinted in the _Poetical Register_ for 1802 (1803, p. 338): included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1828, 1829, and 1834.

[382:1] Compare _Anima Poetae_, 1895, p. 17: 'The spring with the little tiny cone of loose sand ever rising and sinking to the bottom, but its surface without a wrinkle.'

LINENOTES:

Title] Inscription on a Jutting Stone, over a Spring M. P., P. R.

[3] agéd] darksome M. P., P. R.

[5] Still may this spring M. P., P. R.

[7] waters] water P. R. to] for M. P., P. R.

[9] soundless] noiseless M. P., P. R.

[10] Which] That M. P., P. R.

[13] Here coolness dwell, and twilight M. P., P. R.

[16 foll.]

Here, stranger, drink! Here rest! And if thy heart Be innocent, here too may'st thou renew Thy spirits, listening to these gentle sounds, The passing gale, or ever-murm'ring bees.

M. P., P. R.

AN ODE TO THE RAIN[382:2]

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

I

I know it is dark; and though I have lain, Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain, I have not once opened the lids of my eyes, But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies. O Rain! that I lie listening to, 5 You're but a doleful sound at best: I 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 I'll 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! You know, if you know aught, that we, Both night and day, but ill agree: For days and months, and almost years, Have limped on through this vale of tears, 20 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, 25 And bring with you both pain and sorrow; Though stomach should sicken and knees should swell-- I'll nothing speak of you but well. But only now for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away! 30

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 I've been cold and shy, Take no offence! I'll tell you why. 40 A dear old Friend e'en now 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 Horners-- In short, as soon as it is day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away.

V

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 stayed 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! Uninvited to remain. But only now, for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away.

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[382:2] First published in the _Morning Post_ (?), Oct. 7, 1802: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817: in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 54-6. First collected in 1844. In _Literary Remains_ the poem is dated 1809, but in a letter to J. Wedgwood, Oct. 20, 1802, Coleridge seems to imply that the _Ode to the Rain_ had appeared recently in the _Morning Post_. A MS. note of Mrs. H. N. Coleridge, included in other memoranda intended for publication in _Essays on His Own Times_, gives the date, 'Ode to Rain, October 7'. The issue for October 7 is missing in the volume for 1802 preserved in the British Museum, and it may be presumed that it was in that number the _Ode to the Rain_ first appeared. It is possible that the 'Ode' was written on the morning after the unexpected arrival of Charles and Mary Lamb at Greta Hall in August, 1802.

LINENOTES:

[45] We] With L. R, 1844, 1852. [The text was amended in P. W., 1877-80.]

A DAY-DREAM[385:1]

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 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 remounting 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

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 humming. 35 Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women!

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[385:1] First published in the _Bijou_ for 1828: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834. Asra is Miss Sarah Hutchinson; 'Our Sister and our Friend,' William and Dorothy Wordsworth. There can be little doubt that these lines were written in 1801 or 1802.

LINENOTES:

[8] well] will Bijou, 1828.

[17] on] in Bijou, 1828.

[20] For Asra, dearly Bijou, 1828.

[28] one] me Bijou, 1828.

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION[386:1]

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 together. But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he-- 'I love my Love, and my Love loves me!' 10

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[386:1] First published in the _Morning Post_, October 16, 1802: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, in 1828, 1829, and 1834.

LINENOTES:

Title] The Language of Birds: Lines spoken extempore, to a little child, in early spring M. P.

[Between 6-7]

'I love, and I love,' almost all the birds say From sunrise to star-rise, so gladsome are they.

M. P.

[After 10]

'Tis no wonder that he's full of joy to the brim, When He loves his Love, and his Love loves him.

M. P.

Line 10 is adapted from the refrain of Prior's _Song_ ('One morning very early, one morning in the spring'):--'I love my love, because I know my love loves me.'

THE DAY-DREAM[386:2]

FROM AN EMIGRANT TO HIS ABSENT WIFE

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!

Across my chest there lay a weight, so warm! As if some bird had taken shelter there; 20 And lo! I seemed to see a woman's form-- Thine, Sara, thine? O joy, if thine it were! I gazed with stifled breath, and feared to stir it, No deeper trance e'er wrapt a yearning spirit!

