Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry Thy fair creation with a mastering eye, And all awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand, Now wander through the Eden of thy hand; Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear See fragment shadows of the crossing deer; And with that serviceable nymph I stoop The crystal from its restless pool to scoop. I see no longer! I myself am there, Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. 'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings, And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings; Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells From the high tower, and think that there she dwells. With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest, And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest. The brightness of the world, O thou once free, And always fair, rare land of courtesy! O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills And famous Arno, fed with all their rills; Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy! Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine, The golden corn, the olive, and the vine. Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old, And forests, where beside his leafy hold The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn, And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn; Palladian palace with its storied halls; Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls; Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span, And Nature makes her happy home with man; Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed With its own rill, on its own spangled bed, And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head, A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn;— Thine all delights, and every muse is thine; And more than all, the embrace and intertwine Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance! Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance, See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees The new-found roll of old Maeonides; But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart, Peers Ovid's Holy Book of Love's sweet smart!

O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, Where, half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse!

Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, And see in Dian's vest between the ranks Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves, With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves!

1828.



THE TWO FOUNTS

STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY [MRS. ADERS] ON HER RECOVERY WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE ATTACK OF PAIN

'T was my last waking thought, how it could be That thou, sweet friend, such anguish should'st endure; When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, and he Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure. Methought he fronted me with peering look Fix'd on my heart; and read aloud in game The loves and griefs therein, as from a book: And uttered praise like one who wished to blame.

In every heart (quoth he) since Adam's sin Two Founts there are, of Suffering and of Cheer! That to let forth, and this to keep within! But she, whose aspect I find imaged here,

Of Pleasure only will to all dispense, That Fount alone unlock, by no distress Choked or turned inward, but still issue thence Unconquered cheer, persistent loveliness.

As on the driving cloud the shiny bow, That gracious thing made up of tears and light, Mid the wild rack and rain that slants below Stands smiling forth, unmoved and freshly bright:

As though the spirits of all lovely flowers, Inweaving each its wreath and dewy crown, Or ere they sank to earth in vernal showers, Had built a bridge to tempt the angels down.

Even so, Eliza! on that face of thine, On that benignant face, whose look alone (The soul's translucence thro' her crystal shrine!) Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own,

A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing, But with a silent charm compels the stern And tort'ring Genius of the bitter spring, To shrink aback, and cower upon his urn.

Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found In passion, spleen, or strife) the Fount of Pain O'erflowing beats against its lovely mound, And in wild flashes shoots from heart to brain?

Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam On his raised lip, that aped a critic smile, Had passed: yet I, my sad thoughts to beguile, Lay weaving on the tissue of my dream;

Till audibly at length I cried, as though Thou hadst indeed been present to my eyes, O sweet, sweet sufferer; if the case be so, I pray thee, be less good, less sweet, less wise!

In every look a barbed arrow send, On those soft lips let scorn and anger live! Do any thing, rather than thus, sweet friend! Hoard for thyself the pain, thou wilt not give!

1826.



A DAY-DREAM

My eyes make pictures, when they are shut: I see a fountain, large and fair, A willow and a ruined hut, And thee, and me and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow!

A wild-rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer well agree: And lo! where Mary leans her head, Two dear names carved upon the tree! And Mary's tears, they are not tears of sorrow: Our sister and our friend will both be here tomorrow.

'Twas day! but now few, large, and bright, The stars are round the crescent moon! And now it is a dark warm night, The balmiest of the month of June! A glow-worm fall'n, and on the marge remounting Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain.

O ever—ever be thou blest! For dearly, Asra! love I thee! This brooding warmth across my breast, This depth of tranquil bliss—ah, me! Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, But in one quiet room we three are still together.

The shadows dance upon the wall, By the still dancing fire-flames made; And now they slumber moveless all! And now they melt to one deep shade! But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee; I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee!

Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play— 'Tis Mary's hand upon my brow! But let me check this tender lay Which none may hear but she and thou! Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming, Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women!

?1807.



SONNET

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME

Charles! my slow heart was only sad, when first I scanned that face of feeble infancy: For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst All I had been, and all my child might be! But when I saw it on its mother's arm, And hanging at her bosom (she the while Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile) Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm Impressed a father's kiss: and all beguiled Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, I seemed to see an angel-form appear— 'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild! So for the mother's sake the child was dear, And dearer was the mother for the child.

1796.



