The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol 2 (of 2)
Chapter 122
_A glade in a wood. Enter CASIMIR looking anxiously around._
_Casimir._ This needs must be the spot! O, here he comes!
_Enter LORD RUDOLPH._
Well met, Lord Rudolph!---- Your whisper was not lost upon my ear, And I dare trust--
_Lord Rudolph._ Enough! the time is precious! You left Temeswar late on yester-eve? 5 And sojourned there some hours?
_Casimir._ I did so!
_Lord Rudolph._ Heard you Aught of a hunt preparing?
_Casimir._ Yes; and met The assembled huntsmen!
_Lord Rudolph._ Was there no word given?
_Casimir._ The word for me was this:--The royal Leopard Chases thy milk-white dedicated Hind. 10
_Lord Rudolph._ Your answer?
_Casimir._ As the word proves false or true Will Casimir cross the hunt, or join the huntsmen!
_Lord Rudolph._ The event redeemed their pledge?
_Casimir._ It did, and therefore Have I sent back both pledge and invitation. The spotless Hind hath fled to them for shelter, 15 And bears with her my seal of fellowship! [_They take hands._
_Lord Rudolph._ But Emerick! how when you reported to him Sarolta's disappearance, and the flight Of Bethlen with his guards?
_Casimir._ O he received it As evidence of their mutual guilt. In fine, 20 With cozening warmth condoled with, and dismissed me.
_Lord Rudolph._ I entered as the door was closing on you: His eye was fixed, yet seemed to follow you,-- With such a look of hate, and scorn and triumph, As if he had you in the toils already, 25 And were then choosing where to stab you first. But hush! draw back!
_Casimir._ This nook is at the furthest From any beaten track.
_Lord Rudolph._ There! mark them!
[_Points to where LASKA and PESTALUTZ cross the Stage._
_Casimir._ Laska!
_Lord Rudolph._ One of the two I recognized this morning; His name is Pestalutz: a trusty ruffian 30 Whose face is prologue still to some dark murder. Beware no stratagem, no trick of message, Dispart you from your servants.
_Casimir (aside)._ I deserve it. The comrade of that ruffian is my servant: The one I trusted most and most preferred. 35 But we must part. What makes the king so late? It was his wont to be an early stirrer.
_Lord Rudolph._ And his main policy. To enthral the sluggard nature in ourselves Is, in good truth, the better half of the secret To enthral the world: for the will governs all. 40 See, the sky lowers! the cross-winds waywardly Chase the fantastic masses of the clouds With a wild mockery of the coming hunt!
_Casimir._ Mark yonder mass! I make it wear the shape Of a huge ram that butts with head depressed. 45
_Lord Rudolph (smiling)._ Belike, some stray sheep of the oozy flock, Which, if bards lie not, the Sea-shepherds tend, Glaucus or Proteus. But my fancy shapes it A monster couchant on a rocky shelf.
_Casimir._ Mark too the edges of the lurid mass-- 50 Restless, as if some idly-vexing Sprite, On swift wing coasting by, with tetchy hand Pluck'd at the ringlets of the vaporous Fleece. These are sure signs of conflict nigh at hand, And elemental war!
[_A single trumpet heard at some distance._
_Lord Rudolph._ That single blast 55 Announces that the tyrant's pawing courser Neighs at the gate. [_Trumpets._ Hark! now the king comes forth! For ever 'midst this crash of horns and clarions He mounts his steed, which proudly rears an-end While he looks round at ease, and scans the crowd, 60 Vain of his stately form and horsemanship! I must away! my absence may be noticed.
_Casimir._ Oft as thou canst, essay to lead the hunt Hard by the forest-skirts; and ere high noon Expect our sworn confederates from Temeswar. 65 I trust, ere yet this clouded sun slopes westward, That Emerick's death, or Casimir's, will appease The manes of Zapolya and Kiuprili! [_Exit RUDOLPH._ The traitor, Laska!---- And yet Sarolta, simple, inexperienced, 70 Could see him as he was, and often warned me. Whence learned she this?--O she was innocent! And to be innocent is Nature's wisdom! The fledge-dove knows the prowlers of the air, Feared soon as seen, and flutters back to shelter. 75 And the young steed recoils upon his haunches, The never-yet-seen adder's hiss first heard. O surer than Suspicion's hundred eyes Is that fine sense, which to the pure in heart, By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness, 80 Reveals the approach of evil. Casimir! O fool! O parricide! through yon wood did'st thou, With fire and sword, pursue a patriot father, A widow and an orphan. Dar'st thou then (Curse-laden wretch) put forth these hands to raise 85 The ark, all sacred, of thy country's cause? Look down in pity on thy son, Kiuprili! And let this deep abhorrence of his crime, Unstained with selfish fears, be his atonement! O strengthen him to nobler compensation 90 In the deliverance of his bleeding country! [_Exit CASIMIR._
_Scene changes to the mouth of a Cavern, as in Act II. ZAPOLYA and GLYCINE discovered._
_Zapolya._ Our friend is gone to seek some safer cave: Do not then leave me long alone, Glycine! Having enjoyed thy commune, loneliness, That but oppressed me hitherto, now scares. 95
_Glycine._ I shall know Bethlen at the furthest distance, And the same moment I descry him, lady, I will return to you. [_Exit GLYCINE._
[_Enter OLD BATHORY, speaking as he enters._
_Old Bathory._ Who hears? A friend! A messenger from him who bears the signet!
_Zapolya._ He hath the watch-word!--Art thou not Bathory? 100
_Old Bathory._ O noble lady! greetings from your son!
[_BATHORY kneels._
_Zapolya._ Rise! rise! Or shall I rather kneel beside thee, And call down blessings from the wealth of Heaven Upon thy honoured head? When thou last saw'st me I would full fain have knelt to thee, and could not, 105 Thou dear old man! How oft since then in dreams Have I done worship to thee, as an angel Bearing my helpless babe upon thy wings!
_Old Bathory._ O he was born to honour! Gallant deeds And perilous hath he wrought since yester-eve. 110 Now from Temeswar (for to him was trusted A life, save thine, the dearest) he hastes hither--
_Zapolya._ Lady Sarolta mean'st thou?
_Old Bathory._ She is safe. The royal brute hath overleapt his prey, And when he turned, a sworded Virtue faced him. 115 My own brave boy--O pardon, noble lady! Your son----
_Zapolya._ Hark! Is it he?
_Old Bathory._ I hear a voice Too hoarse for Bethlen's! 'Twas his scheme and hope, Long ere the hunters could approach the forest, To have led you hence.--Retire.
_Zapolya._ O life of terrors! 120
_Old Bathory._ In the cave's mouth we have such 'vantage ground That even this old arm--
[_Exeunt ZAPOLYA and BATHORY into the cave._
_Enter LASKA and PESTALUTZ._
_Laska._ Not a step further!
_Pestalutz._ Dastard! was this your promise to the king?
_Laska._ I have fulfilled his orders. Have walked with you As with a friend: have pointed out Lord Casimir: 125 And now I leave you to take care of him. For the king's purposes are doubtless friendly.
_Pestalutz._ Be on your guard, man!
_Laska._ Ha! what now?
_Pestalutz._ Behind you! 'Twas one of Satan's imps, that grinned and threatened you For your most impudent hope to cheat his master! 130
_Laska._ Pshaw! What! you think 'tis fear that makes me leave you?
_Pestalutz._ Is't not enough to play the knave to others, But thou must lie to thine own heart?
_Laska._ Friend! Laska will be found at his own post, Watching elsewhere for the king's interest. 135 There's a rank plot that Laska must hunt down, 'Twixt Bethlen and Glycine!
_Pestalutz._ What! the girl Whom Laska saw the war-wolf tear in pieces?
_Laska._ Well! Take my arms! Hark! should your javelin fail you, These points are tipt with venom. [_Seeing GLYCINE without._ By Heaven! Glycine! 140 Now as you love the king, help me to seize her!
[_They run out after GLYCINE. Enter BATHORY from the cavern._
_Old Bathory._ Rest, lady, rest! I feel in every sinew A young man's strength returning! Which way went they? The shriek came thence. [_Enter GLYCINE._
_Glycine._ Ha! weapons here? Then, Bethlen, thy Glycine 145 Will die with thee or save thee!
[_She seizes them and rushes out. BATHORY following. Music, and_ Peasants _with hunting spears cross the stage, singing chorally._
CHORAL SONG
Up, up! ye dames, ye lasses gay! To the meadows trip away. 'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn, And scare the small birds from the corn. 150 Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
Leave the hearth and leave the house 155 To the cricket and the mouse: Find grannam out a sunny seat, With babe and lambkin at her feet. Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go 160 With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
[_Exeunt_ Huntsmen.
_Re-enter BATHORY, BETHLEN, and GLYCINE._
_Glycine._ And now once more a woman----
_Bethlen._ Was it then That timid eye, was it those maiden hands That sped the shaft, which saved me and avenged me? 165
_Old Bathory._ 'Twas as a vision blazoned on a cloud By lightning, shaped into a passionate scheme Of life and death! I saw the traitor, Laska, Stoop and snatch up the javelin of his comrade; The point was at your back, when her shaft reached him. 170 The coward turned, and at the self-same instant The braver villain fell beneath your sword.
[_Enter ZAPOLYA._
_Zapolya._ Bethlen! my child! and safe too!
_Bethlen._ Mother! Queen. Royal Zapolya! name me Andreas! Nor blame thy son, if being a king, he yet 175 Hath made his own arm minister of his justice. So do the gods who launch the thunderbolt!
_Zapolya._ O Raab Kiuprili! Friend! Protector! Guide! In vain we trenched the altar round with waters, A flash from Heaven hath touched the hidden incense-- 180
_Bethlen._ And that majestic form that stood beside thee Was Raab Kiuprili!
_Zapolya._ It was Raab Kiuprili; As sure as thou art Andreas, and the king.
_Old Bathory._ Hail Andreas! hail my king!
_Andreas._ Stop, thou revered one, Lest we offend the jealous destinies 185 By shouts ere victory. Deem it then thy duty To pay this homage, when 'tis mine to claim it.
_Glycine._ Accept thine hand-maid's service! [_Kneeling._
_Zapolya._ Raise her, son! O raise her to thine arms! she saved thy life, And through her love for thee, she saved thy mother's! 190 Hereafter thou shalt know, that this dear maid Hath other and hereditary claims Upon thy heart, and with Heaven guarded instinct But carried on the work her sire began!
_Andreas._ Dear maid! more dear thou canst not be! the rest 195 Shall make my love religion. Haste we hence: For as I reached the skirts of this high forest, I heard the noise and uproar of the chase, Doubling its echoes from the mountain foot.
_Glycine._ Hark! sure the hunt approaches.
[_Horn without, and afterwards distant thunder._
_Zapolya._ O Kiuprili! 200
_Old Bathory._ The demon-hunters of the middle air Are in full cry, and scare with arrowy fire The guilty! Hark! now here, now there, a horn Swells singly with irregular blast! the tempest Has scattered them! [_Horns at a distance._
_Zapolya._ O Heavens! where stays Kiuprili? 205
_Old Bathory._ The wood will be surrounded! leave me here.
_Andreas._ My mother! let me see thee once in safety. I too will hasten back, with lightning's speed, To seek the hero!
_Old Bathory._ Haste! my life upon it I'll guide him safe.
_Andreas (thunder)._ Ha! what a crash was there! 210 Heaven seems to claim a mightier criminal Than yon vile subaltern.
_Zapolya._ Your behest, High powers, Lo, I obey! To the appointed spirit, That hath so long kept watch round this drear cavern, In fervent faith, Kiuprili, I entrust thee! 215
[_Exeunt ZAPOLYA, ANDREAS, and GLYCINE._
_Old Bathory._ Yon bleeding corse may work us mischief still: Once seen, 'twill rouse alarm and crowd the hunt From all parts towards this spot. Stript of its armour, I'll drag it hither.
[_Exit BATHORY. Several_ Hunters _cross the Stage. Enter KIUPRILI._
_Raab Kiuprili (throwing off his disguise)._ Since Heaven alone can save me, Heaven alone 220 Shall be my trust. Haste! haste! Zapolya, flee! Gone! Seized perhaps? Oh no, let me not perish Despairing of Heaven's justice! Faint, disarmed, Each sinew powerless; senseless rock, sustain me! Thou art parcel of my native land! A sword! 225 Ha! and my sword! Zapolya hath escaped, The murderers are baffled, and there lives An Andreas to avenge Kiuprili's fall!-- There was a time, when this dear sword did flash As dreadful as the storm-fire from mine arm-- 230 I can scarce raise it now--yet come, fell tyrant! And bring with thee my shame and bitter anguish, To end his work and thine! Kiuprili now Can take the death-blow as a soldier should.
[_Re-enter BATHORY, with the dead body of PESTALUTZ._
_Old Bathory._ Poor tool and victim of another's guilt! 235 Thou follow'st heavily: a reluctant weight! Good truth, it is an undeservéd honour That in Zapolya and Kiuprili's cave A wretch like thee should find a burial-place. 'Tis he!--In Andreas' and Zapolya's name 240 Follow me, reverend form! Thou need'st not speak, For thou canst be no other than Kiuprili.
_Kiuprili._ And are they safe? [_Noise without._
_Old Bathory._ Conceal yourself, my lord! I will mislead them!
_Kiuprili._ Is Zapolya safe?
_Old Bathory._ I doubt it not; but haste, haste, I conjure you! [_Enter CASIMIR._ 245
_Casimir._ Monster! Thou shalt not now escape me!
_Old Bathory._ Stop, lord Casimir! It is no monster.
_Casimir._ Art thou too a traitor? Is this the place where Emerick's murderers lurk? Say where is he that, tricked in this disguise, 250 First lured me on, then scared my dastard followers? Thou must have seen him. Say where is th' assassin?
_Old Bathory._ There lies the assassin! slain by that same sword That was descending on his curst employer, When entering thou beheld'st Sarolta rescued! 255
_Casimir._ Strange providence! what then was he who fled me? Thy looks speak fearful things! Whither, old man! Would thy hand point me?
_Old Bathory._ Casimir, to thy father.
_Casimir._ The curse! the curse! Open and swallow me, Unsteady earth! Fall, dizzy rocks! and hide me! 260
_Old Bathory._ Speak, speak, my lord!
_Kiuprili._ Bid him fulfil his work!
_Casimir._ Thou art Heaven's immediate minister, dread spirit! O for sweet mercy, take some other form, And save me from perdition and despair!
_Old Bathory._ He lives!
_Casimir._ Lives! A father's curse can never die! 265
_Kiuprili._ O Casimir! Casimir!
_Old Bathory._ Look! he doth forgive you! Hark! 'tis the tyrant's voice. [_EMERICK'S voice without._
_Casimir._ I kneel, I kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me again to call thee father!
_Kiuprili._ Son, I forgive thee! Take thy father's sword; When thou shalt lift it in thy country's cause, In that same instant doth thy father bless thee! 275
[_Enter EMERICK._
_Emerick._ Fools! Cowards! follow--or by Hell I'll make you Find reason to fear Emerick, more than all The mummer-fiends that ever masqueraded As gods or wood-nymphs!-- Ha! 'tis done then! Our necessary villain hath proved faithful, 280 And there lies Casimir, and our last fears! Well!--Aye, well!---- And is it not well? For though grafted on us, And filled too with our sap, the deadly power Of the parent poison-tree lurked in its fibres: 285 There was too much of Raab Kiuprili in him: The old enemy looked at me in his face, E'en when his words did flatter me with duty.
_Enter CASIMIR and BATHORY._
_Old Bathory (aside)._ This way they come!
_Casimir (aside)._ Hold them in check awhile, The path is narrow! Rudolph will assist thee. 290
_Emerick (aside)._ And ere I ring the alarum of my sorrow, I'll scan that face once more, and murmur--Here Lies Casimir, the last of the Kiuprilis! Hell! 'tis Pestalutz!
_Casimir (coming forward)._ Yes, thou ingrate Emerick! 'Tis Pestalutz! 'tis thy trusty murderer! 295 To quell thee more, see Raab Kiuprili's sword!
_Emerick._ Curses on it and thee! Think'st thou that petty omen Dare whisper fear to Emerick's destiny? Ho! Treason! Treason!
_Casimir._ Then have at thee, tyrant!
[_They fight. EMERICK falls._
_Emerick._ Betrayed and baffled 300 By mine own tool!----Oh! [_Dies._
_Casimir._ Hear, hear, my Father! Thou should'st have witnessed thine own deed. O Father, Wake from that envious swoon! The tyrant's fallen! Thy sword hath conquered! As I lifted it Thy blessing did indeed descend upon me; 305 Dislodging the dread curse. It flew forth from me And lighted on the tyrant!
_Enter RUDOLPH, BATHORY, and_ Attendants.
_Rudolph and Bathory._ Friends! friends to Casimir!
_Casimir._ Rejoice, Illyrians! the usurper's fallen.
_Rudolph._ So perish tyrants! so end usurpation! 310
_Casimir._ Bear hence the body, and move slowly on! One moment---- Devoted to a joy, that bears no witness, I follow you, and we will greet our countrymen With the two best and fullest gifts of heaven-- 315 A tyrant fallen, a patriot chief restored!