And now, when I seemed sure thy face to see, 25 Thy own dear self in our own quiet home; There came an elfish laugh, and wakened me: 'Twas Frederic, who behind my chair had clomb, And with his bright eyes at my face was peeping. I blessed him, tried to laugh, and fell a-weeping! 30

1801-2.

FOOTNOTES:

[386:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, October 19, 1802. First collected in _Poems_, 1852. A note (p. 384), was affixed:--'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 parental neglect in the mind of most readers.' Internal evidence seems to point to 1801 or 1802 as the most probable date of composition.

LINENOTES:

[Below line 30] ΕΣΤΗΣΕ.

THE HAPPY HUSBAND[388:1]

A FRAGMENT

Oft, oft methinks, the while with thee, I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear And dedicated name, I hear A promise and a mystery, A pledge of more than passing life, 5 Yea, in that very name of Wife!

A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep! A feeling that upbraids the heart With happiness beyond desert, That gladness half requests to weep! 10 Nor bless I not the keener sense And unalarming turbulence

Of transient joys, that ask no sting From jealous fears, or coy denying; But born beneath Love's brooding wing, 15 And into tenderness soon dying, Wheel out their giddy moment, then Resign the soul to love again;--

A more precipitated vein Of notes, that eddy in the flow 20 Of smoothest song, they come, they go, And leave their sweeter understrain, Its own sweet self--a love of Thee That seems, yet cannot greater be!

? 1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[388:1] First published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817: included in 1828, 1829, 1834. There is no evidence as to the date of composition.

LINENOTES:

[13] ask] fear S. L. (for _fear_ no sting read _ask_ no sting _Errata_, p. [xi]).

THE PAINS OF SLEEP[389:1]

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 sense 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 prayed 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, 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 seemed 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, 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.

1803.

FOOTNOTES:

[389:1] First published, together with _Christabel_, in 1816: included in 1828, 1829, i. 334-6 (but not in _Contents_), and 1834. A first draft of these lines was sent in a Letter to Southey, Sept. 11, 1803 (_Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 435-7), An amended version of lines 18-32 was included in an unpublished Letter to Poole, dated Oct. 3, 1803.

LINENOTES:

[1] Ere] When MS. Letter to Southey, Sept. 11, 1803.

[9] sense] _sense_ MS. Letter to Southey, 1816, 1828, 1829.

[10] sense] _sense_ MS. Letter to Southey.

[12] Since round me, in me, everywhere MS. Letter to Southey.

[13] Wisdom] Goodness MS. Letter to Southey.

[16] Up-starting] Awaking MS. Letter to Southey.

[Between 18-26]

Desire with loathing strangely mixt, On wild or hateful objects fixt. Sense of revenge, the powerless will, Still baffled and consuming still; Sense of intolerable wrong, And men whom I despis'd made strong! Vain-glorious threats, unmanly vaunting, Bad men my boasts and fury taunting: Rage, sensual passion, mad'ning Brawl,

MS. Letter to Southey.

[18] trampling] ghastly MS. Letter to Poole, Oct. 3, 1803.

[19] intolerable] insufferable MS. Letter to Poole.

[20] those] they MS. Letter to Poole.

[Between 22-4]

Tempestuous pride, vain-glorious vaunting Base men my vices justly taunting

MS. Letter to Poole.

[27] which] that MS. Letters to Southey and Poole.

[28] could] might MS. Letters to Southey and Poole.

[30] For all was Horror, Guilt, and Woe MS. Letter to Southey: For all was Guilt, and Shame, and Woe MS. Letter to Poole.

[33] So] Thus MS. Letter to Southey.

[34] coming] boding MS. Letter to Southey.

[35-6]

I fear'd to sleep: sleep seem'd to be Disease's worst malignity

MS. Letter to Southey.

[38] waked] freed MS. Letter to Southey.

[39] O'ercome by sufferings dark and wild MS. Letter to Southey.

[42] anguish] Trouble MS. Letter to Southey.

[43] said] thought MS. Letter to Southey.

[45-6]

Still to be stirring up anew The self-created Hell within

MS. Letter to Southey.

[47] their deeds] the crimes MS. Letter to Southey.

[48] and] to MS. Letter to Southey.

[Between 48-51]

With such let fiends make mockery-- But I--Oh, wherefore this _on me_? Frail is my soul, yea, strengthless wholly, Unequal, restless, melancholy. But free from Hate and sensual Folly.

MS. Letter to Southey.

[51] be] live MS. Letter to Southey.