LINES TO W. LINLEY, ESQ.

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC

While my young cheek retains its healthful hues, And I have many friends who hold me dear, Linley! methinks, I would not often hear Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose All memory of the wrongs and sore distress For which my miserable brethren weep! But should uncomforted misfortunes steep My daily bread in tears and bitterness; And if at death's dread moment I should lie With no beloved face at my bed-side, To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks such strains, breathed by my angel-guide, Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died!

1797.



DOMESTIC PEACE

[FROM THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE, ACT I.]

Tell me, on what holy ground May Domestic Peace be found? Halcyon daughter of the skies, Far on fearful wings she flies, From the pomp of Sceptered State, From the Rebel's noisy hate. In a cottaged vale She dwells, Listening to the Sabbath bells! Still around her steps are seen Spotless Honour's meeker mien, Love, the sire of pleasing fears, Sorrow smiling through her tears, And conscious of the past employ Memory, bosom-spring of joy.

1794.



SONG

SUNG BY GLYCINE IN ZAPOLYA, ACT II. SCENE 2.

A Sunny shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted: And poised therein a bird so bold— Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!

He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled Within that shaft of sunny mist; His eyes of fire, his beak of gold, All else of amethyst!

And thus he sang: "Adieu! adieu! Love's dreams prove seldom true. The blossoms they make no delay: The sparkling dew-drops will not stay. Sweet month of May, We must away; Far, far away! To-day! to-day!"

1815.



HUNTING SONG

[ZAPOLYA, ACT IV. SCENE 2]

Up, up! ye dames, and lasses gay! To the meadows trip away. 'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn, And scare the small birds from the corn. Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

Leave the hearth and leave the house To the cricket and the mouse: Find grannam out a sunny seat, With babe and lambkin at her feet. Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

1815.



WESTPHALIAN SONG

[The following is an almost literal translation of a very old and very favourite song among the Westphalian Boors. The turn at the end is the same with one of Mr. Dibdin's excellent songs, and the air to which it is sung by the Boors is remarkably sweet and lively.]

When thou to my true-love com'st Greet her from me kindly; When she asks thee how I fare? Say, folks in Heaven fare finely.

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

?1799.



YOUTH AND AGE

Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee— Both were mine! Life went a-maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young!

When I was young?—Ah, woeful When! Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong, O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, How lightly then it flashed along:— Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree; O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit— It cannot be that Thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:- And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe, that thou art gone?

I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size: But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve! Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve, When we are old: That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-leave, Like some poor nigh-related guest, That may not rudely be dismist; Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile.

1823-1832.



WORK WITHOUT HOPE

LINES COMPOSED 2IST FEBRUARY 1827

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— And Winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may, For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll: And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live.

1827.



TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY

AN ALLEGORY

On the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother! This far outstript the other; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind: For he, alas! is blind! O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last.

1815.



LOVE'S APPARITION AND EVANISHMENT

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE

Like a lone Arab, old and blind, Some caravan had left behind, Who sits beside a ruin'd well, Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell; And now he hangs his aged head aslant, And listens for a human sound—in vain! And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant, Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;— Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour, Resting my eye upon a drooping plant, With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower, I sate upon the couch of camomile; And—whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance, Flitted across the idle brain, the while I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope, In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance, Turn'd my eye inward—thee, O genial Hope, Love's elder sister! thee did I behold, Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold, With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim, Lie lifeless at my feet! And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim, And stood beside my seat; She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips, As she was wont to do;— Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath Woke just enough of life in death To make Hope die anew.



L'ENVOY

In vain we supplicate the Powers above; There is no resurrection for the Love That, nursed in tenderest care, yet fades away In the chill'd heart by gradual self-decay.

1833.



LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION

O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces; Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school. For as old Atlas on his broad neck places Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it;—so Do these upbear the little world below Of Education,—Patience, Love, and Hope. Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show, The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope, And robes that touching as adown they flow, Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow. O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie, Love too will sink and die. But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive From her own life that Hope is yet alive; And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes, And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies;— Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. Yet haply there will come a weary day, When overtask'd at length Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength, Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth, And both supporting does the work of both.

1829.



DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE A SOLILOQUY

Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st—shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite: And though thou notest from thy safe recess Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, Love them for what they are; nor love them less, Because to thee they are not what they were.

1826.