[_CASIMIR enters the Cavern._
SCENE.--_Chamber in CASIMIR'S Castle._ Confederates _discovered._
_First Confederate._ It cannot but succeed, friends. From this palace E'en to the wood, our messengers are posted With such short interspace, that fast as sound Can travel to us, we shall learn the event! 320
_Enter another Confederate._
What tidings from Temeswar?
_Second Confederate._ With one voice Th' assembled chieftains have deposed the tyrant: He is proclaimed the public enemy, And the protection of the law withdrawn.
_First Confederate._ Just doom for him, who governs without law! 325 Is it known on whom the sov'reignty will fall?
_Second Confederate._ Nothing is yet decided: but report Points to Lord Casimir. The grateful memory Of his renownéd father----
_Enter SAROLTA._
Hail to Sarolta!
_Sarolta._ Confederate friends! I bring to you a joy 330 Worthy your noble cause! Kiuprili lives, And from his obscure exile, hath returned To bless our country. More and greater tidings Might I disclose; but that a woman's voice Would mar the wondrous tale. Wait we for him, 335 The partner of the glory--Raab Kiuprili; For he alone is worthy to announce it.
[_Shouts of_ 'Kiuprili, Kiuprili,' _and_ 'The Tyrant's fallen,' _without. Enter KIUPRILI, CASIMIR, RUDOLPH, BATHORY, and_ Attendants.
_Raab Kiuprili._ Spare yet your joy, my friends! A higher waits you: Behold, your Queen!
[_Enter ZAPOLYA and ANDREAS royally attired, with GLYCINE._
_Confederate._ Comes she from heaven to bless us?
_Other Confederates._ It is! it is!
_Zapolya._ Heaven's work of grace is full! 340 Kiuprili, thou art safe!
_Raab Kiuprili._ Royal Zapolya! To the heavenly powers, pay we our duty first; Who not alone preserved thee, but for thee And for our country, the one precious branch Of Andreas' royal house. O countrymen, 345 Behold your King! And thank our country's genius, That the same means which have preserved our sovereign, Have likewise reared him worthier of the throne By virtue than by birth. The undoubted proofs Pledged by his royal mother, and this old man, 350 (Whose name henceforth be dear to all Illyrians) We haste to lay before the assembled council.
_All._ Hail, Andreas! Hail, Illyria's rightful king!
_Andreas._ Supported thus, O friends! 'twere cowardice Unworthy of a royal birth, to shrink 355 From the appointed charge. Yet, while we wait The awful sanction of convened Illyria, In this brief while, O let me feel myself The child, the friend, the debtor!--Heroic mother!-- But what can breath add to that sacred name? 360 Kiuprili! gift of Providence, to teach us That loyalty is but the public form Of the sublimest friendship, let my youth Climb round thee, as the vine around its elm: Thou my support and I thy faithful fruitage. 365 My heart is full, and these poor words express not, They are but an art to check its over-swelling. Bathory! shrink not from my filial arms! Now, and from henceforth thou shalt not forbid me To call thee father! And dare I forget 370 The powerful intercession of thy virtue, Lady Sarolta? Still acknowledge me Thy faithful soldier!--But what invocation Shall my full soul address to thee, Glycine? Thou sword that leap'dst forth from a bed of roses: 375 Thou falcon-hearted dove?
_Zapolya._ Hear that from me, son! For ere she lived, her father saved thy life, Thine, and thy fugitive mother's!
_Casimir._ Chef Ragozzi! O shame upon my head! I would have given her To a base slave!
_Zapolya._ Heaven overruled thy purpose, 380 And sent an angel to thy house to guard her! Thou precious bark! freighted with all our treasures! The sports of tempests, and yet ne'er the victim, How many may claim salvage in thee! Take her, son! A queen that brings with her a richer dowry 385 Than orient kings can give!
_Sarolta._ A banquet waits!-- On this auspicious day, for some few hours I claim to be your hostess. Scenes so awful With flashing light, force wisdom on us all! E'en women at the distaff hence may see, 390 That bad men may rebel, but ne'er be free; May whisper, when the waves of faction foam, None love their country, but who love their home: For freedom can with those alone abide, Who wear the golden chain, with honest pride, 395 Of love and duty, at their own fire-side: While mad ambition ever doth caress Its own sure fate, in its own restlessness!
END OF ZAPOLYA.
LINENOTES:
[After 16] [_They take hands, &c._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[37] _Lord Rudolph._ And his main policy too. 1817.
[44-55]
_Casimir._ Mark too, the edges of yon lurid mass! Restless and vext, as if some angering hand, With fitful, tetchy snatch, unrolled and pluck'd The jetting ringlets of the vaporous fleece! These are sure signs of conflict nigh at hand, And elemental war!
1817-1851.
[Note.--The text of 1829, 1831 is inscribed in Notebook 20 (1808-1825).]
[47] Which, as Poets tell us, the Sea-Shepherds tend, Notebook 20.
[48] _my_ 1828, 1829.
[57]
Neighs at the gate. [_A volley of Trumpets._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 68: [_Exit RUDOLPH and manet CASIMIR._
[95-6]
That but oppressed me hitherto, now scares me. You will ken Bethlen?
_Glycine._ O at farthest distance, Yea, oft where Light's own courier-beam exhausted Drops at the threshold, and forgets its message, A something round me of a wider reach Feels his approach, and trembles back to tell me.
MS. correction (in the margin of Zapolya 1817) inserted in text of P. and D. W. 1877, iv. pp. 270-71.
[After 99] [_ZAPOLYA, who had been gazing affectionately after GLYCINE, starts at BATHORY'S voice._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 128] _Pestalutz (affecting to start)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[128] _Laska (in affright)._ Ha, &c. 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 134] _Laska (pompously)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[137] _Pestalutz (with a sneer)._ What! &c. 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 139] _Laska (throwing down a bow and arrows)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[139] Take] there's 1817, 1828, 1829.
[140]
These points are tipt with venom.
[_Starts and sees GLYCINE without._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 141] [_They run . . . GLYCINE, and she shrieks without: then enter, &c._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[144]
The shriek came thence. [_Clash of swords, and BETHLEN'S voice heard from behind the scenes; GLYCINE enters alarmed; then, as seeing LASKA'S bow and arrows._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 146] [_She seizes . . . following her. Lively and irregular music, and_ Peasants _with hunting spears, &c._ 1817, 1828, 1829.]
[After 162] _Re-enter, as the_ Huntsmen _pass off, BATHORY, &c._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 163] _Glycine (leaning on Bethlen)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 166] _Bathory (to Bethlen exultingly)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Linenote _Before_ 181: _Bethlen (hastily)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[184]
_Bathory._ Hail . . . my king! [_Triumphantly._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[205]
Has scattered them! [_Horns heard as from different places at a distance._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[207] _thee_ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 209] [_Thunder again._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 211] [_Pointing without to the body of PESTALUTZ._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[213] Lo] Low _1828_, _1829_.]
[After 215] [_Exeunt . . . GLYCINE, ANDREAS, having in haste dropt his sword. Manet BATHORY._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[216] Yon bleeding corse (_pointing to Pestalutz's body_) 1817, 1828, 1829.
[219]
I'll drag it hither. [_Exit BATHORY. After awhile several_ Hunters _cross the stage as scattered. Some time after, enter KIUPRILI in his disguise, fainting with fatigue, and as pursued._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[221]
Shall be my trust. [_Then speaking as to ZAPOLYA in the Cavern._ Haste! . . . flee!
[_He enters the Cavern, and then returns in alarm._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[225]
_Thou_ art parcel of my native land. [_Then observing the sword._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[226] _my_ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[230] arm] arms 1817, 1828, 1829.
[232] bitter] bitterer 1817.
[233] _his_ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 239] [_Then observing KIUPRILI._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 245] [_As he retires, in rushes CASIMIR._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[246] _Casimir (entering)._ Monster! 1817, 1828, 1829.
[253] _Bathory._ There (_pointing to the body of PESTALUTZ_) 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 256] [_BATHORY points to the Cavern, whence KIUPRILI advances._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 259] _Casimir (discovering Kiuprili)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before_ 261] _Bathory (to Kiuprili)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[261] _Kiuprili (holds out the sword to Bathory)._ Bid him, &c. 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 266] _Kiuprili (in a tone of pity)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 275] [_KIUPRILI and CASIMIR embrace; they all retire to the Cavern supporting KIUPRILI. CASIMIR as by accident drops his robe, and BATHORY throws it over the body of PESTALUTZ._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 276] _Emerick (entering)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[279]
As gods or wood-nymphs!-- [_Then sees the body of PESTALUTZ, covered by CASIMIR'S cloak._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[281] _last_ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[283] _not_ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 288] [_As EMERICK moves towards the body, enter from the Cavern CASIMIR and BATHORY._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 289] _Bathory (pointing to where the noise is, and aside to Casimir)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[289] _Casimir (aside to Bathory)._ Hold, &c. 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 291] _Emerick (aside, not perceiving Casimir and Bathory, and looking at the dead body)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 293] [_Uncovers the face, and starts._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[301] _Casimir (triumphantly)._ Hear, &c. 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 308] _Rudolph and Bathory (entering)._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 316] [_Exeunt CASIMIR into the Cavern. The rest on the opposite side._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[Before 317] _Scene changes to a splendid Chamber, &c._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 337] [_Shouts . . . without. Then enter KIUPRILI . . ._ Attendants, _after the clamour has subsided._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[339]
Behold, your Queen! [_Enter from opposite side, ZAPOLYA, &c._
1817, 1828, 1829.
[365] _my . . . I_ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[377] _thy_ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[381] And sent an angel (_pointing to SAROLTA_) to thy, &c. 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 382] [_To ANDREAS._ 1817, 1828, 1829.
[384] How many may claim salvage in thee! (_Pointing to GLYCINE._) Take, &c. 1817, 1828, 1829.
[After 398] FINIS. 1817.
EPIGRAMS[951:1]
1
EPIGRAM
AN APOLOGY FOR SPENCERS
Said William to Edmund I can't guess the reason Why Spencers abound in this bleak wintry season. Quoth Edmund to William, I perceive you're no Solon-- Men may purchase a half-coat when they cannot a whole-one. BRISTOLIENSIS.
March 21, 1796. First published in _The Watchman_, No. IV. March 25, 1796. First collected _Poems_, 1907.
2
EPIGRAM
ON A LATE MARRIAGE BETWEEN AN OLD MAID AND FRENCH PETIT MAÎTRE
Tho' Miss ----'s match is a subject of mirth, She considered the matter full well, And wisely preferred leading one ape on earth To perhaps a whole dozen in hell.
First published in _The Watchman_, No. V, April 2, 1796. Included in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 45. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 368.
3
EPIGRAM
ON AN AMOROUS DOCTOR
From Rufa's eye sly Cupid shot his dart And left it sticking in Sangrado's heart. No quiet from that moment has he known, And peaceful sleep has from his eyelids flown. And opium's force, and what is more, alack! His own orations cannot bring it back. In short, unless she pities his afflictions, Despair will make him take his _own prescriptions_.
First published in _The Watchman_, No. V, April 2, 1796. Included in _Lit. Rem._, i. 45. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 368.
4
EPIGRAM
Of smart pretty Fellows in Bristol are numbers, some Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome; And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous, They affect to believe neither God or _old Nicholas_!
First published in article 'To Caius Gracchus' (signed S. T. Coleridge) in _The Watchman_, No. V, p. 159. Reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, 1850, i. 164. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 368.
5
ON DEPUTY ----
By many a booby's vengeance bit I leave your haunts, ye sons of wit! And swear, by Heaven's blessed light, That Epigrams no more I'll write. Now hang that ***** for an ass, Thus to thrust in his idiot face, Which spite of oaths, if e'er I spy, I'll write an Epigram--or die. LABERIUS.
First published in _Morning Post_, Jan. 2, 1798. First collected, _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 369.
6
[EPIGRAM]
To be ruled like a Frenchman the Briton is loth, Yet in truth a _direct-tory_ governs them both.
1798. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 166.
7
ON MR. ROSS, USUALLY COGNOMINATED _NOSY_[953:1]
I fancy whenever I spy Nosy Ross, More great than a Lion is Rhy nose ros.
1799. Now first published from an MS.
8
[EPIGRAM]
Bob now resolves on marriage schemes to trample, And now he'll have a wife all in a trice. Must I advise--Pursue thy dad's example And marry not.--There, heed now my advice.
Imitated from Lessing's 'Bald willst du, Trill, und bald willst du dich nicht beweiben.' _Sinngedicht_ No. 93. Now first published from an MS.
9
[EPIGRAM]
Say what you will, Ingenious Youth! You'll find me neither Dupe nor Dunce: Once you deceived me--only once, 'Twas then when you told me the Truth.
1799. First published from an MS. in 1893. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 45. _An einen Lügner._ 'Du magst so oft, so fein, als dir nur möglich, lügen.'
10
[ANOTHER VERSION]
If the guilt of all lying consists in deceit, Lie on--'tis your duty, sweet youth! For believe me, then only we find you a cheat When you cunningly tell us the truth.
1800. First published in _Annual Anthology_, 1800. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 163.
11
ON AN INSIGNIFICANT[954:1]
No doleful faces here, no sighing-- Here rots a thing that _won_ by dying: 'Tis Cypher lies beneath this crust-- Whom Death _created_ into dust.
1799. First published from an MS. in 1893. The two last lines were printed for the first time in 1834. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 52. _Grabschrift des Nitulus._
'Hier modert Nitulus, jungfräuliches Gesichts, Der durch den Tod gewann: er wurde Staub aus Nichts.'
12
[EPIGRAM]
There comes from old Avaro's grave A deadly stench--why, sure they have Immured his _soul_ within his grave?
1799. First published in _Keepsake_, 1829, p. 122. Included in _Lit. Rem._, i. 46. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 27. _Auf Lukrins Grab._ 'Welch tötender Gestank hier, wo Lukrin begraben.'
13
ON A SLANDERER
From yonder tomb of recent date, There comes a strange mephitic blast. Here lies--Ha! Backbite, you at last-- 'Tis he indeed: and sure as fate, They buried him in overhaste-- Into the earth he has been cast, And in this grave, Before the man had breathed his last.
1799. First published from an MS. in 1893. An expansion of [Epigram] No. 12.
14
LINES IN A GERMAN STUDENT'S ALBUM
We both attended the same College, Where sheets of paper we did blur many, And now we're going to sport our knowledge, In England I, and you in Germany.
First published in Carlyon's _Early Years, &c._, 1856, i. 68. First collected _P. and D. W._, ii. 374.
15
[HIPPONA]
Hippona lets no silly flush Disturb her cheek, nought makes her blush. Whate'er obscenities you say, She nods and titters frank and gay. Oh Shame, awake one honest flush For this,--that nothing makes her blush.
First published in _Morning Post_, (?) Aug. 29, 1799. Included in _An. Anth._, 1800, and in _Essays, &c._, iii. 971. First collected _P. and D. W._, ii. 164. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 10. _Auf Lucinden._ 'Sie hat viel Welt, die muntere Lucinde.'
16
ON A READER OF HIS OWN VERSES
Hoarse Mævius reads his hobbling verse To all and at all times, And deems them both divinely smooth, His voice as well as rhymes.
But folks say, Mævius is no ass! But Mævius makes it clear That he's a monster of an ass, An ass without an ear.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 7, 1799. Included in _An. Anth._, 1800; _Keepsake_, 1829, p. 122; _Lit. Rem._, i. 49. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 162. Adapted from Wernicke's _Epigrams_, Bk. IX, No. 42. _An einen gewissen Pritschmeister._ 'Umsonst dass jedermann, dieweil du manches Blatt.'
17
ON A REPORT OF A MINISTER'S DEATH WRITTEN IN GERMANY
Last Monday all the Papers said That Mr. ---- was dead; Why, then, what said the City? The tenth part sadly shook their head, And shaking sigh'd and sighing said, 'Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!'
But when the said report was found A rumour wholly without ground, Why, then, what said the city? The other _nine_ parts shook their head, Repeating what the tenth had said, 'Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!'
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 18, 1799. Included in _Keepsake_, 1829, p. 122; _Lit. Rem._, i. 46. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 166. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 29. _Auf den falschen Ruf von Nigrins Tode._ 'Es sagte, sonder alle Gnade, die ganze Stadt Nigrinen tot.'
LINENOTES:
[2] That Mr. ---- was surely dead M. P.
[3] Why] Ah M. P.
[4] their] the M. P.
[9] Why] Ah M. P.
[10] their] the M. P.
18
[DEAR BROTHER JEM]
Jem writes his verses with more speed Than the printer's boy can set 'em; Quite as fast as we can read, And only not so fast as we forget 'em.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1799. Included in _An. Anth._, 1800; _Essays, &c._, 1850, iii. 974. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 164.
19
JOB'S LUCK
Sly Beelzebub took all occasions To try Job's constancy and patience; He took his honours, took his health, He took his children, took his wealth, His camels, horses, asses, cows-- And the _sly_ Devil did not take his spouse.
But Heaven that brings out good from evil, And loves to disappoint the Devil, Had predetermined to restore _Twofold_ all Job had before, His children, camels, horses, cows,-- _Short-sighted_ Devil, not to take his _spouse_!
1799. First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 26, 1801. Included in _Annual Register_, 1827, and _Keepsake_, 1829. First collected 1834.