[After 52] And etc., etc., etc., etc. MS. Letter to Southey.

THE EXCHANGE[391:1]

We pledged our hearts, my love and I,-- I in my arms the maiden clasping; I could not guess the reason why, But, oh! I trembled like an aspen.

Her father's love she bade me gain; 5 I went, but shook like any reed! I strove to act the man--in vain! We had exchanged our hearts indeed.

1804.

FOOTNOTES:

[391:1] First published in the _Courier_, April 16, 1804: included in the _Poetical Register_ for 1804 (1805); reprinted in _Literary Souvenir_ for 1826, p. 408, and in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 59. First collected in 1844.

LINENOTES:

Title] The Exchange of Hearts Courier, 1804.

[2] Me in her arms Courier, 1804.

[3] guess] tell Lit. Souvenir, Lit. Rem., 1844.

[5] Her father's leave Courier, 1804, P. R. 1804, 1893.

[6] but] and Lit. Souvenir, Lit. Rem., 1844.

AD VILMUM AXIOLOGUM[391:2]

[TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]

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, and _from_ the Bosom resound it, Each with a different tone, complete or in musical fragments-- 5 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 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!

? 1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[391:2] First published in _P. W._, 1893. These lines were found in one of Coleridge's Notebooks (No. 24). The first draft immediately follows the transcription of a series of Dante's _Canzoni_ begun at Malta in 1805. If the Hexameters were composed at the same time, it is possible that they were inspired by a perusal or re-perusal of a MS. copy of Wordsworth's unpublished poems which had been made for his use whilst he was abroad. As Mr. Campbell points out (_P. W._, p. 614), Wordsworth himself was responsible for the Latinization of his name. A _Sonnet on seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams weeping at a tale of distress_, which was published in the _European Magazine_ for March, 1787, is signed 'Axiologus'.

LINENOTES:

[1 foll.]

What is the meed of thy song? 'Tis the ceaseless the thousandfold echo, Which from the welcoming Hearts of the Pure repeats and prolongs it-- Each with a different Tone, compleat or in musical fragments.

Or

This be the meed, that thy Song awakes to a thousandfold echo Welcoming Hearts; is it their voice or is it thy own? Lost! the Hearts of the Pure, like caves in the ancient mountains Deep, deep in the bosom, and _from_ the bosom resound it, Each with a different tone, compleat or in musical fragments. Meet the song they receive, and retain and resound and prolong it! Welcoming Souls! is it their voice, sweet Poet, or is it thy own voice?

Drafts in Notebook.

AN EXILE[392:1]

Friend, Lover, Husband, Sister, Brother! Dear names close in upon each other! Alas! poor Fancy's bitter-sweet-- Our names, and but our names can meet.

1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[392:1] First published, with title 'An Exile', in 1893. These lines, without title or heading, are inserted in one of Coleridge's Malta Notebooks.

SONNET[392:2]

[TRANSLATED FROM MARINI]

Lady, to Death we're doom'd, our crime the same! Thou, that in me thou kindled'st such fierce heat; I, that my heart did of a Sun so sweet The rays concentre to so hot a flame. I, fascinated by an Adder's eye-- 5 Deaf as an Adder thou to all my pain; Thou obstinate in Scorn, in Passion I-- I lov'd too much, too much didst thou disdain. Hear then our doom in Hell as just as stern, Our sentence equal as our crimes conspire-- 10 Who living bask'd at Beauty's earthly fire, In living flames eternal these must burn-- Hell for us both fit places too supplies-- In my heart _thou_ wilt burn, I _roast_ before thine eyes.

? 1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[392:2] First published in 1893. For the Italian original, 'Alia Sua Amico,' _Sonetto_, vide Appendices of this Edition.

PHANTOM[393:1]

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, Uprais'd beneath the rifted stone 5 But of one spirit all her own;-- She, she herself, and only she, Shone through her body visibly.

1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[393:1] These lines, without title or heading, are quoted ('vide . . . my lines') in an entry in one of Coleridge's Malta Notebooks, dated Feb. 8, 1805, to illustrate the idea that the love-sense can be abstracted from the accidents of form or person (see _Anima Poetae_, 1895, p. 120). It follows that they were written before that date. _Phantom_ was first published in 1834, immediately following (ii. 71) _Phantom or Fact. A dialogue in Verse_, which was first published in 1828, and was probably written about that time. Both poems are 'fragments from the life of dreams'; but it was the reality which lay behind both 'phantom' and 'fact' of which the poet dreamt, having his eyes open. With lines 4, 5 compare the following stanza of one of the _MS._ versions of the _Dark Ladié_:--

Against a grey stone rudely carv'd The statue of an armed knight, She lean'd in melancholy mood To watch ['d] the lingering Light.