LOVE'S FIRST HOPE

O Fair is Love's first hope to gentle mind! As Eve's first star thro' fleecy cloudlet peeping; And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind, O'er willowy meads, and shadow'd waters creeping, And Ceres' golden fields;—the sultry hind Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping.

?1824.



PHANTOM

All look and likeness caught from earth, All accident of kin and birth, Had pass'd away. There was no trace Of aught on that illumined face, Upraised beneath the rifted stone, But of one spirit all her own;— She, she herself, and only she, Shone through her body visibly.

1804.

TO NATURE

It may indeed be phantasy: when I Essay to draw from all created things Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings; And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety. So let it be; and if the wide world rings In mock of this belief, it brings Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain, perplexity. So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

?182O.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS

O! It is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

1819.

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT

Since all that beat about in Nature's range, Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain? Call to the Hours, that in the distance play, The faery people of the future day— Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarm Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath, Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm, Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death! Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see, She is not thou, and only thou art she, Still, still as though some dear embodied Good, Some living Love before my eyes there stood With answering look a ready ear to lend, I mourn to thee and say—"Ah! loveliest friend! That this the meed of all my toils might be, To have a home, an English home, and thee!" Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one. The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon, Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark, Without thee were but a becalmed bark, Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.

And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when The woodman winding westward up the glen At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, Sees full before him, gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head; The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues, Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues!

?1805.



PHANTOM OR FACT

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE



AUTHOR

A Lovely form there sate beside my bed, And such a feeding calm its presence shed, A tender love so pure from earthly leaven, That I unnethe the fancy might control, 'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven, Wooing its gentle way into my soul! But ah! the change—It had not stirr'd, and yet— Alas! that change how fain would I forget! That shrinking back, like one that had mistook! That weary, wandering, disavowing look! 'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame, And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!

FRIEND

This riddling tale, to what does it belong? Is't history? vision? or an idle song? Or rather say at once, within what space Of time this wild disastrous change took place?

AUTHOR

Call it a moment's work (and such it seems) This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams; But say, that years matur'd the silent strife, And 'tis a record from the dream of life.

?183O.



LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS OB. ANNO DOM. 1O88

No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope Soon shall I now before my God appear, By him to be acquitted, as I hope; By him to be condemned, as I fear.—

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE

Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said: I see a hope spring from that humble fear. All are not strong alike through storms to steer Right onward. What though dread of threatened death And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath Inconstant to the truth within thy heart? That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start, Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, Or not so vital as to claim thy life: And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!

Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own, Judge him who won them when he stood alone, And proudly talk of recreant Berengare— O first the age, and then the man compare! That age how dark! congenial minds how rare! No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn! No throbbing hearts awaited his return! Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell, He only disenchanted from the spell, Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, Moved in the scanty circlet of his light: And was it strange if he withdrew the ray That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?

The ascending day-star with a bolder eye Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn; Lest so we tempt the approaching Noon to scorn The mists and painted vapours of our Morn.

?1826.



FORBEARANCE

Beareth all things.—2 COR. xiii.7.

Gently I took that which ungently came, And without scorn forgave:—Do thou the same. A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin, Fear that—the spark self-kindled from within, Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare, Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air. Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds, And soon the ventilated spirit finds Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd, Or worse than foe, an alienated friend, A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side, Think it God's message, and in humble pride With heart of oak replace it;—thine the gains— Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

1832.



SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND

FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S "BOOK OF THE CHURCH" (1825)

POET

I note the moods and feelings men betray, And heed them more than aught they do or say; The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed Still-born or haply strangled in its birth; These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed! These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth!

Butler made up of impudence and trick, With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick, Rome's brazen serpent—boldly dares discuss The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss! And with grim triumph and a truculent glee Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy, That made an empire's plighted faith a lie, And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye— (Pleased with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart To stand outmaster'd in his own black art!) Yet Butler-

FRIEND

Enough of Butler! we're agreed, Who now defends would then have done the deed. But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway, Who but must meet the proffer'd hand half way When courteous Butler—

POET (aside)

(Rome's smooth go-between!)

FRIEND

Laments the advice that sour'd a milky queen— (For "bloody" all enlighten'd men confess An antiquated error of the press:) Who, rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, With actual cautery staunch'd the Church's wounds! And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur We damn the French and Irish massacre, Yet blames them both—and thinks the Pope might err! What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield Against such gentle foes to take the field Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?