The first stanza of 'Job's Luck' is adapted from Fr. v. Logan's _Sinngedicht_, _Hiob's Weib_. Lessing's edition, Bk. III, No. 90:--
'Als der Satan ging von Hiob, ist sein Anwalt dennoch blieben, Hiobs Weib; er hätte nimmer einen bessern aufgetrieben.'
The second stanza is adapted from Fr. v. Logan's _Sinngedicht_, _Auf den Hornutus_, _ibid._ Bk. I, No. 68:--
'Hornutus las, was Gott Job habe weggenommen, Sei doppelt ihm hernach zu Hause wiederkommen: Wie gut, sprach er, war dies, dass Gott sein Weib nicht nahm, Auf dass Job ihrer zwei für eine nicht bekam!'
The original source is a Latin epigram by John Owen (_Audoenus Oxoniensis_), Bk. III, No. 198. See _N. and Q._, 1st Series, ii. 516.
LINENOTES:
Title] The Devil Outwitted M. P.
[3] honours] honour M. P.
20
ON THE SICKNESS OF A GREAT MINISTER
Pluto commanded death to take away Billy--Death made pretences to obey, And only made pretences, for he shot A headless dart that struck nor wounded not. The ghaunt Economist who (tho' my grandam Thinks otherwise) ne'er shoots his darts at random Mutter'd, 'What? put my Billy in arrest? Upon my life that were a pretty jest! So flat a thing of Death shall ne'er be said or sung-- No! Ministers and Quacks, them take I not so young.'
First, published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 1, 1799. Now reprinted for the first time. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 119. _Auf die Genesung einer Buhlerin._ 'Dem Tode wurde jüngst von Pluto anbefohlen.'
21
[TO A VIRTUOUS OECONOMIST]
WERNICKE
You're careful o'er your wealth 'tis true: Yet so that of your plenteous store The needy takes and blesses you, For you hate Poverty, but not the Poor.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 28, 1799. Now reprinted for the first time. Adapted from Wernicke's _Epigrams_ (Bk. I, No. 49). _An den sparsamen Celidon._
'Du liebst zwar Geld und Gut, doch so dass dein Erbarmen Der Arme fühlt.'
22
[L'ENFANT PRODIGUE]
Jack drinks fine wines, wears modish clothing, But prithee where lies Jack's estate? In Algebra for there I found of late A quantity call'd less than nothing.
First published in _Morning Post_, Nov. 16, 1799. Included in An. Anth., 1800. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 163.
23
ON SIR RUBICUND NASO
A COURT ALDERMAN AND WHISPERER OF SECRETS
Speak out, Sir! you're safe, for so ruddy your nose That, talk where you will, 'tis all _under the Rose_.
First published in _Morning Post_, Dec. 7, 1799. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 975. First collected _Poems_, 1907. Compare Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 35. _Auf eine lange Nase._
24
TO MR. PYE
On his _Carmen Seculare_ (a title which has by various persons who have heard it, been thus translated, 'A Poem _an age long_').
Your poem must _eternal_ be, _Eternal!_ it can't fail, For 'tis _incomprehensible_, And without head or tail!
First published in _Morning Post_, Jan. 24, 1800. Included in _Keepsake_, 1829, p. 277. First collected _P. and D. W._, ii. 161.
25
[NINETY-EIGHT]
O would the Baptist come again And preach aloud with might and main Repentance to our viperous race! But should this miracle take place, I hope, ere Irish ground he treads, He'll lay in a good stock of heads!
First published in _An. Anth._, 1800. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 162. Adapted from Friedrich von Logau's _Sinngedicht_, _Johannes der Täufer_, Lessing's edition, Bk. I, No. 30:--
'Nicht recht! nicht recht! würd' immer schrein Johannes, sollt' er wieder sein. Doch käm er, riet' ich, dass er dächte, Wie viel er Köpf' in Vorrat brächte.'
26
OCCASIONED BY THE FORMER
I hold of all our viperous race The greedy creeping things in place Most vile, most venomous; and then The United Irishmen! To come on earth should John determine, Imprimis, we'll excuse his sermon. Without a word the good old Dervis Might work incalculable service, At once from tyranny and riot Save laws, lives, liberties and moneys, If sticking to his ancient diet He'd but eat up our locusts and _wild honeys_!
First published in _An. Anth._, 1800. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 162.
LINENOTES:
[After 4] Now by miraculous deeds to stir them MS.
27
[A LIAR BY PROFESSION]
As Dick and I at Charing Cross were walking, Whom should we see on t'other side pass by But Informator with a stranger talking, So I exclaim'd, 'Lord, what a lie!' Quoth Dick--'What, can you hear him?' 'Hear him! stuff! I saw him open his mouth--an't that enough?'
First published in _An. Anth._, 1800. First collected _P. and D. W._, ii. 163. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 142. _Auf den Ley._ 'Der gute Mann, den Ley beiseite dort gezogen!'
28
TO A PROUD PARENT
Thy babes ne'er greet thee with the father's name; 'My Lud!' they lisp. Now whence can this arise? Perhaps their mother feels an honest shame And will not teach her infant to tell lies.
First published in _An. Anth._, 1800, included in _Essays, &c._, ii. 997. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 164. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 17. _An den Doktor Sp * *._ 'Dein Söhnchen lässt dich nie den Namen Vater hören.'
29
RUFA
Thy lap-dog, Rufa, is a dainty beast, It don't surprise me in the least To see thee lick so dainty clean a beast. But that so dainty clean a beast licks thee, Yes--that surprises me.
First published in _An. Anth._, 1800. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 164. Adapted from Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 66. _An die Dorilis._ 'Dein Hündchen, Dorilis, ist zärtlich, tändelnd, rein.'
30
ON A VOLUNTEER SINGER
Swans sing before they die--'twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.
First published in _An. Anth._, 1800. Included in _Keepsake_, 1829, p. 277; _Essays, &c._, 1850, ii. 988. First collected in 1834.
31
OCCASIONED BY THE LAST
A JOKE (cries Jack) without a sting-- _Post obitum_ can no man sing. And true, if Jack don't mend his manners And quit the atheistic banners, _Post obitum_ will Jack run foul Of such _folks_ as can only _howl_.
First published in _An. Anth._, 1800. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 988. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii, 165.
LINENOTES:
[1] joke] jest Essays, &c.
[5] _folks_] sparks Essays, &c.
32
EPITAPH ON MAJOR DIEMAN
Know thou who walks't by, Man! that wrapp'd up in lead, man, What once was a Dieman, now lies here a dead man. Alive a proud MAJOR! but ah me! of our poor all, The soul having gone, he is now merely Corporal.
? 1800. Now first published from MS.
33
ON THE ABOVE
As long as ere the life-blood's running, Say, what can stop a Punster's punning? He dares bepun even thee, O Death! To _pun_ish him, Stop thou his breath.
? 1800. Now first published from MS.
34
EPITAPH
ON A BAD MAN
Of him that in this gorgeous tomb doth lie, This sad brief tale is all that Truth can give-- He lived like one who never thought to die, He died like one who dared not hope to live![961:1]
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 22, 1801. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 168.
ANOTHER VERSION
Under this stone does Walter Harcourt lie, Who valued nought that God or man could give; He lived as if he never thought to die; He died as if he dared not hope to live![962:1]
[The name Walter Harcourt has been supplied by the editor.--S. C.]
_OBIIT_ SATURDAY, SEPT. 10, 1830.
W. H. _EHEU_!
Beneath this stone does William Hazlitt lie, Thankless of all that God or man could give. He lived like one who never thought to die, He died like one who dared not hope to live.
35
TO A CERTAIN MODERN NARCISSUS
Do call, dear Jess, whene'er my way you come; My looking-glass will always be at home.
First published in _Morning Post_, Dec. 16, 1801. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 978. First collected in 1893.
36
TO A CRITIC
WHO EXTRACTED A PASSAGE FROM A POEM WITHOUT ADDING A WORD RESPECTING THE CONTEXT, AND THEN DERIDED IT AS UNINTELLIGIBLE.
Most candid critic, what if I, By way of joke, pull out your eye, And holding up the fragment, cry, 'Ha! ha! that men such fools should be! Behold this shapeless Dab!--and he Who own'd it, fancied it could _see_!' The joke were mighty analytic, But should you like it, candid critic?
First published in _Morning Post_, Dec. 16, 1801: included in _Keepsake_, 1829, and in _Essays, &c._, iii. 977-8. First collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 167.
37
ALWAYS AUDIBLE
Pass under Jack's window at twelve at night You'll hear him still--he's roaring! Pass under Jack's window at twelve at noon, You'll hear him still--he's snoring!
First published in _Morning Post_, Dec. 19, 1801. First collected 1893.
38
PONDERE NON NUMERO
Friends should be _weigh'd_, not _told_; who boasts to have won A _multitude_ of friends, he ne'er had _one_.
First published in _Morning Post_, Dec. 26, 1801. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 978. First collected in 1893. Adapted from Friedrich von Logan's _Sinngedicht_ (Lessing's edition, Bk. II, No. 65).
'Freunde muss man sich erwählen Nur nach Wägen, nicht nach Zählen.'
Cf. also Logan, Book II, No. 30.
39
THE COMPLIMENT QUALIFIED
To wed a fool, I really cannot see Why thou, Eliza, art so very loth; Still on a par with other pairs you'd be, Since thou hast wit and sense enough for both.
First published in _Morning Post_, Dec. 26, 1801. First collected 1893. The title referred to an epigram published in _M. P._ Dec. 24, 1801.
40
[The twenty-one 'Original Epigrams' following were printed in the _Morning Post_, in September and October, 1802, over the signature '+ESTÊSE+'. They were included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 978-86, and were first collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 171-8.]
What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1802. Included in _Poetical Register_, 1802 (1803), ii. 253; and in _The Friend_, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809. Cf. Wernicke's _Beschaffenheit der Überschriften_ (i. e. The Nature of the epigram), Bk. I, No. 1.
'Dann lässt die Überschrift kein Leser aus der Acht, _Wenn in der Kürz' ihr Leib, die Seel' in Witz bestehet_.'
41
Charles, grave or merry, at no lie would stick, And taught at length his memory the same trick. Believing thus what he so oft repeats, He's brought the thing to such a pass, poor youth, That now himself and no one else he cheats, Save when unluckily he tells the truth.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1802. Included in _P. R._ 1802, ii. 317, and _The Friend_, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809.
42
An evil spirit's on thee, friend! of late! Ev'n from the hour thou cam'st to thy Estate. Thy mirth all gone, thy kindness, thy discretion, Th' estate hath prov'd to thee a most complete _possession_. Shame, shame, old friend! would'st thou be truly best, Be thy wealth's Lord, not slave! _possessor_ not _possess'd_.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1802. Included in _P. R._ 1802, ii. 317, and _The Friend_, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809.
43
Here lies the Devil--ask no other name. Well--but you mean Lord----? Hush! we mean the same.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1802. Included in _P. R._ 1802, ii. 363, and _The Friend_, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809.
44
TO ONE WHO PUBLISHED[964:1] IN PRINT WHAT HAD BEEN ENTRUSTED TO HIM BY MY FIRESIDE
Two things hast thou made known to half the nation, My secrets and my want of penetration: For O! far more than all which thou hast penn'd It shames me to have call'd a wretch, like thee, my friend!
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1802. Adapted from Wernicke's _Epigrams_ (Bk. I, No. 12), _An einen falschen Freund._ 'Weil ich mich dir vertraut, eh' ich dich recht gekennet.'
45
'_Obscuri sub luce maligna._'--VIRG.
Scarce any scandal, but has a handle; In truth most falsehoods have their rise; Truth first unlocks Pandora's box, And out there fly a host of lies. Malignant light, by cloudy night, To precipices it decoys one! One nectar-drop from Jove's own shop Will flavour a whole cup of poison.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1802.
46
Old Harpy jeers at castles in the air, And thanks his stars, whenever Edmund speaks, That such a dupe as that is not his heir-- But know, old Harpy! that these fancy freaks, Though vain and light, as floating gossamer, Always amuse, and sometimes mend the heart: A young man's idlest hopes are still his pleasures, And fetch a higher price in Wisdom's mart Than all the unenjoying Miser's treasures.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23, 1802. Included in _P. R._, 1802, ii. 868. Adapted from Wernicke, Bk. VII, No. 40, _An einen Geizhals_.
'Steht's einem Geizhals an auf Aelius zu schmähn Weil er vergebens hofft auf was nicht kann geschehn?'
47
TO A VAIN YOUNG LADY
Didst thou think less of thy dear self Far more would others think of thee! Sweet Anne! the knowledge of thy wealth Reduces thee to poverty. Boon Nature gave wit, beauty, health, On thee as on her darling pitching; Couldst thou forget thou'rt thus enrich'd That moment would'st thou become rich in! And wert thou not so self-bewitch'd, Sweet Anne! thou wert, indeed, bewitching.
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 23 1802. Included in _The Friend_, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809.
48
A HINT TO PREMIERS AND FIRST CONSULS
FROM AN OLD TRAGEDY, VIZ. AGATHA TO KING ARCHELAUS
Three truths should make thee often think and pause; The first is, that thou govern'st over men; The second, that thy power is from the laws; And this the third, that thou must die!--and then?--
First published in _Morning Post_, Sept. 27, 1802. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 992. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 162.
49
From me, Aurelia! you desired Your proper praise to know; Well! you're the FAIR by all admired-- Some twenty years ago.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 2, 1802.
50
FOR A HOUSE-DOG'S COLLAR
When thieves come, I bark: when gallants, I am still-- So perform both my Master's and Mistress's will.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 2, 1802. Included in _The Friend_ (title, 'For a French House-Dog's Collar'), No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809.
51
In vain I praise thee, Zoilus! In vain thou rail'st at me! Me no one credits, Zoilus! And no one credits thee!
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 2, 1802. Adapted from a Latin Epigram 'In Zoilum,' by George Buchanan:
'Frustra ego te laudo, frustra Me, Zoile, laedis; Nemo mihi credit, Zoile, nemo, tibi.'
52
EPITAPH ON A MERCENARY MISER
A poor benighted Pedlar knock'd One night at SELL-ALL'S door, The same who saved old SELL-ALL'S life-- 'Twas but the year before! And Sell-all rose and let him in, Not utterly unwilling, But first he bargain'd with the man, And took his only shilling! That night he dreamt he'd given away his pelf, Walk'd in his sleep, and sleeping hung himself! And now his soul and body rest below; And here they say his punishment and fate is To lie awake and every hour to know How many people read his tombstone GRATIS.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 9, 1802.
53
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN AUTHOR AND HIS FRIEND
_Author._ Come; your opinion of my manuscript!
_Friend._ Dear Joe! I would almost as soon be whipt.
_Author._ But I _will_ have it!
_Friend._ If it must be had--(_hesitating_) You write so ill, I scarce could read the hand--
_Author._ A mere evasion!
_Friend._ And you spell so bad, That what I read I could not understand.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802.
54
+Môrosophia+ OR WISDOM IN FOLLY
Tom Slothful talks, as slothful Tom beseems, What he shall shortly gain and what be doing, Then drops asleep, and so prolongs his dreams And thus _enjoys_ at once what half the world are _wooing_.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802.
55
Each Bond-street buck conceits, unhappy elf! He shews his _clothes_! Alas! he shews _himself_. O that they knew, these overdrest self-lovers, What hides the body oft the mind discovers.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802.
56
FROM AN OLD GERMAN POET
That France has put us oft to rout With _powder_, which ourselves found out; And laughs at us for fools in _print_, Of which our genius was the Mint; All this I easily admit, For we have genius, France has wit. But 'tis too bad, that blind and mad To Frenchmen's wives each travelling German goes, Expands his manly vigour by _their_ sides, Becomes the father of his country's foes And turns _their warriors_ oft to parricides.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802. Adapted from Wernicke's _Epigrams_ (Bk. VIII, No. 4), _Auf die Buhlerey der Deutschen in Frankreich_.
'Dass Frankreich uns pflegt zu verwunden Durch Pulver, welches wir erfunden.'
57
ON THE CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE,
THAT IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE THE SUN IS FEMININE, AND THE MOON IS MASCULINE
Our English poets, bad and good, agree To make the Sun a male, the Moon a she. He drives HIS dazzling diligence on high, In verse, as constantly as in the sky; And cheap as blackberries our sonnets shew The Moon, Heaven's huntress, with HER silver bow; By which they'd teach us, if I guess aright, Man rules the day, and woman rules the night. In Germany, they just reverse the thing; The Sun becomes a queen, the Moon a king. Now, that the Sun should represent the women, The Moon the men, to me seem'd mighty humming; And when I first read German, made me stare. Surely it is not that the wives are there As _common_ as the Sun, to lord and loon, And all their husbands _hornéd_ as the Moon.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802. Adapted from Wernicke's _Epigrams_ (Bk. VII, No. 15), _Die Sonne und der Mond_.
'Die Sonn' heisst die, der Mond heisst der In unsrer Sprach', und kommt daher, Weil meist die Fraun wie die _gemein_, Wie der _gehörnt_ wir Männer sein.'