A SUNSET[393:2]

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, 5 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 10 As motionless as stands the ancient trunk! But every leaf through all the forest flutters, And deep the cavern of the fountain mutters.

1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[393:2] First published in 1893. The title 'A Sunset' was prefixed by the Editor. These lines are inscribed in one of Coleridge's Malta Notebooks. The following note or comment is attached:--'These lines I wrote as nonsense verses merely to try a metre; but they are by no means contemptible; at least in reading them I am surprised at finding them so good. 16 Aug., 1805, Malta.

'Now will it be a more English music if the first and fourth are double rhymes and the 5th and 6th single? or all single, or the 2nd and 3rd double? Try.' They were afterwards sent to William Worship, Esq., Yarmouth, in a letter dated April 22, 1819, as an unpublished autograph.

LINENOTES:

[1] with light touch] all lightly MS.

[4] the] this MS.

[6] A distant Hiss of fire MS. alternative reading.

[7] lessens] lessened MS.

[12] flutters] fluttered MS.

[13] mutters] muttered MS.

WHAT IS LIFE?[394:1]

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?-- 5 Is very life by consciousness unbounded? And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?

1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[394:1] First published in _Literary Souvenir_, 1829: included in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 60. First collected in 1844. These lines, 'written in the same manner, and for the same purpose, but of course with more conscious effort than the two stanzas on the preceding leaf,' are dated '16 August, 1805, the day of the Valetta Horse-racing--bells jangling, and stupefying music playing all day'. Afterwards, in 1819, Coleridge maintained that they were written 'between the age of 15 and 16'.

LINENOTES:

[1] deem'd] held Lit. Souvenir, 1829.

[2] ample] simple MS.

[6]

{ [*per se*] (in its own Nature) { Is Life itself

MS.

THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY DATE-TREE[395:1]

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 5 words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the beginning, 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 10 the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise.' And the word of the Most High answered Satan: '_The tender mercies of the wicked 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 counsellest, should have 15 been inflicted on thyself.'

The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact mentioned 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 produced fruit, till a branch from another date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of 20 some hundred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. 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. 25 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._

1

Beneath the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are 30 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 35 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 presented to the sense; the more 40 exquisite the individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and opportunities of enjoyment, the 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 45 shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them?

3

Imagination; honourable aims; Free commune with the choir that cannot die; Science and song; delight in little things, 50 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, Or call my destiny niggard! O no! no! 55 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 Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start 60 In lonesome tent, I listen for thy voice. Belovéd! 'tis not thine; thou art not there! Then melts the bubble into idle air, And wishing without hope I restlessly despair.

5

The mother with anticipated glee 65 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 She hears her own voice with a new delight; 70 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 Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake? 75 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?

1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[395:1] First published in 1828: included in 1829 and 1834.

LINENOTES:

[5] stood] were yet standing 1828.

[8] mediator] moderator 1828.

[9] The words 'not so' are omitted in 1828.

[11] _remain_ here all the days of his now mortal life, and enjoy the respite thou mayest grant him, in this thy Paradise which thou gavest to him, and hast planted with every tree pleasant to the sight of man and of delicious fruitage. 1828.

[13 foll.] _Treacherous Fiend!_ guilt deep as thine could not be, yet the love of kind not extinguished. But if having done what thou hast done, thou hadst yet the heart of man within thee, and the yearning of the soul for its answering image and completing counterpart, O spirit, desperately wicked! the sentence thou counsellest had been thy own! 1828.

[20] from a Date tree 1828, 1839.

[48] Hope, Imagination, &c. 1828.

[53] With all their voices mute--O dare I accuse 1838.

[55] Or call my niggard destiny! No! No! 1838.

[61] thy] _thy_ 1828, 1829.

[77] thee] _thee_ 1828, 1829.

SEPARATION[397:1]

A sworded man whose trade is blood, In grief, in anger, and in fear, Thro' jungle, swamp, and torrent flood, I seek the wealth you hold so dear!