POET

What think I now? Even what I thought before;— What Butler boasts though Butler may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray When the shown feeling points a different way. Smooth Butler can say grace at slander's feast, And bless each haut-gout cook'd by monk or priest; Leaves the full lie on Butler's gong to swell, Content with half-truths that do just as well; But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks, And with him shares the Irish nation's thanks!

So much for you, my friend! who own a Church, And would not leave your mother in the lurch! But when a Liberal asks me what I think— Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink, And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam, In search of some safe parable I roam— An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!

Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, I see a tiger lapping kitten's food: And who shall blame him that he purs applause, When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause; And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws! Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt, Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws!

1825, or 1826.



ON DONNE'S POETRY

With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots, Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots; Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue, Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

?1818.



ON A BAD SINGER

Swans sing before they die—'twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.



NE PLUS ULTRA

Sole Positive of Night! Antipathist of Light! Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod— The one permitted opposite of God!— Condensed blackness and abysmal storm Compacted to one sceptre Arms the Grasp enorm— The Interceptor— The Substance that still casts the shadow Death!— The Dragon foul and fell— The unrevealable, And hidden one, whose breath Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell!— Ah! sole despair Of both the eternities in Heaven! Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer, The all-compassionate! Save to the Lampads Seven Reveal'd to none of all the Angelic State, Save to the Lampads Seven, That watch the throne of Heaven!

?1826.



HUMAN LIFE

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY

If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul like Milton's can know death; O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes! Surplus of Nature's dread activity, Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She formed with restless hands unconsciously. Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, The counter-weights!—Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create And to repay each other! Why rejoices Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold These costless shadows of thy shadowy self? Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun! Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none; Thy being's being is contradiction.

?1815.



THE BUTTERFLY

The Butterfly the ancient Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name— But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of earthly life!—For in this mortal frame Our's is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

?1815.



THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL

AN ALLEGORY

I

He too has flitted from his secret nest, Hope's last and dearest child without a name!— Has flitted from me, like the warmthless flame, That makes false promise of a place of rest To the tired Pilgrim's still believing mind;— Or like some Elfin Knight in kingly court, Who having won all guerdons in his sport, Glides out of view, and whither none can find!

II

Yes! he hath flitted from me—with what aim, Or why, I know not! 'Twas a home of bliss, And he was innocent, as the pretty shame Of babe, that tempts and shuns the menaced kiss, From its twy-cluster'd hiding place of snow! Pure as the babe, I ween, and all aglow As the dear hopes, that swell the mother's breast— Her eyes down gazing o'er her clasped charge;— Yet gay as that twice happy father's kiss, That well might glance aside, yet never miss, Where the sweet mark emboss'd so sweet a targe— Twice wretched he who hath been doubly blest!

III

Like a loose blossom on a gusty night He flitted from me—and has left behind (As if to them his faith he ne'er did plight) Of either sex and answerable mind Two playmates, twin-births of his foster-dame:— The one a steady lad (Esteem he hight) And Kindness is the gentler sister's name. Dim likeness now, though fair she be and good, Of that bright boy who hath us all forsook;— But in his full-eyed aspect when she stood, And while her face reflected every look, And in reflection kindled—she became So like him, that almost she seem'd the same!

IV

Ah! he is gone, and yet will not depart!— Is with me still, yet I from him exiled! For still there lives within my secret heart The magic image of the magic Child, Which there he made up-grow by his strong art, As in that crystal orb—wise Merlin's feat,— The wondrous "World of Glass," wherein inisled All long'd for things their beings did repeat;— And there he left it, like a Sylph beguiled, To live and yearn and languish incomplete!

V

Can wit of man a heavier grief reveal? Can sharper pang from hate or scorn arise?— Yes! one more sharp there is that deeper lies, Which fond Esteem but mocks when he would heal. Yet neither scorn nor hate did it devise, But sad compassion and atoning zeal! One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray'd! And this it is my woeful hap to feel, When, at her Brother's hest, the twin-born Maid With face averted and unsteady eyes, Her truant playmate's faded robe puts on; And inly shrinking from her own disguise Enacts the faery Boy that's lost and gone. O worse than all! O pang all pangs above Is Kindness counterfeiting absent Love!