58
SPOTS IN THE SUN
My father confessor is strict and holy, _Mi Fili_, still he cries, _peccare noli_. And yet how oft I find the pious man At Annette's door, the lovely courtesan! Her soul's deformity the good man wins And not her charms! he comes to hear her sins! Good father! I would fain not do thee wrong; But ah! I fear that they who oft and long Stand gazing at the sun, to count each spot, _Must_ sometimes find the sun itself too hot.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802.
59
When Surface talks of other people's worth He has the weakest memory on earth! And when his own good deeds he deigns to mention, His _memory_ still is no whit better grown; But then he makes up for it, all will own, By a prodigious talent of _invention_.
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802.
60
TO MY CANDLE
THE FAREWELL EPIGRAM
Good Candle, thou that with thy brother, Fire, Art my best friend and comforter at night, Just snuff'd, thou look'st as if thou didst desire That I on thee an epigram should write.
Dear Candle, burnt down to a finger-joint, Thy own flame is an epigram of sight; 'Tis _short_, and _pointed_, and _all over_ light, Yet gives _most_ light and burns the keenest at the point. _Valete et Plaudite._
First published in _Morning Post_, Oct. 11, 1802.
61
EPITAPH
ON HIMSELF
Here sleeps at length poor Col., and without screaming-- Who died as he had always lived, a-dreaming: Shot dead, while sleeping, by the Gout within-- Alone, and all unknown, at E'nbro' in an Inn.
'Composed in my sleep for myself while dreaming that I was dying' . . . at the Black Bull, Edinburgh, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 1803. Sent in a letter to Thomas Wedgwood, Sept. 16, 1803. First published Cottle's _Reminiscences_, 1848, p. 467. First collected in 1893.
62
THE TASTE OF THE TIMES
Some whim or fancy pleases every eye; For talents premature 'tis now the rage: In Music how great Handel would have smil'd T' have seen what crowds are raptur'd with a child! A Garrick we have had in little Betty-- And now we're told we have a Pitt in Petty! All must allow, since thus it is decreed, He is a very _petty_ Pitt indeed!
? 1806.
First printed (from an autograph MS.) by Mr. Bertram Dobell in the _Athenæum_, Jan. 9, 1904. Now collected for the first time.
63
ON PITT AND FOX
Britannia's boast, her glory and her pride, Pitt in his Country's service lived and died: At length resolv'd, like Pitt had done, to do, For once to serve his Country, Fox died too!
First published by Mr. B. Dobell in the _Athenæum_, Jan. 6, 1904. This epigram belongs to the same MS. source as the preceding, 'On the Taste of the Times,' and may have been the composition of S. T. C.
In _Fugitive Pieces_ (1806) (see _P. W._, 1898, i. 34) Byron published a reply 'for insertion in the _Morning Chronicle_ to the following illiberal impromptu on the death of Mr. Fox, which appeared in the _Morning Post_ [Sept. 26, 1806]:--
"Our Nation's Foes lament on Fox's death, But bless the hour when Pitt resigned his breath: These feelings wide let Sense and Truth unclue, We give the palm where Justice points its due."'
I have little doubt that this 'illiberal impromptu' was published by S. T. C., who had just returned from Italy and was once more writing for the press. It is possible that he veiled his initials in the line, 'Let Sense and Truth unClue.'
64
An excellent adage commands that we should Relate of the dead that alone which is good; But of the great Lord who here lies in lead We know nothing good but that he is dead.
First published in _The Friend_, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 986. First collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 178.
65
COMPARATIVE BREVITY OF GREEK AND ENGLISH
+chryson anêr heurôn elipe brochon, autar ho chryson hon lipen ouch heurôn hêpsen hon heure brochon.+
Jack finding gold left a rope on the ground: Bill missing his gold used the rope which he found.
First published in _Omniana_, 1812, ii. 123. First collected in _P. and D. W._ 1877, ii. 374.
66
EPIGRAM ON THE SECRECY OF A CERTAIN LADY
'She's secret as the grave, allow!' 'I do; I cannot doubt it. But 'tis a grave with tombstone on, That tells you all about it.'
First published in _The Courier_, Jan. 3, 1814. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 986. Now collected for the first time.
67
MOTTO
FOR A TRANSPARENCY DESIGNED BY WASHINGTON ALLSTON AND EXHIBITED AT BRISTOL ON 'PROCLAMATION DAY'--_June 29, 1814._
We've fought for Peace, and conquer'd it at last, The rav'ning vulture's leg seems fetter'd fast! Britons, rejoice! and yet be wary too: The chain may break, the clipt wing sprout anew.
First published in Cottle's _Early Recollections_, 1836, ii. 145. First collected 1890.
ANOTHER VERSION
We've conquered us a Peace, like lads true metalled: And Bankrupt _Nap's_ accounts seem all now settled.
_Ibid._ ii. 145. First collected 1893.
68
Money, I've heard a wise man say, Makes herself wings and flies away-- Ah! would she take it in her head To make a pair for me instead.
First published (from an MS.) in 1893.
69
MODERN CRITICS
No private grudge they need, no personal spite, The _viva sectio_ is its own delight! All enmity, all envy, they disclaim, Disinterested thieves of our good name-- Cool, sober murderers of their neighbours' fame!
First published in _Biog. Lit._, 1817, ii. 118. First collected in _P. W._, 1885, ii. 363.
70
WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM
Parry seeks the Polar ridge, Rhymes seeks S. T. Coleridge, Author of Works, whereof--tho' not in Dutch-- The public little knows--the publisher too much.
First published in 1834.
71
TO A LADY WHO REQUESTED ME TO WRITE A POEM UPON NOTHING
On nothing, Fanny, shall I write? Shall I not one charm of thee indite? The Muse is most unruly, And vows to sing of what's more free, More soft, more beautiful than thee;-- And that is _Nothing_, truly!
First published in the _Gazette of Fashion_, Feb. 22, 1822. Reprinted (by Mr. Bertram Dobell) in _N. and Q._, 10th Series, vol. vi, p. 145. Now collected for the first time.
72
SENTIMENTAL
The rose that blushes like the morn, Bedecks the valleys low; And so dost thou, sweet infant corn, My Angelina's toe.
But on the rose there grows a thorn That breeds disastrous woe; And so dost thou, remorseless corn, On Angelina's toe.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 59. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 366.
73
So Mr. Baker heart did pluck-- And did a-courting go! And Mr. Baker is a buck; For why? he _needs_ the _doe_.
First published in _Letters, Conversations, &c._, 1836, ii. 21. First collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 373.
74
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS
'A heavy wit shall hang at every lord,' So sung Dan Pope; but 'pon my word, He was a story-teller, Or else the times have altered quite; For wits, or heavy, now, or light Hang each by a bookseller. S. T. C.
First published in _News of Literature_, Dec. 10, 1825. See _Arch. Constable and his Literary Correspondents_, 1873, iii. 482. First collected in 1893.
75
THE ALTERNATIVE
This way or that, ye Powers above me! I of my grief were rid-- Did Enna either really love me, Or cease to think she did.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 59. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 987. First collected in _P. W._, 1885, ii. 364.
76
In Spain, that land of Monks and Apes, The thing called Wine doth come from grapes, But on the noble River Rhine, The thing called Gripes doth come from Wine!
First published in _Memoirs of C. M. Young_, 1871, p. 221. First collected in 1893.
77
INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE
Now! It is gone--Our brief hours travel post, Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How:-- But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost To dwell within thee--an eternal Now!
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 60. First collected in 1844.
78
ON THE MOST VERACIOUS ANECDOTIST, AND SMALL-TALK MAN, THOMAS HILL, ESQ.[974:1]
Tom Hill, who laughs at Cares and Woes, As nauci--nili--pili-- What is _he_ like, as I suppose? Why, to be sure, a Rose--a Rose. At least, no soul that Tom Hill knows Could e'er recall a _Li-ly_.
Now first published from an MS.
79
Nothing speaks our mind so well As to speak Nothing. Come then, tell Thy Mind in Tears, whoe'er thou be That ow'st a name to Misery: None can _fluency_ deny To Tears, the Language of the Eye.
Now first published from an MS. in the British Museum.
80
EPITAPH OF THE PRESENT YEAR ON THE MONUMENT OF THOMAS FULLER
A Lutheran stout, I hold for Goose-and-Gaundry Both the Pope's Limbo and his fiery Laundry: No wit e'er saw I in Original Sin, And no Sin find I in Original Wit; But if I'm all in the wrong, and, Grin for Grin, Scorch'd Souls must pay for each too lucky hit,-- Oh, Fuller! much I fear, so vast thy debt, Thou art not out of Purgatory yet; Tho' one, eight, three and three this year is reckon'd, And thou, I think, didst die _sub_ Charles the Second.
Nov. 28, 1833.
Now first published from an MS.
FOOTNOTES:
[951:1] A great, perhaps the greater, number of Coleridge's Epigrams are adaptations from the German of Wernicke, Lessing, and other less known epigrammatists. They were sent to the _Morning Post_ and other periodicals to supply the needs of the moment, and with the rarest exceptions they were deliberately excluded from the collected editions of his poetical works which received his own sanction, and were published in his lifetime. Collected for the first time by Mrs. H. N. Coleridge and reprinted in the third volume of _Essays on His Own Times_ (1850), they have been included, with additions and omissions, in _P. and D. W._, 1877-1880, _P. W._, 1885, _P. W._, 1890, and the Illustrated Edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, issued in 1907. The adaptations from the German were written and first published between 1799 and 1802. Of the earlier and later epigrams the greater number are original. Four epigrams were published anonymously in _The Watchman_, in April, 1796. Seventeen epigrams, of which twelve are by Coleridge, two by Southey, and three by Tobin, were published anonymously in the _Annual Anthology_ of 1800. Between January 2, 1798, and October 11, 1802 Coleridge contributed at least thirty-eight epigrams to the _Morning Post_. Most of these epigrams appeared under the well-known signature +ESTÊSE+. Six epigrams, of which five had been published in the _Morning Post_, were included in _The Friend_ (No. 11, Oct. 26, 1809). Finally, Coleridge contributed six epigrams to the _Keepsake_, of which four had been published in the _Morning Post_, and one in the _Annual Anthology_. Epigrams were altogether excluded from _Sibylline Leaves_ and from the three-volume editions of 1828 and 1829; but in 1834 the rule was relaxed and six epigrams were allowed to appear. Two of these, _In An Album_ ('Parry seeks the Polar Ridge') and _On an Insignificant_ (''Tis Cypher lies beneath this Crust') were published for the first time.
For the discovery of the German originals of some twenty epigrams, now for the first time noted and verified, I am indebted to the generous assistance of Dr. Hermann Georg Fiedler, Taylorian Professor of the German Language and Literature at Oxford, and of my friend Miss Katharine Schlesinger.
[953:1] N.B. Bad in itself, and, as Bob Allen used to say of his puns, looks damned ugly upon paper.
[954:1] Lines 3, 4, with the heading 'On an Insignificant,' were written by S. T. C. in Southey's copy of the _Omniana_ of 1812 [see nos. 9, 11]. See _P. W._, 1885, ii. 402, _Note_.
[961:1] The antithesis was, perhaps, borrowed from an Epigram entitled 'Posthumous Fame', included in _Elegant Extracts_, ii. 260.
If on his spacious marble we rely, Pity a worth like his should ever die! If credit to his real life we give, Pity a wretch like him should ever live.
[962:1] The first and second versions are included in _Essays, &c._, 1850, iii. 976: the third version was first published in 1893.
In 1830 Coleridge re-wrote (he did not publish) the second version as an Epitaph on Hazlitt. The following apologetic note was affixed:--
'With a sadness at heart, and an earnest hope grounded on his misanthropic sadness, when I first knew him in his twentieth or twenty-first year, that a something existed in his bodily organism that in the sight of the All-Merciful lessened his responsibility, and the moral imputation of his acts and feelings.' _MS._
[964:1] The 'One who published' was, perhaps, Charles Lloyd, in his novel, _Edmund Oliver_, 2 vols. 1798. Compare the following Epigram of Prior's:--
To John I ow'd great obligation, But John unhappily thought fit To publish it to all the nation: Sure John and I are more than quit.
[974:1] Extempore, in reply to a question of Mr. Theodore Hook's--'Look at him, and say what you think: Is not he like a Rose?'
JEUX D'ESPRIT
1
MY GODMOTHER'S BEARD[976:1]
So great the charms of Mrs. Mundy, That men grew rude, a kiss to gain: This so provok'd the dame that one day To Pallas chaste she did complain:
Nor vainly she address'd her prayer, Nor vainly to that power applied; The goddess bade a length of hair In deep recess her muzzle hide:
Still persevere! to love be callous! For I have your petition heard! To snatch a kiss were vain (cried Pallas) Unless you first should shave your beard.
? 1791
First published in _Table Talk and Omniana_, 1888, p. 392. The lines were inscribed by Coleridge in Gillman's copy of the _Omniana_ of 1812. An apologetic note is attached. J. P. Collier (_Old Man's Diary_, 1871, March 5, 1832, Part I, p. 34) says that Coleridge 'recited the following not very good epigram by him on his godmother's beard; the consequence of which was that he was struck out of her will'. Most probably the lines, as inscribed on the margin of _Omniana_, were written about 1830 or 1831. First collected in _Coleridge's Poems_, 1907.
LINENOTES:
[4] Pallas chaste] Wisdom's Power S. T. C.
2
LINES TO THOMAS POOLE
[Quoted in a letter from Coleridge to John Thelwall, dated Dec. 17, 1796.]
. . . . Joking apart, I would to God we could sit by a fire-side and joke _vivâ voce_, face to face--Stella [Mrs. Thelwall] and Sara [Mrs. S. T. Coleridge], Jack Thelwall and I!--as I once wrote to my dear _friend_ T. Poole,--
Repeating Such verse as Bowles, heart honour'd Poet sang, That wakes the Tear, yet steals away the Pang, Then, or with Berkeley, or with Hobbes romance it, Dissecting Truth with metaphysic lancet. Or, drawn from up these dark unfathom'd wells, In wiser folly chink the Cap and Bells. How many tales we told! what jokes we made, Conundrum, Crambo, Rebus, or Charade; Ænigmas that had driven the Theban mad, And Puns, these best when exquisitely bad; And I, if aught of archer vein I hit, With my own laughter stifled my own wit.
1796. First published in 1893.
3
TO A WELL-KNOWN MUSICAL CRITIC, REMARKABLE FOR HIS EARS STICKING THROUGH HIS HAIR.
O ----! O ----! of you we complain For exposing those ears to the wind and the rain. Thy face, a huge whitlow just come to a head, Ill agrees with those ears so raw and so red.
A Musical Critic of old fell a-pouting When he saw how his asinine honours were sprouting; But he hid 'em quite snug, in a full friz of hair, And the Barber alone smoked his donkeys [so] rare.
Thy judgment much worse, and thy _perkers_ as ample, O give heed to King Midas, and take his example. Thus to _publish_ your fate is as useless as wrong-- You but prove by your ears, what we guessed from your tongue. LABERIUS.
First published in the _Morning Post_, January 4, 1798. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877-80, ii. 370.
4
TO T. POOLE
AN INVITATION
Plucking flowers from the Galaxy On the pinions of Abstraction, I did quite forget to ax 'e, Whether you have an objaction, With us to swill 'e and to swell 'e And make a pig-stie of your belly. A lovely limb most dainty Of a _ci-devant_ Mud-raker, I makes bold to acquaint 'e We've trusted to the Baker: And underneath it satis Of the subterrene apple By the erudite 'clep'd _taties_-- With which, if you'ld wish to grapple, As sure as I'm a sloven, The clock will not strike twice one, When the said dish will be out of the oven, And the dinner will be a nice one.
P.S.
Besides we've got some cabbage. You Jew-dog, if you linger, May the Itch in pomp of scabbage Pop out between each finger.
January, 1797.
First published (_minus_ the postscript) in _Thomas Poole and His Friends_, 1888, i. 211.
5
SONG
TO BE SUNG BY THE LOVERS OF ALL THE NOBLE LIQUORS COMPRISED UNDER THE NAME OF ALE.
A.
Ye drinkers of Stingo and Nappy so free, Are the Gods on Olympus so happy as we?
B.
They cannot be so happy! For why? they drink no Nappy.
A.
But what if Nectar, in their lingo, Is but another name for Stingo?
B.
Why, then we and the Gods are equally blest, And Olympus an Ale-house as good as the best!
First published in _Morning Post_, September 18, 1801. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 995-6. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 167.
6
DRINKING _VERSUS_ THINKING
OR, A SONG AGAINST THE NEW PHILOSOPHY
My Merry men all, that drink with glee This fanciful Philosophy, Pray tell me what good is it? If _antient Nick_ should come and take, The same across the Stygian Lake, I guess we ne'er should miss it.
Away, each pale, self-brooding spark That goes truth-hunting in the dark, Away from our carousing! To Pallas we resign such fowls-- Grave birds of wisdom! ye're but owls, And all your trade but _mousing_!
My merry men all, here's punch and wine, And spicy bishop, drink divine! Let's live while we are able. While Mirth and Sense sit, hand in glove, This Don Philosophy we'll shove Dead drunk beneath the table!
First published in _Morning Post_, September 25, 1801. Included in _Essays, &c._, iii. 966-7. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 168.