The dazzling charm of outward form, 5 The power of gold, the pride of birth, Have taken Woman's heart by storm-- Usurp'd the place of inward worth.

Is not true Love of higher price Than outward Form, though fair to see, 10 Wealth's glittering fairy-dome of ice, Or echo of proud ancestry?--

O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see Into the bottom of my heart, There's such a mine of Love for thee, 15 As almost might supply desert!

(This separation is, alas! Too great a punishment to bear; O! take my life, or let me pass That life, that happy life, with her!) 20

The perils, erst with steadfast eye Encounter'd, now I shrink to see-- Oh! I have heart enough to die-- Not half enough to part from Thee!

? 1805.

FOOTNOTES:

[397:1] First published in 1834. In Pickering's one-volume edition of the issue of 1848 the following note is printed on p. 372:--

'The fourth and last stanzas are adapted from the twelfth and last of Cotton's _Chlorinda_ [Ode]:--

'O my Chlorinda! could'st thou see Into the bottom of my heart, There's such a Mine of Love for thee, The Treasure would supply desert.

Meanwhile my Exit now draws nigh, When, sweet Chlorinda, thou shalt see That I have heart enough to die, Not half enough to part with thee.

'The fifth stanza is the eleventh of Cotton's poem.'

In 1852 (p. 385) the note reads: 'The fourth and last stanzas are from Cotton's _Chlorinda_, with very slight alteration.'

A first draft of this adaptation is contained in one of Coleridge's Malta Notebooks:--

[I]

Made worthy by excess of Love A wretch thro' power of Happiness, And poor from wealth I dare not use.

[II]

This separation etc.

[III]

[*The Pomp of Wealth*] [*Stores of Gold, the pomp of Wealth*] [*Nor less the Pride of Noble Birth*] The dazzling charm etc. (l. 4) Supplied the place etc.

[IV]

Is not true Love etc.

[V]

O ΑΣΡΑ! ΑΣΡΑ could'st thou see Into the bottom of my Heart! There's such a Mine of Love for Thee-- The Treasure would supply desert.

[VI]

Death erst contemn'd--O ΑΣΡΑ! why Now terror-stricken do I see-- Oh! I have etc.

THE RASH CONJURER[399:1]

Strong spirit-bidding sounds! With deep and hollow voice, 'Twixt Hope and Dread, Seven Times I said Iohva Mitzoveh 5 Vohoeen![399:2] And up came an imp in the shape of a Pea-hen! I saw, I doubted, And seven times spouted 10 Johva Mitzoveh Yahóevohāen! When Anti-Christ starting up, butting and bāing, In the shape of a mischievous curly 15 black Lamb-- With a vast flock of Devils behind and beside, And before 'em their Shepherdess Lucifer's Dam, 20 Riding astride On an old black Ram, With Tartary stirrups, knees up to her chin. And a sleek chrysom imp to her Dugs muzzled in,-- 'Gee-up, my old Belzy! (she cried, 25 As she sung to her suckling cub) Trit-a-trot, trot! we'll go far and wide Trot, Ram-Devil! Trot! Belzebub!' Her petticoat fine was of scarlet Brocade, And soft in her lap her Baby she lay'd 30 With his pretty Nubs of Horns a- sprouting, And his pretty little Tail all curly-twirly-- St. Dunstan! and this comes of spouting-- Of Devils what a Hurly-Burly! 35 'Behold we are up! what want'st thou then?' 'Sirs! only that'--'Say when and what'-- You'd be so good'--'Say what and when' 'This moment to get down again!' 'We do it! we do it! we all get down! 40 But we take you with us to swim or drown! Down a down to the grim Engulpher!' 'O me! I am floundering in Fire and Sulphur! That the Dragon had scrounched you, squeal 45 and squall-- Cabbalists! Conjurers! great and small, Johva Mitzoveh Evohāen and all! Had _I_ never uttered your jaw-breaking words, I might now have been sloshing down Junket and Curds, Like a Devonshire Christian: 51 But now a Philistine!

Ye Earthmen! be warned by a judgement so tragic, And wipe yourselves cleanly with all books of magic-- Hark! hark! it is Dives! 'Hold your Bother, you Booby! I am burnt ashy white, and you yet are but ruby.' 56

_Epilogue._

We ask and urge (here ends the story) All Christian Papishes to pray That this unhappy Conjurer may Instead of Hell, be but in Purgatory-- 60 For then there's Hope,-- Long live the Pope! Catholicus.