?1811



THE VISIONARY HOPE

Sad lot, to have no Hope! Though lowly kneeling He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing, That his sick body might have ease and rest; He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest Against his will the stifling load revealing, Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest, Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast, An alien's restless mood but half concealing, The sternness on his gentle brow confessed, Sickness within and miserable feeling: Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams, And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain, Each night was scattered by its own loud screams: Yet never could his heart command, though fain, One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he would— For Love's Despair is but Hope's pining Ghost! For this one hope he makes his hourly moan, He wishes and can wish for this alone! Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams (So the love-stricken visionary deems) Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower! Or let it stay! yet this one Hope should give Such strength that he would bless his pains and live.

?1807 ?181O.



THE PAINS OF SLEEP

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees; But silently, by slow degrees, My spirit I to Love compose, In humble trust mine eye-lids close, With reverential resignation, No wish conceived, no thought exprest, Only a sense of supplication; A sense o'er all my soul imprest That I am weak, yet not unblest, Since in me, round me, everywhere Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

But yester-night I pray'd aloud In anguish and in agony, Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: A lurid light, a trampling throng, Sense of intolerable wrong, And whom I scorned, those only strong! Thirst of revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, and yet burning still! Desire with loathing strangely mixed On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all! Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which all confused I could not know Whether I suffered, or I did: For all seem'd guilt, remorse or woe, My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame!

So two nights passed: the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me Distemper's worst calamity. The third night, when my own loud scream Had waked me from the fiendish dream, O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, I wept as I had been a child; And having thus by tears subdued My anguish to a milder mood, Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stained with sin: For aye entempesting anew The unfathomable hell within The horror of their deeds to view, To know and loathe, yet wish and do! Such griefs with such men well agree, But wherefore, wherefore fall on me? To be beloved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed.

1803.



LOVE'S BURIAL-PLACE

Lady. If Love be dead— Poet. And I aver it! Lady. Tell me, Bard! where Love lies buried Poet. Love lies buried where 'twas born: Oh, gentle dame! think it no scorn If, in my fancy, I presume To call thy bosom poor Love's Tomb. And on that tomb to read the line:— "Here lies a Love that once seem'd mine. But took a chill, as I divine, And died at length of a decline."

1833.



LOVE, A SWORD

Though veiled in spires of myrtle-wreath, Love is a sword which cuts its sheath, And through the clefts itself has made, We spy the flashes of the blade!

But through the clefts itself has made, We likewise see Love's flashing blade By rust consumed, or snapt in twain: And only hilt and stump remain.

?1825.



THE KISS

One kiss, dear Maid! I said and sighed— Your scorn the little boon denied. Ah why refuse the blameless bliss? Can danger lurk within a kiss?

Yon viewless wanderer of the vale, The Spirit of the Western Gale, At Morning's break, at Evening's close Inhales the sweetness of the Rose, And hovers o'er the uninjured bloom Sighing back the soft perfume. Vigour to the Zephyr's wing Her nectar-breathing kisses fling; And He the glitter of the Dew Scatters on the Rose's hue. Bashful lo! she bends her head, And darts a blush of deeper Red!

Too well those lovely lips disclose The triumphs of the opening Rose; O fair! O graceful! bid them prove As passive to the breath of Love. In tender accents, faint and low, Well-pleased I hear the whispered "No!" The whispered "No"—how little meant! Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent! For on those lovely lips the while Dawns the soft relenting smile, And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy The gentle violence of Joy.

?1794.



NOT AT HOME

That Jealousy may rule a mind Where Love could never be I know; but ne'er expect to find Love without Jealousy.

She has a strange cast in her ee, A swart sour-visaged maid— But yet Love's own twin-sister she, His house-mate and his shade.

Ask for her and she'll be denied:— What then? they only mean Their mistress has lain down to sleep, And can't just then be seen.

?183O.



NAMES

[FROM LESSING]

I ask'd my fair one happy day, What I should call her in my lay; By what sweet name from Rome or Greece; Lalage, Nesera, Chloris, Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris, Arethusa or Lucrece.

"Ah!" replied my gentle fair, "Beloved, what are names but air? Choose thou whatever suits the line; Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, Call me Lalage or Doris, Only, only call me Thine."

Morning Post, August 27,1799.



TO LESBIA

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus.—CATULLUS.

My Lesbia, let us love and live, And to the winds, my Lesbia, give Each cold restraint, each boding fear Of age and all her saws severe. Yon sun now posting to the main Will set,—but 'tis to rise again;— But we, when once our mortal light Is set, must sleep in endless night. Then come, with whom alone I'll live, A thousand kisses take and give! Another thousand!—to the store Add hundreds—then a thousand more! And when they to a million mount, Let confusion take the account,— That you, the number never knowing, May continue still bestowing— That I for joys may never pine, Which never can again be mine!