7
THE WILLS OF THE WISP
A SAPPHIC
_Vix ea nostra voco_
Lunatic Witch-fires! Ghosts of Light and Motion! Fearless I see you weave your wanton dances Near me, far off me; you, that tempt the traveller Onward and onward.
Wooing, retreating, till the swamp beneath him Groans--and 'tis dark!--This woman's wile--I know it! Learnt it from _thee_, from _thy_ perfidious glances! Black-ey'd Rebecca!
First published in _Morning Post_, December 1, 1801. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 169.
8
TO CAPTAIN FINDLAY
When the squalls were flitting and fleering And the vessel was tacking and veering; Bravo! Captain Findlay, Who foretold a fair wind Of a constant mind; For he knew which way the wind lay, Bravo! Captain Findlay.
A Health to Captain Findlay, Bravo! Captain Findlay! When we made but ill speed with the Speedwell, Neither poets nor sheep could feed well: Now grief rotted the Liver, Yet Malta, dear Malta, as far off as ever!
Bravo! Captain Findlay, Foretold a fair wind, Of a constant mind, For he knew which way the wind lay!
May 4, 1804.
Now first published from a Notebook. The rhymes are inserted between the following entries:--'Thursday night--Wind chopped about and about, once fairly to the west, for a minute or two--but now, 1/2 past 9, the Captain comes down and promises a fair wind for to-morrow. We shall see.' 'Well, and we have got a wind the right way at last!'
9
ON DONNE'S POEM 'TO A FLEA'
Be proud as Spaniards! Leap for pride ye Fleas! Henceforth in Nature's mimic World grandees. In Phoebus' archives registered are ye, And this your patent of Nobility. No skip-Jacks now, nor civiller skip-Johns, Dread Anthropophagi! specks of living bronze, I hail you one and all, sans Pros or Cons, Descendants from a noble race of Dons. What tho' that great ancestral Flea be gone, Immortal with immortalising Donne, His earthly spots bleached off a Papist's gloze, In purgatory fire on Bardolph's nose.
1811.
Now first published from an MS.
10
[EX LIBRIS S. T. C.][981:1]
This, Hannah Scollock! may have been the case; Your writing therefore I will not erase. But now this Book, once yours, belongs to me, The _Morning Post's_ and _Courier's_ S. T. C.;-- Elsewhere in College, knowledge, wit and scholarage To Friends and Public known as S. T. Coleridge. Witness hereto my hand, on Ashley Green, One thousand, twice four hundred, and fourteen Year of our Lord--and of the month November The fifteenth day, if right I do remember.
15th Nov. 1814. Ashley, Box, Bath.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, iii. 57. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 387.
11
+EGÔENKAIPAN+
The following burlesque on the Fichtean Egoismus may, perhaps, be amusing to the few who have studied the system, and to those who are unacquainted with it, may convey as tolerable a likeness of Fichte's idealism as can be expected from an avowed caricature. [S. T. C.]
The Categorical Imperative, or the annunciation of the New Teutonic God, +EGÔENKAIPAN+: a dithyrambic Ode, by QUERKOPF VON KLUBSTICK, Grammarian, and Subrector in Gymnasio. . . .
_Eu! Dei vices gerens, ipse Divus_, (Speak English, Friend!) the God Imperativus, Here on this market-cross aloud I cry: 'I, I, I! I itself I! The form and the substance, the what and the why, The when and the where, and the low and the high, The inside and outside, the earth and the sky, I, you, and he, and he, you and I, All souls and all bodies are I itself I! All I itself I! (Fools! a truce with this starting!) All my I! all my I! He's a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin!' Thus cried the God with high imperial tone: In robe of stiffest state, that scoff'd at beauty, A pronoun-verb imperative he shone-- Then substantive and plural-singular grown, He thus spake on:--'Behold in I alone (For Ethics boast a syntax of their own) Or if in ye, yet as I doth depute ye, In O! I, you, the vocative of duty! I of the world's whole Lexicon the root! Of the whole universe of touch, sound, sight, The genitive and ablative to boot: The accusative of wrong, the nom'native of right, And in all cases the case absolute! Self-construed, I all other moods decline: Imperative, from nothing we derive us; Yet as a super-postulate of mine, Unconstrued antecedence I assign, To X Y Z, the God Infinitivus!'
1815.
First published in _Biographia Literaria_, 1817, i. 148_n._ First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 370.
12
THE BRIDGE STREET COMMITTEE
Jack Snipe Eats Tripe: It is therefore credible That tripe is edible. And therefore, perforce, It follows, of course, That the Devil will gripe All who do not eat Tripe.
And as Nic is too slow To fetch 'em below: And Gifford, the attorney, Won't quicken their journey; The Bridge-Street Committee That colleague without pity, To imprison and hang Carlile and his gang, Is the pride of the City, And 'tis Association That, alone, saves the Nation From Death and Damnation.
First published in _Letters and Conversations, &c._, 1836, i. 90, 91. These lines, which were inscribed in one of Coleridge's notebooks, refer to a 'Constitutional association' which promoted the prosecution of Richard Carlile, the publisher of Paine's _Age of Reason_, for blasphemy. See _Diary_ of H. C. Robinson, 1869, ii. 134, 135. First collected _P. W._, 1885, ii. 405.
13
NONSENSE SAPPHICS[983:1]
Here's Jem's first copy of nonsense verses, All in the antique style of Mistress Sappho, Latin just like Horace the tuneful Roman, Sapph's imitator:
But we Bards, we classical Lyric Poets, Know a thing or two in a scurvy Planet: Don't we, now? Eh? Brother Horatius Flaccus, Tip us your paw, Lad:--
Here's to Mæcenas and the other worthies; Rich men of England! would ye be immortal? Patronise Genius, giving Cash and Praise to Gillman Jacobus;
Gillman Jacobus, he of Merchant Taylors', Minor ætate, ingenio at stupendus, Sapphic, Heroic, Elegiac,--what a Versificator!
First published in _Essays, &c._, 1850, iii. 987. First collected 1893.
14
TO SUSAN STEELE ON RECEIVING THE PURSE
EXTRUMPERY LINES
My dearest Dawtie! That's never naughty-- When the Mare was stolen, and not before, The wise man got a stable-door: And he and I are brother Ninnies, One Beast _he_ lost and I two guineas; And as sure as it's wet when it above rains, The man's brains and mine both alike had thick coverings, For if he lost one mare, poor I lost two sovereigns! A cash-pouch I have got, but no cash to put in it, Tho' there's gold in the world and Sir Walter can win it: For your sake I'll keep it for better or worse, So here is a dear loving kiss for your purse. S. T. COLERIDGE.
1829. Now first published from an MS.
15
ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS[984:1]
I.--_By Likeness_
Fond, peevish, wedded pair! why all this rant? O guard your tempers! hedge your tongues about This empty head should warn you on that point-- The teeth were quarrelsome, and so fell out. S. T. C.
II.--_Association by Contrast_
Phidias changed marble into feet and legs. Disease! vile anti-Phidias! thou, i' fegs! Hast turned my live limbs into marble pegs.
III.--_Association by Time_
SIMPLICIUS SNIPKIN _loquitur_
I touch this scar upon my skull behind, And instantly there rises in my mind Napoleon's mighty hosts from Moscow lost, Driven forth to perish in the fangs of Frost. For in that self-same month, and self-same day, Down Skinner Street I took my hasty way-- Mischief and Frost had set the boys at play; I stept upon a slide--oh! treacherous tread!-- Fell smash with bottom bruised, and brake my head! Thus Time's co-presence links the great and small, Napoleon's overthrow, and Snipkin's fall.
? 1830. First published in _Fraser's Magazine_, Jan. 1835, Art. 'Coleridgeiana'. First collected 1893.
16
VERSES TRIVOCULAR
Of one scrap of science I've evidence ocular. A heart of one chamber they call unilocular, And in a sharp frost, or when snow-flakes fall floccular, Your wise man of old wrapp'd himself in a Roquelaure, Which was called a Wrap-rascal when folks would be jocular. And shell-fish, the small, Periwinkle and Cockle are, So with them will I finish these verses trivocular.
Now first published from an MS.
17
CHOLERA CURED BEFORE-HAND
Or a premonition promulgated gratis for the use of the Useful Classes, specially those resident in St. Giles's, Saffron Hill, Bethnal Green, etc.; and likewise, inasmuch as the good man is merciful even to the beasts, for the benefit of the Bulls and Bears of the Stock Exchange.
Pains ventral, subventral, In stomach or entrail, Think no longer mere prefaces For grins, groans, and wry faces; But off to the doctor, fast as ye can crawl! 5 Yet far better 'twould be not to have them at all.
Now to 'scape inward aches, Eat no plums nor plum-cakes; Cry avaunt! new potato-- And don't drink, like old Cato. 10 Ah! beware of Dispipsy, And don't ye get tipsy! For tho' gin and whiskey May make you feel frisky, They're but crimps to Dispipsy; 15 And nose to tail, with this gipsy Comes, black as a porpus, The diabolus ipse, Call'd Cholery Morpus; Who with horns, hoofs, and tail, croaks for carrion to feed him, 20 Tho' being a Devil, no one never has seed him!
Ah! then my dear honies, There's no cure for you For loves nor for monies:-- You'll find it too true. 25 Och! the hallabaloo! Och! och! how you'll wail, When the offal-fed vagrant Shall turn you as blue As the gas-light unfragrant, 30 That gushes in jets from beneath his own tail;-- 'Till swift as the mail, He at last brings the cramps on, That will twist you like Samson. So without further blethring, 35 Dear mudlarks! my brethren! Of all scents and degrees, (Yourselves and your shes) Forswear all cabal, lads, Wakes, unions, and rows, 40 Hot dreams and cold salads, And don't pig in styes that would suffocate sows! Quit Cobbett's, O'Connell's and Beelzebub's banners, And whitewash at once bowels, rooms, hands, and manners!
July 26, 1832. First published in _P. W._ 1834. These lines were enclosed in a letter to J. H. Green, dated July 26, 1832, with the following introduction: 'Address premonitory to the Sovereign People, or the Cholera cured before-hand, promulgated _gratis_ for the use of the useful classes, specially of those resident in St. Giles, Bethnal Green, Saffron Hill, etc., by their Majesties', i. e. the People's, loyal subject--Demophilus Mudlarkiades.'
LINENOTES:
[1-6] om. Letter 1832.
[7-8] To escape Belly ache Eat no plums nor plum cake Letter 1832.
[12] And therefore don't get tipsy Letter 1832.
[16] with this gipsy] of Dys Pipsy Letter 1832.
[22] And oh! och my dear Honies Letter 1832.
[28] offal-fed] horn-and-hoof'd Letter 1832.
[41] dreams] drams Letter 1832.
[44] And whitewash at once your Guts, Rooms and Manners Letter 1832.
[After 44]
Vivat Rex Popellio! Vivat Regina Plebs! Hurra! 3 times 3 thrice repeated Hurra!
Letter, 1832.
18
TO BABY BATES
You come from o'er the waters, From famed Columbia's land, And you have sons and daughters, And money at command.
But I live in an island, Great Britain is its name, With money none to buy land, The more it is the shame.
But we are all the children Of one great God of Love, Whose mercy like a mill-drain Runs over from above.
Lullaby, lullaby, Sugar-plums and cates, Close your little peeping eye, Bonny Baby B----s.
First collected 1893. 'Baby Bates' was the daughter of Joshua Bates, one of the donors of the Boston Library. Her father and mother passed a year (1828-1829) at Highgate, 'close to the house of Dr. and Mrs. Gillman.' See a letter to Mrs. Bates from S. T. C. dated Jan. 23, 1829. _N. and Q._ 4th Series, i. 469.
19
TO A CHILD[987:1]
Little Miss Fanny, So cubic and canny, With blue eyes and blue shoes-- The Queen of the Blues! As darling a girl as there is in the world-- If she'll laugh, skip and jump, And not be _Miss Glump_!
1834. First published in _Athenæum_, Jan. 28, 1888. First collected 1893.
FOOTNOTES:
[976:1] 'There is a female saint (St. Vuilgefortis), whom the Jesuit Sautel, in his _Annus Sacer Poeticus_, has celebrated for her beard--a mark of divine favour bestowed upon her for her prayers.' _Omniana_, 1812, ii. 54. 'Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere! What! can nothing be one's own? This is the more vexatious, for at the age of eighteen I lost a legacy of fifty pounds for the following epigram on my godmother's beard, which she had the _barbarity_ to revenge by striking me out of her will.' _S. T. C._
[981:1] These lines are written on a fly-leaf of a copy of _Five Bookes of the Church_ by Richard Field (folio 1635), under the inscription: 'Hannah Scollock, her book, February 10, 1787.' The volume was bequeathed to the poet's younger son, Derwent Coleridge, and is now in the possession of the Editor.
[983:1] Written for James Gillman Junr. as a School Exercise, for _Merchant Taylors'_, c. 1822-3.
[984:1] Written in pencil on the blank leaf of a book of lectures delivered at the London University, in which the Hartleyan doctrine of association was assumed as a true basis.
[987:1] To Miss Fanny Boyce, afterwards Lady Wilmot Horton.
FRAGMENTS FROM A NOTEBOOK[988:1]
_Circa_ 1796-98
1
Light cargoes waft of modulated Sound From viewless Hybla brought, when Melodies Like Birds of Paradise on wings, that aye Disport in wild variety of hues, Murmur around the honey-dropping flower.
First published in 1893. Compare _The Eolian Harp_ (Aug. 1795), lines 20-5 (_ante_ p. 101).
2
Broad-breasted rock--hanging cliff that glasses His rugged forehead in the calmy sea.[988:2]
First published in 1893. Compare _Destiny of Nations_ (1796), lines 342, 343 (_ante_ p. 143).
3
Where Cam his stealthy flowings most dissembles And scarce the Willow's watery shadow trembles.
First published in 1893. Compare line 1 of _A Fragment Found in a Lecture-Room_, 'Where deep in mud Cam rolls his slumbrous stream' (_ante_, p. 35).
4
With secret hand heal the conjectur'd wound,
[or]
Guess at the wound, and heal with secret hand.
First published in 1893. The alternative line was first published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 279.
5
Outmalic'd Calumny's imposthum'd Tongue.
First published in 1893. A line from _Verses to Horne Tooke_, July 4, 1796, line 20 (_ante_, p. 151).
6
And write Impromptus Spurring their Pegasus to tortoise gallop.
First published in 1893.
7
Due to the Staggerers, that made drunk by Power Forget thirst's eager promise, and presume, Dark Dreamers! that the world forgets it too.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, 1836, i. 27.
LINENOTES:
[1] Due] These L. R.
8
Perish warmth Unfaithful to its seeming!
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 279.
9
Old age, 'the shape and messenger of Death,' 'His wither'd Fist still knocking at Death's door.'
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 279. Quoted from Sackville's _Induction to a Mirrour for Magistrates_, stanza 48:
'His wither'd fist stil knocking at deathes dore, Tumbling and driveling as he drawes his breth; For briefe, the shape and messenger of death.'
10
God no distance knows, All of the whole possessing!
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 279. Compare _Religious Musings_, ll. 156-7.
11
Wherefore art thou come? doth not the Creator of all things know all things? And if thou art come to seek him, know that where thou wast, there he was.
First published in 1893. Compare the _Wanderings of Cain_.
12
And cauldrons the scoop'd earth, a boiling sea.
First published in 1893.
13
Rush on my ear, a cataract of sound.
First published in 1893.
14
The guilty pomp, consuming while it flares.
First published in 1893.
15
My heart seraglios a whole host of Joys.
First published in 1893.
16
And Pity's sigh shall answer thy tale of Anguish Like the faint echo of a distant valley.
First published in _Notizbuch_, 1896, p. 350.
17
A DUNGEON
In darkness I remain'd--the neighb'ring clock Told me that now the rising sun shone lovely On my garden.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 279. Compare _Osorio_, Act I, lines 219-21 (_ante_, p. 528), and _Remorse_, Act I, Scene II, lines 218-20 (_ante_, p. 830).
LINENOTES:
[2] sun at dawn L. R.
18
The Sun (for now his orb 'gan slowly sink) Shot half his rays aslant the heath whose flowers Purpled the mountain's broad and level top; Rich was his bed of clouds, and wide beneath Expecting Ocean smiled with dimpled face.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 278. Compare _This Lime-Tree Bower_ (1797), lines 32-7 (_ante_, pp. 179, 180).
19
Leanness, disquietude, and secret Pangs.
First published in _Notizbuch_, p. 351.
20
Smooth, shining, and deceitful as thin Ice.
First published in _Notizbuch_, p. 355.
21
Wisdom, Mother of retired Thought.
First published in 1893.
22
Nature wrote Rascal on his face, By chalcographic art!
First published in 1893.
23
In this world we dwell among the tombs And touch the pollutions of the Dead.
First published in 1893. Compare _Destiny of Nations_, ll. 177-8 (_ante_, p. 137).
24
The mild despairing of a Heart resigned.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 278.
25
Such fierce vivacity as fires the eye Of Genius fancy-craz'd.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 278. Compare _Destiny of Nations_, ll. 257, 258 (_ante_, p. 139).
26
----like a mighty Giantess Seiz'd in sore travail and prodigious birth Sick Nature struggled: long and strange her pangs; Her groans were horrible, but O! most fair The Twins she bore--EQUALITY and PEACE!