? 1805, ? 1814.

FOOTNOTES:

[399:1] Now first printed from one of Coleridge's Notebooks. The last stanza--the Epilogue--was first published by H. N. Coleridge as part of an 'Uncomposed Poem', in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 52: first collected in Appendix to _P. and D. W._, 1877-80, ii. 366. There is no conclusive evidence as to the date of composition. The handwriting, and the contents of the Notebook might suggest a date between 1813 and 1816. The verses are almost immediately preceded by a detached note printed at the close of an essay entitled 'Self-love in Religion' which is included among the '_Omniana_ of 1809', _Literary Remains_, 1834, i. 354-6: 'O magical, sympathetic, _anima_! [Archeus, _MS._] _principium hylarchichum! rationes spermaticæ!_ λόγοι ποιητικοί! O formidable words! And O Man! thou marvellous beast-angel! thou ambitious beggar! How pompously dost thou trick out thy very ignorance with such glorious disguises, that thou mayest seem to hide in order to worship it.'

With this piece as a whole compare Southey's 'Ballad of a Young Man that would read unlawful Books, and how he was punished'.

[399:2] A cabbalistic invocation of Jehovah, obscure in the original Hebrew. I am informed that the second word Mitzoveh may stand for 'from Sabaoth'.

A CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER[401:1]

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, God grant me grace my prayers to say: O God! preserve my mother dear In strength and health for many a year; And, O! preserve my father too, 5 And may I pay him reverence due; And may I my best thoughts employ To be my parents' hope and joy; And O! preserve my brothers both From evil doings and from sloth, 10 And may we always love each other Our friends, our father, and our mother: And still, O Lord, to me impart An innocent and grateful heart, That after my great sleep I may 15 Awake to thy eternal day! _Amen._

1806.

FOOTNOTES:

[401:1] First published in 1852. A transcript in the handwriting of Mrs. S. T. Coleridge is in the possession of the Editor.

LINENOTES:

[3] mother] father MS.

[5] father] mother MS.

[6] him] her MS.

[7-8]

And may I still my thoughts employ To be her comfort and her joy

MS.

[9] O likewise keep MS.

[13] But chiefly, Lord MS.

[15] great] last P. W. 1877-80, 1893.

[After 16] Our father, &c. MS.

METRICAL FEET[401:2]

LESSON FOR A BOY

Trōchĕe trīps frŏm lōng tŏ shōrt; From long to long in solemn sort Slōw Spōndēe stālks; strōng fo͞ot! yet ill able Ēvĕr tŏ cōme ŭp wĭth Dācty̆l trĭsȳllăblĕ. Ĭāmbĭcs mārch frŏm shōrt tŏ lōng;— 5 Wĭth ă le͞ap ănd ă bo͞und thĕ swĭft Ānăpæ̆sts thrōng; One syllable long, with one short at each side, Ămphībrăchy̆s hāstes wĭth ă stātely̆ stride;-- Fīrst ănd lāst bēĭng lōng, mīddlĕ shōrt, Am̄phĭmācer Strīkes hĭs thūndērīng ho͞ofs līke ă pro͞ud hīgh-brĕd Rācer. 10 If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise, And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies; Tender warmth at his heart, with these metres to show it, With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet,-- May crown him with fame, and must win him the love 15 Of his father on earth and his Father above. My dear, dear child! Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge See a man who so loves you as your fond S. T. COLERIDGE.

1806.

FOOTNOTES:

[401:2] First published in 1834. The metrical lesson was begun for Hartley Coleridge in 1806 and, afterwards, finished or adapted for the use of his brother Derwent. The Editor possesses the autograph of a metrical rendering of the Greek alphabet, entitled 'A Greek Song set to Music, and sung by Hartley Coleridge, Esq., Graecologian, philometrist and philomelist'.

LINENOTES:

Title] The chief and most usual Metrical Feet expressed in metre and addressed to Hartley Coleridge MS. of Lines 1-7.

FAREWELL TO LOVE[402:1]

Farewell, sweet Love! yet blame you not my truth; More fondly ne'er did mother eye her child Than I your form: _yours_ were my hopes of youth, And as _you_ shaped my thoughts I sighed or smiled.