Morning Post, April 11, 1798.



THE DEATH OF THE STARLING

Lugete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque.—CATULLUS.

Pity! mourn in plaintive tone The lovely starling dead and gone! Pity mourns in plaintive tone The lovely starling dead and gone. Weep, ye Loves! and Venus! weep The lovely starling fall'n asleep! Venus sees with tearful eyes— In her lap the starling lies! While the Loves all in a ring Softly stroke the stiffen'd wing.

?1794.



ON A CATARACT

FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE [AFTER STOLBERG'S UNSTERBLICHER JUeNGLING]

STROPHE

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

ANTISTROPHE

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

?1799.



HYMN TO THE EARTH

[IMITATED FROM STOLBERG'S HYMNE AN DIE EKDE]

HEXAMETERS

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

Travelling the vale with mine eyes—green meadows and lake with green island, Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness,

Thrill'd with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain, Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom! Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses, Green-hair'd goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger, Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs. Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the Sun, the rejoicer! Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not, Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee! Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamour'd!

Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he woo'd thee and won thee! Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teem'd forth from the mighty embracement. Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impell'd by thousand-fold instincts, Fill'd, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels; Laugh'd on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swell'd upward; Young life low'd through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains, Wander'd bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.

?1799.



THE VISIT OF THE GODS

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER

Never, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler; Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his throne! They advance, they float in, the Olympians all! With Divinities fills my Terrestrial hall!

How shall I yield you Due entertainment, Celestial quire? Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul! O give me the nectar! O fill me the bowl!

Give him the nectar! Pour out for the poet, Hebe! pour free! Quicken his eyes with celestial dew, That Styx the detested no more he may view, And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be! Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Paean, I cry! The wine of the Immortals Forbids me to die!

? 1799.



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

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

? 1799.



THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN IN A CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY

Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet Quae tarn dulcem somnum videt, Dormi, Jesu! blandule! Si non dormis, Mater plorat, Inter fila cantans orat, Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling: Mother sits beside thee smiling; Sleep, my darling, tenderly! If thou sleep not, mother mourneth, Singing as her wheel she turneth: Come, soft slumber, balmily!

1811.



EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

Ere Sin could blight or Sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care; The opening bud to Heaven conveyed, And bade it blossom there.

1794.



ON AN INFANT WHICH DIED BEFORE BAPTISM

"Be, rather than be call'd, a child of God," Death whisper'd!—with assenting nod, Its head upon its mother's breast, The Baby bow'd, without demur— Of the kingdom of the Blest Possessor, not inheritor.

April 8th, 1799.



EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

Its balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother's breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety!

And such my infant's latest sigh! Oh tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.

1799.



AN ODE TO THE RAIN

COMPOSED BEFORE DAYLIGHT, ON THE MORNING APPOINTED FOR THE DEPARTURE OF A VERY WORTHY, BUT NOT VERY PLEASANT VISITOR, WHOM IT WAS FEARED THE RAIN MIGHT DETAIN.

I

I know it is dark; and though I have lain, Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain, I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes, But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies. O Rain! that I lie listening to, You're but a doleful sound at best: I owe you little thanks,'tis true, For breaking thus my needful rest! Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain! you will but take your flight, I'll neither rail, nor malice keep, Though sick and sore for want of sleep. But only now, for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

II

O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound, The clash hard by, and the murmur all round! You know, if you know aught, that we, Both night and day, but ill agree: For days and months, and almost years, Have limp'd on through this vale of tears, Since body of mine, and rainy weather, Have lived on easy terms together. Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain! you will but take your flight, Though you should come again to-morrow, And bring with you both pain and sorrow; Though stomach should sicken and knees should swell— I'll nothing speak of you but well. But only now for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

III

Dear Rain! I ne'er refused to say You're a good creature in your way; Nay, I could write a book myself, Would fit a parson's lower shelf, Showing how very good you are. — What then? sometimes it must be fair! And if sometimes, why not to-day? Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