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 278. Compare concluding lines of the second strophe of _Ode to the Departing Year_, 4{o}, 1796.
27
Discontent Mild as an infant low-plaining in its sleep.
First published in 1893.
28
----terrible and loud, As the strong Voice that from the Thunder-cloud Speaks to the startled Midnight.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 278.
29
The swallows Interweaving there, mid the pair'd sea-mews At distance wildly-wailing!
First published in 1893.
30
The Brook runs over sea-weeds. Sabbath day--from the Miller's merry wheel The water-drops dripp'd leisurely.
First published in 1893. It is possible the Fragments were some of the 'studies' for _The Brook_. See _Biog. Lit._, Cap. X, ed. 1907, i. 129.
31
On the broad mountain-top The neighing wild-colt races with the wind O'er fern and heath-flowers.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 278.
32
A long deep lane So overshadow'd, it might seem one bower-- The damp clay-banks were furr'd with mouldy moss.
First published in 1893.
33
Broad-breasted Pollards, with broad-branching heads.
First published in 1893.
34
'Twas sweet to know it only possible-- Some _wishes_ cross'd my mind and dimly cheer'd it-- And one or two poor melancholy Pleasures-- In these, the pale unwarming light of Hope Silv'ring their flimsy wing, flew silent by, Moths in the Moonlight.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 277, 278.
LINENOTES:
[4] In these] Each in L. R.
[5] their] its L. R.
35
Behind the thin Grey cloud that cover'd but not hid the sky The round full moon look'd small.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 277. Compare _Christabel_, ll. 16, 17 (_ante_, p. 216).
36
The subtle snow In every breeze rose curling from the Grove Like pillars of cottage smoke.
First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 278.
LINENOTES:
The Subtle snow in every passing breeze Rose curling from the grove like shafts of smoke.
L. R.
37
The sunshine lies on the cottage-wall, A-shining thro' the snow.
First published in 1893.
38
A MANIAC in the woods--She crosses heedlessly the woodman's path--scourg'd by rebounding boughs.
First published in 1893.
Compare this with discarded stanza in 'Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladié' as printed in the _Morning Post_, Dec. 21, 1799 (vide _ante_, p. 333).
And how he cross'd the woodman's paths, Thro' briars and swampy mosses beat; How boughs rebounding scourg'd his limbs, And low stubs gor'd his feet.
Note by J. D. Campbell, _P. W._, 1893, p. 456.
39
HYMNS--MOON
In a cave in the mountains of Cashmeer, an image of ice, which makes its appearance thus: Two days before the new moon there appears a bubble of ice, which increases in size every day till the fifteenth day, at which it is an ell or more in height;--then, as the moon decreases the Image does also till it vanishes. _Mem._ Read the whole 107th page of Maurice's _Indostan_.
First published in 1893. 'Hymns to the Sun, the Moon, and the Elements' are included in a list of projected works enumerated in the Gutch Notebook. The 'caves of ice' in _Kubla Khan_ may have been a reminiscence of the 107th page of Maurice's _Hindostan_.
40
The tongue can't speak when the mouth is cramm'd with earth-- A little mould fills up most eloquent mouths, And a square stone with a few pious texts Cut neatly on it, keeps the mould down tight.
First published in 1893. Compare _Osorio_, Act III, lines 259-62 (_ante_, p. 560).
41
And with my whole heart sing the stately song, Loving the God that made me.
First published in 1893. Compare _Fears in Solitude_, ll. 196-7 (_ante_, p. 263).
42
God's Image, Sister of the Cherubim!
First published in 1893. Compare the last line of _The Ode to the Departing Year_ (_ante_, p. 168).
43
And re-implace God's Image in the Soul.
First published in 1893.
44
And arrows steeled with wrath.
First published in 1893.
45
Lov'd the same Love, and hated the same hate, Breath'd in his soul! etc. etc.
First published in 1893.
46
O man! thou half-dead Angel!
First published in 1893.
47
Thy stern and sullen eye, and thy dark brow Chill me, like dew-damps of th' unwholesome Night. My Love, a timorous and tender flower, Closes beneath thy Touch, unkindly man! Breath'd on by gentle gales of Courtesy And cheer'd by sunshine of impassion'd look-- Then opes its petals of no vulgar hues.
First published in 1893. See _Remorse_, Act I, Sc. II, ll. 81-4 (_ante_, p. 826). Compare _Osorio_, Act. I, ll. 80-3 (_ante_, p. 522).
48
With skill that never Alchemist yet told, Made drossy Lead as ductile as pure Gold.
First published in 1893.
49
Grant me a Patron, gracious Heaven! whene'er My unwash'd follies call for Penance drear: But when more hideous guilt this heart infests Instead of fiery coals upon my Pate, O let a _titled_ Patron be my Fate;-- That fierce Compendium of Ægyptian Pests! Right reverend Dean, right honourable Squire, Lord, Marquis, Earl, Duke, Prince,--or if aught higher, However proudly nicknamed, he shall be Anathema Maránatha to me!
First published, _Lit. Rem._, i. 281.
FOOTNOTES:
[988:1] One of the earliest of Coleridge's Notebooks, which fell into the hands of his old schoolfellow, John Mathew Gutch, the printer and proprietor of _Felix Farley's Bristol Journal_, was purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum in 1868, and is now included in _Add. MSS._ as No. 27901. The fragments of verse contained in the notebook are included in _P. W._ 1893, pp. 453-8. The notebook as a whole was published by Professor A. Brandl in 1896 (_S. T. Coleridge's Notizbuch aus den Jahren 1795-1798_). Nineteen entries are included by H. N. Coleridge in _Poems and Poetical Fragments_ published in _Literary Remains_, 1836, i. 277-80.
[988:2] An incorrect version of the lines was published in _Lit. Rem._, ii. 280.
FRAGMENTS[996:1]
1
O'er the raised earth the gales of evening sigh; And, see, a daisy peeps upon its slope! I wipe the dimming waters from mine eye; Even on the cold grave lights the Cherub Hope.[996:2]
? 1787. First published in _Poems_, 1852 (p. 379, Note 1). First collected 1893.
2
Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud With arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my head Posts on, as bent on speed, now passaging Edges the stiffer Breeze, now, yielding, drifts, Now floats upon the air, and sends from far A wildly-wailing Note.
Now first published from an MS. Compare Fragment No. 29 of Fragments from a Notebook.
3
OVER MY COTTAGE
The Pleasures sport beneath the thatch; But Prudence sits upon the watch; Nor Dun nor Doctor lifts the latch!
1799. First published from an MS. in 1893. Suggested by Lessing's _Sinngedicht_ No. 104.
4
In the lame and limping metre of a barbarous Latin poet--
Est meum et est tuum, amice! at si amborum nequit esse, Sit meum, amice, precor: quia certe sum mage pauper.
'Tis mine and it is likewise yours; But and if this will not do, Let it be mine, because that I Am the poorer of the Two!
Nov. 1, 1801. First published in the Preface to _Christabel_, 1816. First collected 1893.
5
Names do not always meet with LOVE, And LOVE wants courage without a _name_.[997:1]
Dec. 1801. Now first published from an MS.
6
The Moon, how definite its orb! Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze-- 'Tis there indeed,--but where is it not?-- It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven, Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake, Whose very murmur does of it partake!
And low and close the broad smooth mountain is more a thing of Heaven than when distinct by one dim shade, and yet undivided from the universal cloud in which it towers infinite in height.
? 1801. First published from an MS. in 1893.
7
Such love as mourning Husbands have To her whose Spirit has been newly given To her guardian Saint in Heaven-- Whose Beauty lieth in the grave--
(Unconquered, as if the Soul could find no purer Tabernacle, nor place of sojourn than the virgin Body it had before dwelt in, and wished to stay there till the Resurrection)--
Far liker to a Flower now than when alive, Cold to the Touch and blooming to the eye.
Sept. 1803. Now first published from an MS.
8
[THE NIGHT-MARE DEATH IN LIFE]
I know 'tis but a dream, yet feel more anguish Than if 'twere truth. It has been often so: Must I die under it? Is no one near? Will no one hear these stifled groans and wake me?
? 1803. Now first published from an MS.
9
Bright clouds of reverence, sufferably bright, That intercept the dazzle, not the Light; That veil the finite form, the boundless power reveal, Itself an earthly sun of pure intensest white.
1803. First published from an MS. in 1893.
10
A BECK IN WINTER[998:1]
Over the broad, the shallow, rapid stream, The Alder, a vast hollow Trunk, and ribb'd-- All mossy green with mosses manifold, And ferns still waving in the river-breeze Sent out, like fingers, five projecting trunks-- The shortest twice 6 (?) of a tall man's strides.-- One curving upward in its middle growth Rose straight with grove of twigs--a pollard tree:-- The rest more backward, gradual in descent-- One in the brook and one befoamed its waters: One ran along the bank in the elk-like head And pomp of antlers--
Jan. 1804. Now first published from an MS. (pencil).
11
I from the influence of thy Looks receive, Access in every virtue, in thy Sight More wise, more wakeful, stronger, if need were Of outward strength.--
1804. Now first published from an MS.
12
What never is, but only is to be This is not Life:-- O hopeless Hope, and Death's Hypocrisy! And with perpetual promise breaks its promises.
1804-5. Now first published from an MS.
13
The silence of a City, how awful at Midnight! Mute as the battlements and crags and towers That Fancy makes in the clouds, yea, as mute As the moonlight that sleeps on the steady vanes.
(or)
The cell of a departed anchoret, His skeleton and flitting ghost are there, Sole tenants-- And all the City silent as the Moon That steeps in quiet light the steady vanes Of her huge temples.
1804-5. Now first published from an MS.
14
O beauty in a beauteous body dight! Body that veiling brightness, beamest bright; Fair cloud which less we see, than by thee see the light.
1805. First published from an MS. in 1893.
15
O th' Oppressive, irksome weight Felt in an uncertain state: Comfort, peace, and rest adieu Should I prove at last untrue! Self-confiding wretch, I thought I could love thee as I ought, Win thee and deserve to feel All the Love thou canst reveal, And still I chuse thee, follow still.
1805. First published from an MS. in 1893.
16
'Twas not a mist, nor was it quite a cloud, But it pass'd smoothly on towards the sea-- Smoothly and lightly between Earth and Heaven: So, thin a cloud, It scarce bedimm'd the star that shone behind it: And Hesper now Paus'd on the welkin blue, and cloudless brink, A golden circlet! while the Star of Jove-- That other lovely star--high o'er my head Shone whitely in the centre of his Haze . . . one black-blue cloud Stretch'd, like the heaven, o'er all the cope of Heaven.
Dec. 1797. First published from an MS. in 1893.
17
[NOT A CRITIC--BUT A JUDGE]
Whom should I choose for my Judge? the earnest, impersonal reader, Who, in the work, forgets me and the world and himself! You who have eyes to detect, and Gall to Chastise the imperfect, Have you the heart, too, that loves,--feels and rewards the Compleat?
1805. Now first published from an MS.
18
A sumptuous and magnificent Revenge.
March 1806. First published from an MS. in 1893.
19
[DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI]
Come, come thou bleak December wind, And blow the dry leaves from the tree! Flash, like a love-thought, thro' me, Death! And take a life that wearies me.
Leghorn, June 7, 1806. First published in _Letters of S. T. C._, 1875, ii. 499, n. 1. Now collected for the first time. Adapted from Percy's version of 'Waly, Waly, Love be bonny', st. 3.
Marti'mas wind when wilt thou blaw, And shake the green leaves aff the tree? O gentle death, when wilt thou cum? For of my life I am wearie.
20
As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank-- (By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits His channel'd brow; low murmurs stir by fits And dark below the horrid Faquir sits-- An Horror from its broad Head's branching wreath Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath--
1806-7. Now first published from an MS.
21
Let Eagle bid the Tortoise sunward soar-- As vainly Strength speaks to a broken Mind.[1001:1]
1807. First published in _Thomas Poole and His Friends_, 1888, ii. 195.
22
The body, Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul, The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself. Its own yet not itself.
Now first published from an MS.
23
Or Wren or Linnet, In Bush and Bushet; No tree, but in it A cooing Cushat.
May 1807. Now first published from an MS.
24
The reed roof'd village still bepatch'd with snow Smok'd in the sun-thaw.
1798. Now first published from an MS. Compare _Frost at Midnight_, ll. 69-70, _ante_, p. 242.
25
And in Life's noisiest hour There whispers still the ceaseless love of thee, The heart's self-solace } and soliloquy. commune }
1807. Now first published from an MS.
26
You mould my Hopes you fashion me within: And to the leading love-throb in the heart, Through all my being, through my pulses beat; You lie in all my many thoughts like Light, Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve, On rippling stream, or cloud-reflecting lake; And looking to the Heaven that bends above you, How oft! I bless the lot that made me love you.
1807. Now first published from an MS.
27
And my heart mantles in its own delight.
Now first published from an MS.
28
The spruce and limber yellow-hammer In the dawn of spring and sultry summer, In hedge or tree the hours beguiling With notes as of one who brass is filing.
1807. Now first published from an MS.
29
FRAGMENT OF AN ODE ON NAPOLEON
O'erhung with yew, midway the Muses mount From thy sweet murmurs far, O Hippocrene! Turbid and black upboils an angry fount Tossing its shatter'd foam in vengeful spleen-- Phlegethon's rage Cocytus' wailings hoarse Alternate now, now mixt, made known its headlong course: Thither with terror stricken and surprise, (For sure such haunts were ne'er to Muse's choice) Euterpe led me. Mute with asking eyes I stood expectant of her heavenly voice. Her voice entranc'd my terror and made flow In a rude understrain the maniac fount below. 'Whene'er (the Goddess said) abhorr'd of Jove Usurping Power his hands in blood imbrues--
? 1808. Now first published from an MS.
30
The singing Kettle and the purring Cat, The gentle breathing of the cradled Babe, The silence of the Mother's love-bright eye, And tender smile answering its smile of Sleep.
1803. First published from an MS. in 1893.
31
Two wedded hearts, if ere were such, Imprison'd in adjoining cells, Across whose thin partition-wall The builder left one narrow rent, And where, most content in discontent, A joy with itself at strife-- Die into an intenser life.
1808. First published from an MS. in 1893.
ANOTHER VERSION
The builder left one narrow rent, Two wedded hearts, if ere were such, Contented most in discontent, Still there cling, and try in vain to touch! O Joy! with thy own joy at strife, That yearning for the Realm above Wouldst die into intenser Life, And Union absolute of Love!
1808. First published from an MS. in 1893.
32
Sole Maid, associate sole, to me beyond Compare all living creatures dear-- Thoughts, which have found their harbour in thy heart Dearest! _me_ thought of _him_ to thee so dear!
1809. First published from an MS. in 1893.
33
EPIGRAM ON KEPLER
FROM THE GERMAN
No mortal spirit yet had clomb so high As Kepler--yet his Country saw him die For very want! the _Minds_ alone he fed, And so the _Bodies_ left him without bread.
1799. First published in _The Friend_, Nov. 30, 1809 (1818, ii. 95; 1850, ii. 69). First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 374.
LINENOTES:
[1] spirit] Genius MS.
[2] yet] and MS.
[3] _Minds_] _Souls_ MS. erased.
34
When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt: A flight of Hope for ever on the wing But made Tranquillity a conscious thing; And wheeling round and round in sportive coil, Fann'd the calm air upon the brow of Toil.
1810. First published from an MS. in 1893.
35
I have experienced The worst the world can wreak on me--the worst That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb With whisper'd discontent the dying prayer-- I have beheld the whole of all, wherein _My_ heart had any interest in this life To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes That nothing now is left. Why then live on? That hostage that the world had in its keeping Given by me as a pledge that I would live-- That hope of Her, say rather that pure Faith In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce With the tyranny of Life--is gone, ah! whither? What boots it to reply? 'tis gone! and now Well may I break this Pact, this league of Blood That ties me to myself--and break I shall.
1810. First published from an MS. in 1893.
36
As when the new or full Moon urges The high, large, long, unbreaking surges Of the Pacific main.
1811. First published from an MS. in 1893.
37
O mercy, O me, miserable man! Slowly my wisdom, and how slowly comes My Virtue! and how rapidly pass off My Joys! _my Hopes_! my Friendships, and my Love!
1811. Now first published from an MS.
38
A low dead Thunder mutter'd thro' the night, As 'twere a giant angry in his sleep-- Nature! sweet nurse, O take me in thy lap And tell me of my Father yet unseen, Sweet tales, and true, that lull me into sleep And leave me dreaming.
1811. First published from an MS. in 1893.
39
His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead, His tender smiles, Love's day-dawn on his lips, Put on such heavenly, spiritual light, At the same moment in his steadfast eye Were Virtue's native crest, th' innocent soul's Unconscious meek self-heraldry,--to man Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel. He suffer'd nor complain'd;--though oft with tears He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,-- And sometimes with a deeper holier grief Mourn'd for the oppressor--but this in sabbath hours-- A solemn grief, that like a cloud at sunset, Was but the veil of inward meditation Pierced thro' and saturate with the intellectual rays It soften'd.