While most were wooing wealth, or gaily swerving 5 To pleasure's secret haunts, and some apart Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving, To you I gave my whole weak wishing heart.

And when I met the maid that realised Your fair creations, and had won her kindness, 10 Say, but for her if aught on earth I prized! _Your_ dreams alone I dreamt, and caught your blindness.

O grief!--but farewell, Love! I will go play me With thoughts that please me less, and less betray me.

1806.

FOOTNOTES:

[402:1] First published in the _Courier_, September 27, 1806, and reprinted in the _Morning Herald_, October 11, 1806, and in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for November, 1815, vol. lxxxv, p. 448: included in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 280, and in _Letters, Conversations, &c._, [by T. Allsop], 1836, i. 143. First collected, appendix, 1863. This sonnet is modelled upon and in part borrowed from Lord Brooke's (Fulke Greville) Sonnet LXXIV of Coelica: and was inscribed on the margin of Charles Lamb's copy of _Certain Learned and Elegant Works of the Right Honourable Fulke Lord Brooke_ . . . 1633, p. 284.

_'Cælica'. Sonnet lxxiv._

Farewell sweet Boy, complaine not of my truth; Thy Mother lov'd thee not with more devotion; For to thy Boyes play I gave all my youth Yong Master, I did hope for your promotion.

While some sought Honours, Princes thoughts observing, Many woo'd _Fame, the child of paine and anguish_, Others judg'd inward good a chiefe deserving, I in thy wanton Visions joy'd to languish.

I bow'd not to thy image for succession, Nor bound thy bow to shoot reformed kindnesse, The playes of hope and feare were my confession The spectacles to my life was thy blindnesse:

But _Cupid_ now farewell, I will goe play me, With thoughts that please me lesse, and lesse betray me.

For an adaptation of Sonnet XCIV, entitled 'Lines on a King-and- Emperor-Making King--altered from the 93rd Sonnet of Fulke Greville', vide Appendices of this edition.

LINENOTES:

[1-2]

Farewell my Love! yet blame ye not my Truth; More fondly never mother ey'd her child

MS. 1806.

Sweet power of Love, farewell! nor blame my truth, More fondly never Mother ey'd her Child

Courier, M. H.

[4] And as you wove the dream I sigh'd or smil'd MS. 1806: And as you wove my thoughts, I sigh'd or smil'd Courier, M. H.

[5-7]

While some sought Wealth; others to Pleasure swerving, Many woo'd Fame: and some stood firm apart In joy of pride, self-conscious of deserving

MS. 1806, Courier, M. H.

[6] haunts] haunt L. R., Letters, &c., 1836, 1863.

[8] weak wishing] weak-wishing Courier, M. H.

[9] that] who Courier, M. H.

[13] will] must Courier, M. H.

TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH[403:1]

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND

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 5 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 10 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), 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 becalméd 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 garlanded, 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! ----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 worketh 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 linkéd lay of Truth, Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay, Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes! 60 Ah! as I listened 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 coffin, 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!

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 90 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,[408:1] 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! Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!-- Thy long sustainéd 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 belovéd faces-- Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close I sate, my being blended in one thought (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?) 110 Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound-- And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

_January_, 1807.

FOOTNOTES:

[403:1] First published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817: included in 1828, 1829, 1834. The poem was sent in a Letter to Sir G. Beaumont dated January, 1807, and in this shape was first printed by Professor Knight in _Coleorton Letters_, 1887, i. 213-18; and as Appendix H, pp. 525-6, of _P. W._, 1893 (_MS. B._). An earlier version of about the same date was given to Wordsworth, and is now in the possession of his grandson, Mr. Gordon Wordsworth (_MS. W._). The text of _Sibylline Leaves_ differs widely from that of the original MSS. Lines 11-47 are quoted in a Letter to Wordsworth, dated May 30, 1815 (_Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 646-7), and lines 65-75 at the end of Chapter X of the _Biographia Literaria_, 1817, i. 220.

[408:1] 'A beautiful white cloud of Foam at momentary intervals coursed by the side of the Vessel with a Roar, and little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam dashed off from the vessel's side, each with its own small constellation, over the Sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar Troop over a wilderness.' _The Friend_, p. 220. [From Satyrane's First Letter, published in _The Friend_, No. 14, Nov. 23, 1809.]