IV

Dear Rain! if I've been cold and shy, Take no offence! I'll tell you why. A dear old Friend e'en now is here, And with him came my sister dear; After long absence now first met, Long months by pain and grief beset— We three dear friends! in truth, we groan Impatiently to be alone. We three, you mark! and not one more! The strong wish makes my spirit sore. We have so much to talk about, So many sad things to let out; So many tears in our eye-corners, Sitting like little Jacky Homers— In short, as soon as it is day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

V

And this I'll swear to you, dear Rain! Whenever you shall come again, Be you as dull as e'er you could (And by the bye 'tis understood, You're not so pleasant as you're good), Yet, knowing well your worth and place, I'll welcome you with cheerful face; And though you stay'd a week or more, Were ten times duller than before; Yet with kind heart, and right good will, I'll sit and listen to you still; Nor should you go away, dear Rain! Uninvited to remain. But only now, for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

1802.



ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION

Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove, The Linnet and Thrush say, "I love and I love!" In the winter they're silent—the wind is so strong; What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing, and loving-all come back together. But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he— "I love my Love, and my Love loves me!"

1802.

SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL

WRITTEN IN GERMANY

If I had but two little wings And were a little feathery bird, To you I'd fly, my dear! But thoughts like these are idle things, And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly: I'm always with you in my sleep! The world is all one's own. But then one wakes, and where am I? All, all alone.

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids: So I love to wake ere break of day: For though my sleep be gone, Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids, And still dreams on.

April 23, 1799.



LINES ON A CHILD

Encinctured with a twine of leaves, That leafy twine his only dress! A lovely Boy was plucking fruits, By moonlight, in a wilderness. The moon was bright, the air was free, And fruits and flowers together grew, On many a shrub and many a tree: And all put on a gentle hue, Hanging in the shadowy air Like a picture rich and rare. It was a climate where, they say, The night is more belov'd than day. But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd, That beauteous Boy to linger here? Alone, by night, a little child, In place so silent and so wild- Has he no friend, no loving mother near?

1798.



THE KNIGHT'S TOMB

Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn? Where may the grave of that good man be?— By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn, Under the twigs of a young birch tree! The oak that in summer was sweet to hear, And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year, And whistled and roar'd in the winter alone, Is gone,—and the birch in its stead is grown.— The Knight's bones are dust, And his good sword rust;— His soul is with the saints, I trust.

? 1817.



FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER

A WAR ECLOGUE

_The Scene a desolated Tract in La Vendee. _FAMINE_ _is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter_ FIRE _and_ SLAUGHTER.

Fam. Sisters! sisters! who sent you here?

Slau. [to Fire]. I will whisper it in her ear.

Fire. No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell: 'Twill make an holiday in Hell. No! no! no! Myself, I named him once below, And all the souls, that damned be, Leaped up at once in anarchy, Clapped their hands and danced for glee. They no longer heeded me; But laughed to hear Hell's burning rafters Unwillingly re-echo laughters! No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell: 'Twill make an holiday in Hell!

Fam. Whisper it, sister! so and so! In the dark hint, soft and slow.

Slau. Letters four do form his name- And who sent you?

Both. The same! the same!

Slau. He came by stealth, and unlocked my den, And I have drunk the blood since then Of thrice three hundred thousand men.

Both. Who bade you do't?

Slau. The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo! To him alone the praise is due.

Fam. Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled, Their wives and their children faint for bread. I stood in a swampy field of battle; With bones and skulls I made a rattle, To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow And the homeless dog—but they would not go. So off I flew: for how could I bear To see them gorge their dainty fare? I heard a groan and a peevish squall, And through the chink of a cottage-wall— Can you guess what I saw there?

Both. Whisper it, sister! in our ear.

Fam. A baby beat its dying mother: I had starved the one and was starving the other!

Both. Who bade you do't?

Fam. The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo! To him alone the praise is due.

Fire. Sisters! I from Ireland came! Hedge and corn-fields all on flame, I triumph'd o'er the setting sun! And all the while the work was done, On as I strode with my huge strides, I flung back my head and I held my sides, It was so rare a piece of fun To see the sweltered cattle run With uncouth gallop through the night, Scared by the red and noisy light! By the light of his own blazing cot Was many a naked Rebel shot: The house-stream met the flame and hissed, While crash! fell in the roof, I wist, On some of those old bed-rid nurses, That deal in discontent and curses.

Both. Who bade you do't?

Fire. The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo! To him alone the praise is due.

All. He let us loose, and cried Halloo! How shall we yield him honour due?