1812. First published (with many alterations of the MS.) in _Lit. Rem._, i. 277. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1887, ii. 364. Compare Teresa's speech to Valdez, _Remorse_, Act IV, Scene II, lines 52-63 (_ante_, p. 866).
40
[ARS POETICA]
In the two following lines, for instance, there is nothing objectionable, nothing which would preclude them from forming, in their proper place, part of a descriptive poem:--
'Behold yon row of pines, that shorn and bow'd Bend from the sea-blast, seen at twilight eve.'
But with a small alteration of rhythm, the same words would be equally in their place in a book of topography, or in a descriptive tour. The same image will rise into a semblance of poetry if thus conveyed:--
'Yon row of bleak and visionary pines, By twilight-glimpse discerned, mark! how they flee From the fierce sea-blast, all their tresses wild Streaming before them.'
1815. First published in _Biog. Lit._, 1817, ii. 18; 1847, ii. 20. First collected 1893.
41
TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST STROPHE OF PINDAR'S SECOND OLYMPIC
'_As nearly as possible word for word._'
Ye harp-controlling hymns!
(or)
Ye hymns the sovereigns of harps! What God? what Hero? What Man shall we celebrate? Truly Pisa indeed is of Jove, But the Olympiad (or, the Olympic games) did Hercules establish, The first-fruits of the spoils of war. But Theron for the four-horsed car That bore victory to him, It behoves us now to voice aloud: The Just, the Hospitable, The Bulwark of Agrigentum, Of renowned fathers The Flower, even him Who preserves his native city erect and safe.
1815. First published in _Biog. Lit._, 1817, ii. 90; 1847, ii. 93. First collected 1893.
42
O! Superstition is the giant shadow Which the solicitude of weak mortality, Its back toward Religion's rising sun, Casts on the thin mist of th' uncertain future.
1816. First published from an MS. in 1893.
43
TRANSLATION OF A FRAGMENT OF HERACLITUS[1007:1]
Not hers To win the sense by words of rhetoric, Lip-blossoms breathing perishable sweets; But by the power of the informing Word Roll sounding onward through a thousand years Her deep prophetic bodements.
1816. First published in _Lit. Rem._, iii. 418, 419. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 367.
44
Truth I pursued, as Fancy sketch'd the way, And wiser men than I went worse astray.
First published as Motto to Essay II, _The Friend_, 1818, ii. 37; 1850, ii. 27. First collected 1893.
45
IMITATED FROM ARISTOPHANES
(_Nubes_ 315, 317.)
+megalai theai andrasin argois, haiper gnômên kai dialexin kai noun hêmin parechousi kai terateian kai perilexin kai krousin kai katalêpsin+
For the ancients . . . had their glittering VAPORS, which (as the comic poet tells us) fed a host of sophists.
Great goddesses are they to lazy folks, Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech, Sense most sententious, wonderful fine _effect_, And how to talk about it and about it, Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy.
1817. First published in _The Friend_, 1818, iii. 179; 1850, iii. 138. First collected 1893.
46
Let clumps of earth, however glorified, Roll round and round and still renew their cycle-- Man rushes like a winged Cherub through The infinite space, and that which has been Can therefore never be again----
1820. First published from an MS. in 1893.
47
TO EDWARD IRVING
But _you_, honored IRVING, are as little disposed as myself to favor _such_ doctrine! [as that of Mant and D'Oyly on Infant Baptism].
Friend pure of heart and fervent! we have learnt A different lore! We may not thus profane The Idea and Name of Him whose Absolute Will _Is_ Reason--Truth Supreme!--Essential Order!
1824. First published in _Aids to Reflection_, 1825, p. 373. First collected 1893.
48
[LUTHER--DE DÆMONIBUS]
_The devils are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in dark pooly places, ready to hurt and prejudice people, etc._--_Doctoris Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia_--(Translated by Captain Henry Bell. London, 1652, p. 370).
'The angel's like a flea, The devil is a bore;--' No matter for that! quoth S. T. C., I love him the better therefore.
Yes! heroic Swan, I love thee even when thou gabblest like a goose; for thy geese helped to save the Capitol.
1826. First published in _Lit. Rem._, 1839, iv. 52. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 367.
49
THE NETHERLANDS
Water and windmills, greenness, Islets green;-- Willows whose Trunks beside the shadows stood Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp:-- Farmhouses that at anchor seem'd--in the inland sky The fog-transfixing Spires-- Water, wide water, greenness and green banks, And water seen--
June 1828. Now first published from an MS.
50
ELISA[1009:1]
TRANSLATED FROM CLAUDIAN
Dulce dona mihi tu mittis semper Elisa! Et quicquid mittis Thura putare decet.
The above adapted from an Epigram of Claudian [No. lxxxii, Ad Maximum Qui mel misit], by substituting _Thura_ for _Mella_: the original Distich being in return for a present of Honey.
_Imitation_
Sweet Gift! and always doth Elisa send Sweet Gifts and full of fragrance to her Friend Enough for Him to know they come from HER: Whate'er she sends is Frankincense and Myrrh.
ANOTHER ON THE SAME SUBJECT BY S. T. C. HIMSELF
Semper Elisa! mihi tu suaveolentia donas: Nam quicquid donas, te redolere puto.
_Translation_
Whate'er thou giv'st, it still is sweet to me, For _still_ I find it redolent of thee.
1833, 4. Now first published from an MS.
51
PROFUSE KINDNESS
+Nêpioi oude isasin hosô pleon hêmisy pantos.+ HESIOD. [_Works and Days_, l. 40.]
What a spring-tide of Love to dear friends in a shoal! Half of it to one were worth double the whole!
Undated. First published in _P. W._, 1834.
52
I stand alone, nor tho' my heart should break, Have I, to whom I may complain or speak. Here I stand, a hopeless man and sad, Who hoped to have seen my Love, my Life. And strange it were indeed, could I be glad Remembering her, my soul's betrothéd wife. For in this world no creature that has life Was e'er to me so gracious and so good. Her loss is to my Heart, like the Heart's blood.
? S. T. C. Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893. These lines are inscribed on a fly-leaf of Tom. II of Benedetto Menzini's _Poesie_, 1782.
53
NAPOLEON
The Sun with gentle beams his rage disguises, And, like aspiring Tyrants, temporises-- Never to be endured but when he falls or rises.
? S. T. C. Undated. Now first published from an MS.
54
Thicker than rain-drops on November thorn.
Undated. Now first published from an MS.
55
His native accents to her stranger's ear, Skill'd in the tongues of France and Italy-- Or while she warbles with bright eyes upraised, Her fingers shoot like streams of silver light Amid the golden haze of thrilling strings.
Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.
56
Each crime that once estranges from the virtues Doth make the memory of their features daily More dim and vague, till each coarse counterfeit Can have the passport to our confidence Sign'd by ourselves. And fitly are they punish'd Who prize and seek the honest man but as A safer lock to guard dishonest treasures.
? S. T. C. Undated. First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 281. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 365.
57
Where'er I find the Good, the True, the Fair, I ask no names--God's spirit dwelleth there! The unconfounded, undivided Three, Each for itself, and all in each, to see In man and Nature, is Philosophy.
Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.
58
A wind that with Aurora hath abiding Among the Arabian and the Persian Hills.
Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.
59
I [S. T. C.] find the following lines among my papers, in my own writing, but whether an unfinished fragment, or a contribution to some friend's production, I know not:--
What boots to tell how o'er his grave She wept, that would have died to save; Little they know the heart, who deem Her sorrow but an infant's dream Of transient love begotten; A passing gale, that as it blows Just shakes the ripe drop from the rose-- That dies and is forgotten. O Woman! nurse of hopes and fears, All lovely in thy spring of years, Thy soul in blameless mirth possessing, Most lovely in affliction's tears, More lovely still than tears suppressing.
Undated. First published in Allsop's _Letters, Conversations_, &c. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 373.
60
THE THREE SORTS OF FRIENDS
Though friendships differ endless _in degree_, The _sorts_, methinks, may be reduced to three. _Ac_quaintance many, and _Con_quaintance few; But for _In_quaintance I know only two-- The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!
MY DEAR GILLMAN--The ground and _matériel_ of this division of one's friends into _ac_, _con_ and _in_quaintance, was given by Hartley Coleridge when he was scarcely five years old [1801]. On some one asking him if Anny Sealy (a little girl he went to school with) was an acquaintance of his, he replied, very fervently pressing his right hand on his heart, 'No, she is an _in_quaintance!' 'Well! 'tis a father's tale'; and the recollection soothes your old friend and _in_quaintance,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Undated. First published in _Fraser's Magazine_ for Jan. 1835, Art. _Coleridgeiana_, p. 54. First collected 1893.
61
If fair by Nature She honours the fair Boon with fair adorning, And graces that bespeak a gracious breeding, Can gracious Nature lessen Nature's Graces? If taught by both she betters both and honours Fair gifts with fair adorning, know you not There is a beauty that resides within;-- A fine and delicate spirit of womanhood Of inward birth?--
Now first published from an MS.
62
BO-PEEP AND I SPY--
In the corner _one_-- I spy Love! In the corner _None_, I spy Love.
1826. Now first published from an MS.
63
A SIMILE
As the shy hind, the soft-eyed gentle Brute Now moves, now stops, approaches by degrees-- At length emerges from the shelt'ring Trees, Lur'd by her Hunter with the Shepherd's flute, Whose music travelling on the twilight breeze, When all besides was mute-- She oft had heard, and ever lov'd to hear; She fearful Beast! but that no sound of Fear----
Undated. Now first published from an MS.
64
BARON GUELPH OF ADELSTAN. A FRAGMENT
For ever in the world of Fame We live and yet abide the same: Clouds may intercept our rays, Or desert Lands reflect our blaze.
The beauteous Month of May began, And all was Mirth and Sport, When Baron Guelph of Adelstan Took leave and left the Court.
From Fête and Rout and Opera far The full town he forsook, And changed his wand and golden star For Shepherd's Crown and Crook.
The knotted net of light and shade Beneath the budding tree, A sweeter day-bed for him made Than Couch and Canopy.
In copse or lane, as Choice or Chance Might lead him was he seen; And join'd at eve the village dance Upon the village green.
Nor endless--
Undated. Now first published from an MS.
FOOTNOTES:
[996:1] The following 'Fragments', numbered 1-63, consist of a few translations and versicles inserted by Coleridge in his various prose works, and a larger number of fragments, properly so called, which were published from MS. sources in 1893, or are now published for the first time. These fragments are taken exclusively from Coleridge's Notebooks (the source of _Anima Poetæ_, 1895), and were collected, transcribed, and dated by the present Editor for publication in 1893. The fragments now published for the first time were either not used by J. D. Campbell in 1893, or had not been discovered or transcribed. The very slight emendations of the text are due to the fact that Mr. Campbell printed from copies, and that the collection as a whole has now for the second time been collated with the original MSS. Fragments numbered 64, 96, 98, 111, 113, in _P. W._, 1893, are quotations from the plays and poems of William Cartwright (1611-1643). They are not included in the present issue. Fragments 56, 58, 59, 61, 63, 67, 80, 81, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94, 117-120, are inserted in the text or among 'Jeux d'Esprit', or under other headings. The chronological order is for the most part conjectural, and differs from that suggested in 1893. It must be borne in mind that the entries in Coleridge's Notebooks are not continuous, and that the additional matter in prose or verse was inserted from time to time, wherever a page or half a page was not filled up. It follows that the context is an uncertain guide to the date of any given entry. Pains have been taken to exclude quotations from older writers, which Coleridge neither claimed nor intended to claim for his own, but it is possible that two or three of these fragments of verse are not original.
[996:2] This quatrain, described as 'The concluding stanza of an Elegy on a Lady who died in Early Youth', is from part of a memorandum in S. T. C.'s handwriting headed 'Relics of my School-boy Muse; i. e. fragments of poems composed before my fifteenth year'. It follows _First Advent of Love_, 'O fair is Love's first hope,' &c. (vide _ante_, p. 443), and is compared with Age--a stanza written forty years later than the preceding--'Dewdrops are the gems of morning,' &c. (p. 440).
ANOTHER VERSION.
O'er her piled grave the gale of evening sighs, And flowers will grow upon its grassy slope, I wipe the dimming waters from mine eye Even on the cold grave dwells the Cherub Hope.
_Unpublished Letter to Thomas Poole_, Feb. 1. 1801, on the death of Mrs. Robinson ('Perdita').
[997:1] These two lines, slightly altered, were afterwards included in _Alice du Clos_ (ll. 111, 112), _ante_, p. 473.
[998:1] The lines are an attempt to reduce to blank verse one of many minute descriptions of natural objects and scenic effects. The concluding lines are illegible.
[1001:1] These lines, 'slip torn from some old letter,' are endorsed by Poole, 'Reply of Coleridge on my urging him to exert himself.' First collected in 1893.
[1007:1] The translation is embodied in a marginal note on the following quotation from _The Select Discourses_ by John Smith, 1660:--
'_So the Sibyl was noted by Heraclitus as +mainomenô stomati gelasta kai akallôpista phthengomenê+, as one speaking ridiculous and unseemly speeches with her furious mouth._' The fragment is misquoted and misunderstood: for +gelasta+, etc. should be +amyrista+ unperfumed, inornate lays, not redolent of art.--Render it thus:
Not her's, etc. +Stomati mainomenô+ is 'with ecstatic mouth'.
J. D. Campbell in a note to this Fragment (_P. W._, 1893, pp. 464-5) quotes the 'following prose translation of the same passage', from Coleridge's _Statesman's Manual_ (1816, p. 132); 'Multiscience (or a variety and quantity of acquired knowledge) does not test intelligence. But the Sibyll with wild enthusiastic mirth shrilling forth unmirthful, inornate and unperfumed truths, reaches to a thousand years with her voice through the power of God.'
The prose translation is an amalgam of two fragments. The first sentence is quoted by Diogenes Laertius, ix. 1: the second by Plutarch, de Pyth. orac. 6, p. 377.
[1009:1] These rhymes were addressed to a Miss Eliza Nixon, who supplied S. T. C. with books from a lending library.
METRICAL EXPERIMENTS[1014:1]
1
AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE
I heard a voice pealing loud triumph to-day: The voice of the Triumph, O Freedom, was thine! Sumptuous Tyranny challeng'd the fray,[1014:2] 'Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.' Whose could the Triumph be Freedom but thine? Stars of the Heaven shine to feed thee; Hush'd are the Whirl-blasts and heed thee;-- By her depth, by her height, Nature swears thou art mine!
1. Amphibrach tetrameter catalectic [breve macron breve] | [breve macron breve] | [breve macron breve] | [breve macron]
2. Ditto.
3. Three pseudo amphimacers, and one long syllable.
4. Two dactyls, and one perfect Amphimacer.
5. = 1 and 2.
6. [macron breve macron] | [macron breve macron breve] |
7. [macron breve macron] | [macron breve macron breve] |
8. [macron breve macron] | [macron breve macron], [macron breve macron], [macron breve macron]
1801. Now first published from an MS.
2
TROCHAICS
Thus she said, and, all around, Her diviner spirit, gan to borrow; Earthly Hearings hear unearthly sound, Hearts heroic faint, and sink aswound. Welcome, welcome, spite of pain and sorrow, Love to-day, and Thought to-morrow.
1801. Now first published from an MS.
3
THE PROPER UNMODIFIED DOCHMIUS
(_i. e._ antispastic Catalectic)
B[)e]n[=i]gn sh[=o][=o]t[)i]ng st[=a]rs, [)e]cst[=a]t[=i]c d[)e]l[=i]ght.
_or_
The Lord's throne in Heaven [)a]m[=i]d [=a]ng[)e]l troops Amid troops of Angels God throned on high.
1801. Now first published from an MS.
4
IAMBICS
No cold shall thee benumb, Nor darkness stain thy sight; To thee new Heat, new Light Shall from this object come, Whose Praises if thou now wilt sound aright, My Pen shall give thee leave hereafter to be dumb.
1801. Now first published from an MS.
5
NONSENSE
Sing impassionate Soul! of Mohammed the complicate story: Sing, unfearful of Man, groaning and ending in care. Short the Command and the Toil, but endlessly mighty the Glory! Standing aloof if it chance, vainly our enemy's scare: What tho' we wretchedly fare, wearily drawing the Breath--, Malice in wonder may stare; merrily move we to Death.
Now first published from an MS.
6
A PLAINTIVE MOVEMENT
[11´ 4` 11´ 4` | 10´ 6` 4´ 10`]
Go little Pipe! for ever I must leave thee, Ah, vainly true! Never, ah never! must I more receive thee? Adieu! adieu! Well, thou art gone! and what remains behind, Soothing the soul to Hope? The moaning Wind-- Hide with sere leaves my Grave's undaisied Slope.
(?) October. 1814.
[It would be better to alter this metre--
10´ 6` 6´ 10` | 11´ 4` 11´ 4`: and still more plaintive if the 1st and 4th were 11´ 11´ as well as the 5th and 7th.]
Now first published from an MS.
7
AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE
[breve breve macron], [breve breve macron] [breve breve macron], [breve breve macron] [breve macron] } [macron breve macron] } [breve breve macron]; [breve breve macron], [breve breve macron] [breve macron] } [macron breve macron] } [breve breve macron], [breve breve macron], [breve breve macron] [breve macron] } [breve breve macron] } [breve breve macron], [breve breve macron]
When thy Beauty appears, In its graces and airs, All bright as an Angel new dight from the Sky, At distance I gaze, and am awed by my fears, So strangely you dazzle my Eye.