LINENOTES:

Title] To W. Wordsworth. Lines Composed, for the greater part on the Night, on which he finished the recitation of his Poem (in thirteen Books) concerning the growth and history of his own Mind, Jan. 7, 1807, Cole-orton, near Ashby de la Zouch MS. W.: To William Wordsworth. Composed for the greater part on the same night after the finishing of his recitation of the Poem in thirteen Books, on the Growth of his own Mind MS. B.: To a Gentleman, &c. S. L. 1828, 1829.

[1] O Friend! O Teacher! God's great gift to me! MSS. W., B.

[Between 5-13]

Of thy own Spirit, thou hast lov'd to tell What may be told, to th' understanding mind Revealable; and what within the mind May rise enkindled. Theme as hard as high! Of Smiles spontaneous and mysterious Fear.

MS. W.

Of thy own spirit thou hast loved to tell What _may_ be told, by words revealable; With heavenly breathings, like the secret soul Of vernal growth, oft quickening in the heart, Thoughts that obey no mastery of words, Pure self-beholdings! theme as hard as high, Of _smiles_ spontaneous and mysterious _fear_.

MS. B.

[9] By vital breathings like the secret soul S. L. 1828.

[16] Or by interior power MS. W: Or by some central breath MS. Letter, 1815.

[17] inner] hidden MSS. W., B.

[Between 17-41]

Mid festive crowds, _thy_ Brows too garlanded, A Brother of the Feast: of Fancies fair, _Hyblaean murmurs of poetic Thought, Industrious in its Joy_, by lilied Streams _Native or outland, Lakes and famous Hills! Of more than Fancy_, of the Hope of Man _Amid the tremor of a Realm aglow-- Where France in all her Towns lay vibrating_ Ev'n as a Bark becalm'd on sultry seas Beneath the voice from Heav'n, the bursting crash _Of Heaven's immediate thunder! when no cloud Is visible, or Shadow on the Main!_ Ah! soon night roll'd on night, and every Cloud Open'd its eye of Fire: and Hope aloft Now flutter'd, and now toss'd upon the storm Floating! Of _Hope afflicted and struck down Thence summoned homeward_--homeward to thy Heart, Oft from the _Watch-tower of Man's absolute self_, With light, &c.

MS. W.

[27] _social sense_ MS. B.

[28] Distending, and of man MS. B.

[29-30]

Even as a bark becalm'd on sultry seas Quivers beneath the voice from Heaven, the burst

MS. B.

[30]

Ev'n as a bark becalm'd beneath the burst

MS. Letter, 1815, S. L. 1828.

[33] thine] thy MS. B., MS. Letter, 1815.

[37] a full-born] an arméd MS. B.

[38] Of that dear hope afflicted and amazed MS. Letter, 1815.

[39] So homeward summoned MS. Letter, 1815.

[40] As from the watch-tower MS. B.

[44] controlling] ? impelling, ? directing MS. W.

[45-6]

Virtue and Love--an Orphic Tale indeed A Tale divine

MS. W.

[45] song] tale MS. B.

[46] song] tale MS. B. thoughts] truths MS. Letter, 1815.

[47-9]

Ah! great Bard Ere yet that last swell dying aw'd the air With stedfast ken I viewed thee in the choir

MS. W.

[48] that] the MS. B.

[49] With steadfast eyes I saw thee MS. B.

[52] for they, both power and act MS. B.

[53] them] _them_ S. L. 1828, 1829.

[54] _for_ them, they _in_ it S. L. 1828, 1829.

[58] lay] song MSS. W., B.

[59] lay] song MSS. W., B.

[61 foll.]

Dear shall it be to every human heart, To me how more than dearest! me, on whom Comfort from thee, and utterance of thy love, Came with such heights and depths of harmony, Such sense of wings uplifting, that the storm 5 Scatter'd and whirl'd me, till my thoughts became A bodily tumult; and thy faithful hopes, Thy hopes of me, dear Friend! by me unfelt! Were troublous to me, almost as a voice, Familiar once, and more than musical; 10 To one cast forth, whose hope had seem'd to die A wanderer with a worn-out heart Mid strangers pining with untended wounds. O Friend, too well thou know'st, of what sad years The long suppression had benumb'd my soul, 15 That even as life returns upon the drown'd, The unusual joy awoke a throng of pains-- _Keen pangs_, &c.

MSS. B, W

with the following variants:--