Now first published from an MS.
8
NONSENSE VERSES
[AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE]
Ye fowls of ill presage, Go vanish into Night! Let all things sweet and fair Yield homage to the pair: From Infancy to Age Each Brow be smooth and bright, As Lake in evening light. To-day be Joy! and Sorrow Devoid of Blame (The widow'd Dame) Shall welcome be to-morrow. Thou, too, dull Night! may'st come unchid: This wall of Flame the Dark hath hid With turrets each a Pyramid;-- For the Tears that we shed, are Gladness, A mockery of Sadness!
Now first published from an MS.
9
NONSENSE
[AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE]
I wish on earth to sing Of Jove the bounteous store, That all the Earth may ring With Tale of Wrong no more. I fear no foe in field or tent, Tho' weak our cause yet strong his Grace: As Polar roamers clad in Fur, Unweeting whither we were bent We found as 'twere a native place, Where not a Blast could stir: { For Jove had his Almighty Presence lent: { Each eye beheld, in each transfigured Face, { The radiant light of Joy, and Hope's forgotten Trace.
_or_
{ O then I sing Jove's bounteous store-- { On rushing wing while sea-mews roar, { And raking Tides roll Thunder on the shore.
Now first published from an MS.
10
EXPERIMENTS IN METRE
There in some darksome shade Methinks I'd weep Myself asleep, And there forgotten fade.
First published from an MS. in 1893.
11
Once again, sweet Willow, wave thee! Why stays my Love? Bend, and in yon streamlet--lave thee! Why stays my Love? Oft have I at evening straying, Stood, thy branches long surveying, Graceful in the light breeze playing,-- Why stays my Love?
1. Four Trochees /.
2. One spondee, Iambic \.
3. Four Trochees 1.
4. Repeated from 2.
5, 6, 7. A triplet of 4 Trochees--8 repeated.
First published from an MS. in 1893.
12
[macron breve], [macron breve breve], [macron breve breve], [macron breve breve] [macron breve], [macron breve breve], [macron breve breve], [macron breve], [macron breve breve], [macron breve breve], [macron breve breve] [breve macron breve], [macron breve breve], [macron breve breve], [macron] [macron breve breve], [macron breve] [breve macron breve breve], [macron breve] etc.
Songs of Shepherds and rustical Roundelays, Forms of Fancies and whistled on Reeds, Songs to solace young Nymphs upon Holidays Are too unworthy for wonderful deeds-- Round about, hornéd Lucinda they swarméd, And her they informéd, How minded they were, Each God and Goddess, To take human Bodies As Lords and Ladies to follow the Hare.
Now first published from an MS.
13
A METRICAL ACCIDENT
Curious instance of casual metre and rhyme in a prose narrative (_The Life of Jerome of Prague_). The metre is Amphibrach dimeter Catalectic [breve macron breve] | [breve macron], and the rhymes antistrophic.
Then Jerome did call _a_ From his flame-pointed Fence; _b_ Which under he trod, _c_ As upward to mount _d_ From the fiery flood,-- _e_
'I summon you all, _a_ A hundred years hence, _b_ To appear before God, _c_ To give an account _d_ Of my innocent blood!' _e_
July 7, 1826. Now first published from an MS.
NOTES BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY
1. I think most ears would take these as anapaestic throughout. But the introduction of Milton's
Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine
as a _leit-motiv_ is of the first interest.
Description of it, l. 4, very curious. I should have thought no one could have run 'drunk with wine' together as one foot.
2. Admirable! I hardly know better trochaics.
3. Very interesting: but the terminology odd. The dochmius, a five-syllabled foot, is (in _one_ form--there are about thirty!) an antispast [breve macron macron breve] _plus_ a syllable. Catalectic means (_properly_) _minus_ a syllable. But the verses as quantified are really dochmiac, and the only attempts I have seen. Shall I own I can't get any _English_ Rhythm on them?
4. More ordinary: but a good arrangement and wonderful for the date.
5. Not nonsense at all: but, metrically, really his usual elegiac.
6. This, _if early_, is almost priceless. It is not only lovely in itself, but an obvious attempt to recover the zig-zag outline and varied cadence of seventeenth century born--the things that Shelley to some extent, Beddoes and Darley more, and Tennyson and Browning most were to master. I subscribe (most humbly) to his suggestions, especially his second.
7. Very like some late seventeenth-century (Dryden time) motives and a _leetle_ 'Moorish'.
8. Like 6, and charming.
9. A sort of recurrence to _Pindaric_--again pioneer, as the soul of S. T. C. _had_ to be always.
10 and 11. Ditto.
13. Again, _I_ should say, anapaestic--but this anapaest and amphibrach quarrel is +aspondos+.
FOOTNOTES:
[1014:1] 'He attributed in part, his writing so little, to the extreme care and labour which he applied in elaborating his metres. He said that when he was intent on a new experiment in metre, the time and labour he bestowed were inconceivable; that he was quite an epicure in sound.'--Wordsworth on Coleridge (as reported by Mr. Justice Coleridge), _Memoirs of W. Wordsworth_, 1851, ii. 306.
In a letter to Poole dated March 16, 1801, Coleridge writes: 'I shall . . . immediately publish my _Christabel_, with the Essays on the "Preternatural", and on Metre' (_Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 349). Something had been done towards the collection of materials for the first 'Essay', a great deal for the second. In a notebook (No. 22) which contains dated entries of 1805, 1815, &c., but of which the greater portion, as the context and various handwritings indicate, belongs to a much earlier date, there are some forty-eight numbered specimens of various metres derived from German and Italian sources. To some of these stanzas or strophes a metrical scheme with original variants is attached, whilst other schemes are exemplified by metrical experiments in English, headed 'Nonsense Verses'. Two specimens of these experiments, headed 'A Sunset' and 'What is Life', are included in the text of _P. W._, 1893 (pp. 172, 178), and in that of the present issue, pp. 393, 394. They are dated 1805 in accordance with the dates of Coleridge's own comments or afterthoughts, but it is almost certain that both sets of verses were composed in 1801. The stanza entitled 'An Angel Visitant' belongs to the same period. Ten other sets of 'Nonsense Verses' of uncertain but early date are now printed for the first time.
[1014:2] Sumptuous Tyranny floating this way. [MS.] On p. 17 of Notebook 22 Coleridge writes:--
--[u][u],--[u] [u],--[u],-- Drunk with I--dolatry--drunk with, Wine.
A noble metre if I can find a metre to precede or follow.
S[=u]mpt[)u][)o]us D[=a]l[)i]l[)a] fl[=o]at[)i]ng th[)i]s w[=a]y Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.
Both lines are from Milton's _Samson Agonistes_.
APPENDIX I
FIRST DRAFTS, EARLY VERSIONS, ETC.
A
[Vide _ante_, p. 100]
EFFUSION 35
Clevedon, August 20th, 1795.[1021:1]
(First Draft)
My pensive SARA! thy soft Cheek reclin'd Thus on my arm, how soothing sweet it is Beside our Cot to sit, our Cot o'ergrown With white-flowr'd Jasmine and the blossom'd myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) 5 And watch the Clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow-sad'ning round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant, like thy polish'd Sense, Shine opposite! What snatches of perfume The noiseless gale from yonder bean-field wafts! 10 The stilly murmur of the far-off Sea Tells us of Silence! and behold, my love! In the half-closed window we will place the Harp, Which by the desultory Breeze caress'd, Like some coy maid half willing to be woo'd, 15 Utters such sweet upbraidings as, perforce, Tempt to repeat the wrong!
[_M. R._]
EFFUSION, p. 96. (1797.)
(Second Draft)
My pensive SARA! thy soft Cheek reclin'd Thus on my arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) 5 And watch the Clouds that, late were rich with light, Slow-sadd'ning round, and mark the Star of eve Serenely brilliant (such should WISDOM be!) Shine opposite. How exquisite the Scents Snatch'd from yon Bean-field! And the world _so_ hush'd! 10 The stilly murmur of the far-off Sea Tells us of Silence! And that simplest Lute Plac'd lengthways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory Breeze caress'd (Like some coy Maid half-yielding to her Lover) 15 It pours such sweet Upbraidings, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong. And now it's strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious Surges sink and rise In aëry voyage, Music such as erst 20 Round rosy bowers (so Legendaries tell) To sleeping Maids came floating witchingly By wand'ring West winds stoln from Faery land; Where on some magic Hybla MELODIES Round many a newborn honey-dropping Flower 25 Footless and wild, like Birds of Paradise, Nor pause nor perch, warbling on untir'd wing.
And thus, my Love! as on the midway Slope Of yonder Hill I stretch my limbs at noon And tranquil muse upon Tranquillity. 30 Full many a Thought uncall'd and undetain'd And many idle flitting Phantasies Traverse my indolent and passive Mind As wild, as various, as the random Gales That swell or flutter on this subject Lute. 35 And what if All of animated Life Be but as Instruments diversly fram'd That tremble into thought, while thro' them breathes One infinite and intellectual Breeze, And all in diff'rent Heights so aptly hung, 40 That Murmurs indistinct and Bursts sublime, Shrill Discords and most soothing Melodies, Harmonious from Creation's vast concent-- Thus _God_ would be the universal Soul, Mechaniz'd matter as th' organic harps 45 And each one's Tunes be that, which each calls I.
But thy more serious Look a mild Reproof Darts, O beloved Woman, and thy words Pious and calm check these unhallow'd Thoughts, These Shapings of the unregen'rate Soul, 50 Bubbles, that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling Spring: Thou biddest me walk humbly with my God! Meek Daughter in the family of Christ. Wisely thou sayest, and holy are thy words! 55 Nor may I unblam'd or speak or think of Him, Th' INCOMPREHENSIBLE! save when with Awe I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels, Who with his saving Mercies healèd me, A sinful and most miserable man 60 Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess PEACE and this COT, and THEE, my best-belov'd!
[_MS. R._]
FOOTNOTES:
[1021:1] Now first published from Cottle's MSS. preserved in the Library of Rugby School.
LINENOTES:
[40-43]
In diff'rent heights, so aptly hung, that all In half-heard murmurs and loud bursts sublime, Shrill discords and most soothing melodies, Raises one great concent--one concent formed, Thus God, the only universal Soul--
Alternative version, MS. R.
B
RECOLLECTION[1023:1]
[Vide _ante_, pp. 53, 48]
As the tir'd savage, who his drowsy frame Had bask'd beneath the sun's unclouded flame, Awakes amid the troubles of the air, The skiey deluge and white lightning's glare, Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep, 5 And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep! So tost by storms along life's wild'ring way Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day, When by my native brook I wont to rove, While HOPE with kisses nurs'd the infant LOVE! 10
Dear native brook! like peace so placidly Smoothing thro' fertile fields thy current meek-- Dear native brook! where first young POESY Star'd wildly eager in her noon-tide dream; Where blameless Pleasures dimpled Quiet's cheek, 15 As water-lilies _ripple_ thy slow stream! How many various-fated years have past, What blissful and what anguish'd hours, since last I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast Numb'ring its light leaps! Yet so deep imprest 20 Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny blaze, But strait, with all their tints, thy waters rise, The crossing plank, and margin's willowy maze, And bedded sand, that, vein'd with various dyes, 25 Gleam'd thro' thy bright transparence to the gaze-- Ah! fair tho' faint those forms of memory seem Like Heaven's bright bow on thy smooth evening stream.
FOOTNOTES:
[1023:1] First published in _The Watchman_, No. V, April 2, 1796: reprinted in Note 39 (p. 566) of _P. W._, 1892. The Editor (J. D. Campbell) points out that this poem as printed in _The Watchman_ is made up of lines 71-86 of _Lines on an Autumnal Evening_ (vide _ante_, p. 53), of lines 2-11 of _Sonnet to the River Otter_, and of lines 13, 14 of _The Gentle Look_, and _Anna and Harland_.
C
THE DESTINY OF NATIONS
[Add. (_MSS._) 34,225. f. 5. Vide _ante_, p. 131.]
[DRAFT I]
Auspicious Reverence! Hush all meaner song, Till we the deep prelusive strain have pour'd To the Great Father, only Rightful King, Eternal Father! king omnipotent; Beneath whose shadowing banners wide-unfurl'd 5 Justice leads forth her tyrant-quelling Hosts. Such Symphony demands best Instrument.
Seize, then, my Soul, from Freedom's trophied dome The harp which hanging high between the shields Of Brutus and Leonidas, oft gives 10 A fitful music, when with breeze-like Touch Great Spirits passing thrill its wings: the Bard Listens and knows, thy will to work by Fame. For what is Freedom, but the unfetter'd use Of all the powers which God for use had given? 15 But chiefly this, him first to view, him last, Thro' shapes, and sounds, and all the world of sense, The change of empires, and the deeds of Man Translucent, as thro' clouds that veil the Light. But most, O Man! in thine in wasted Sense 20 And the still growth of Immortality Image of God, and his Eternity. But some there are who deem themselves most wise When they within this gross and visible sphere Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent 25 Proud in their meanness--and themselves they mock With noisy emptiness of learned phrase Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences, Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, 30 Untenanting Creation of its God!
But properties are God: the Naked Mass (If Mass there be, at best a guess obscure,) Acts only by its inactivity. Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier dream, 35 That as one body is the Aggregate Of Atoms numberless, each organiz'd, So by a strange and dim similitude Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds Form one all-conscious Spirit, who controlls 40 With absolute ubiquity of Thought All his component Monads: linked Minds, Each in his own sphere evermore evolving Its own entrusted powers--Howe'er this be, Whether a dream presumptious, caught from earth 45 And earthly form, or vision veiling Truth, Yet the Omnific Father of all Worlds God in God immanent, the eternal Word, That gives forth, yet remains--Sun, that at once Dawns, rises, sets and crowns the Height of Heaven, 50 Great general Agent in all finite souls, Doth in that action put on finiteness, For all his Thoughts are acts, and every act A Being of Substance; God impersonal, Yet in all worlds impersonate in all, 55 Absolute Infinite, whose dazzling robe Flows in rich folds, and darts in shooting Hues Of infinite Finiteness! he rolls each orb Matures each planet, and Tree, and spread thro' all Wields all the Universe of Life and Thought, 60 [Yet leaves to all the Creatures meanest, highest, Angelic Right, self-conscious Agency--]
[_Note._ The last two lines of Draft I are erased.]
[DRAFT II]
Auspicious Reverence! Hush all meaner song, Ere we the deep prelusive strain have pour'd To the Great Father, only Rightful king All-gracious Father, king Omnipotent! Mind! co-eternal Word! forth-breathing Sound! 5 Aye unconfounded: undivided Trine-- Birth and Procession; ever re-incircling Act! God in God immanent, distinct yet one! Omnific, Omniform. The Immoveable, That goes forth and remains, eke----and at once 10 Dawns, rises, and sets and crowns the height of Heaven! [Cf. _Anima Poetæ_, 1895, p. 162.]
Such Symphony demands best Instrument. Seize then, my soul! from Freedom's trophied dome. The harp which hanging high between the shields Of Brutus and Leonidas, gives oft 15 A fateful Music, when with breeze-like Touch Pure spirits thrill its strings: the Poet's heart Listens, and smiling knows that Poets demand Once more to live for Man and work by Fame: For what is Freedom, but th' unfetter'd use 20 Of all the Powers, which God for use had given! Thro' the sweet Influence of harmonious Word----
* * * * *
The zephyr-travell'd Harp, that flashes forth Jets and low wooings of wild melody That sally forth and seek the meeting Ear, 25 Then start away, half-wanton, half-afraid Like the red-breast forced by wintry snows, In the first visits by the genial Hearth, From the fair Hand, that tempts it to-- Or like a course of flame, from the deep sigh 30 Of the idly-musing Lover dreaming of his Love With thoughts and hopes and fears, {sinking, snatching, {as warily, upward Bending, recoiling, fluttering as itself
* * * * *
And cheats us with false prophecies of sound
LINENOTES:
[9] i. e. jure suo, by any inherent Right.
[DRAFT III]
Auspicious Reverence! Hush all meaner song, Till we the deep prelusive strain have pour'd To the Great Father, only Rightful king, All Gracious Father, king Omnipotent! To Him, the inseparate, unconfounded TRINE, 5 MIND! Co-eternal WORD! Forth-breathing SOUND! Birth! and PROCESSION! Ever-circling ACT! GOD in GOD immanent, distinct yet one! Sole Rest, true Substance of all finite Being! Omnific! Omniform! The Immoveable, 10 That goes forth and remaineth: and at once Dawns, rises, sets and crowns the height of Heaven!
* * * * *
Such Symphony demands best Instrument. Seize then, my Soul! from Freedom's trophied dome The Harp, that hanging high between the Shields 15 Of Brutus and Leonidas, flashes forth Starts of shrill-music, when with breeze-like Touch Departed Patriots thrill the----
D
PASSAGES IN SOUTHEY'S _Joan of Arc_ (FIRST EDITION, 1796) CONTRIBUTED BY S. T. COLERIDGE[1027:1].
[Vide _ante_, p. 131]