Fam. Wisdom comes with lack of food. I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude, Till the cup of rage o'erbrim: They shall seize him and his brood—

Slau. They shall tear him limb from limb!

Fire. O thankless beldames and untrue! And is this all that you can do For him, who did so much for you? Ninety months he, by my troth! Hath richly catered for you both; And in an hour would you repay An eight years' work?—Away! away! I alone am faithful! I Cling to him everlastingly.

1797.



THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMBSTONE

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

Ho! ho! brother Bard, in our churchyard Both beds and bolsters are soft and green; Save one alone, and that's of stone, And under it lies a Counsellor keen. This tomb would be square, if it were not too long; And 'tis rail'd round with iron, tall, spear-like, and strong.

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

180O.



THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS

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

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

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

He saw a LAWYER killing a Viper On a dung heap beside his stable, And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel.

A POTHECARY on a white horse Rode by on his vocations, And the Devil thought of his old Friend DEATH in the Revelations.

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

He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college, For I myself sate like a cormorant once Fast by the tree of knowledge.

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

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

* * * * * *

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

1799.



COLOGNE

In Kohln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fang'd with murderous stones, And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; I counted two and seventy stenches, All well denned, and several stinks! Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?



SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS

[SIGNED "NEHEMIAH HIGGINGBOTTOM"]

I

Pensive at eve on the hard world I mus'd, And my poor heart was sad: so at the moon I gaz'd-and sigh'd, and sigh'd!—for, ah! how soon Eve darkens into night. Mine eye perus'd With tearful vacancy the dampy grass Which wept and glitter'd in the paly ray; And I did pause me on my lonely way, And mused me on those wretched ones who pass O'er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas! Most of Myself I thought: when it befell That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood Breath'd in mine ear—"All this is very well; But much of one thing is for no thing good." Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell!

II

TO SIMPLICITY

O! I do love thee, meek Simplicity! For of thy lays the lulling simpleness Goes to my heart and soothes each small distress, Distress though small, yet haply great to me! 'Tis true on Lady Fortune's gentlest pad I amble on; yet, though I know not why, So sad I am!—but should a friend and I Grow cool and miff, O! I am very sad! And then with sonnets and with sympathy My dreamy bosom's mystic woes I pall; Now of my false friend plaining plaintively, Now raving at mankind in general; But, whether sad or fierce, 'tis simple all, All very simple, meek Simplicity!

III

ON A RUINED HOUSE IN A ROMANTIC COUNTRY

And this reft house is that the which he built, Lamented Jack! And here his malt he pil'd, Cautious in vain! These rats that squeak so wild, Squeak, not unconscious of their father's guilt. Did ye not see her gleaming thro' the glade? Belike, 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn. What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn, Yet aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd; And aye beside her stalks her amorous knight! Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn, And thro' those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn, His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white; As when thro' broken clouds at night's high noon Peeps in fair fragments forth the full—orb'd harvest-moon!

1797.



LIMBO

Tis a strange place, this Limbo!—not a Place, Yet name it so;—where Time and weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing, Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;— Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands Barren and soundless as the measuring sands, Not mark'd by flit of Shades,—unmeaning they As moonlight on the dial of the day! But that is lovely—looks like human Time,— An old man with a steady look sublime, That stops his earthly task to watch the skies; But he is blind—a statue hath such eyes;— Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance, Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance, With scant white hairs, with fore top bald and high, He gazes still,—his eyeless face all eye;— As 'twere an organ full of silent sight, His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light! Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb— He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him! No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure, Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure, By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all, Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral. A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation, Yet that is but a Purgatory curse; Hell knows a fear far worse, A fear—a future state;—'tis positive Negation!

1817.



METRICAL FEET

LESSON FOR A BOY

[** Macron and breve accent marks have been left off, see the note in the Forum.]

Trochee trips from long to short; From long to long in solemn sort Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yea ill able Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable. Iambics march from short to long;— With a leap and a bound the swift Anapaests throng; One syllable long, with one short at each side, Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride;— First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud highbred Racer. If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise, And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies; Tender warmth at his heart, with these metres to show it, With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet,— May crown him with fame, and must win him the love Of his father on earth and his Father above. My dear, dear child! Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge See a man who so loves you as your fond S. T. COLERIDGE.

1803.



THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

[FROM SCHILLER]

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

? 1799.



THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

[FROM SCHILLER]

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

?1799.



CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES

[FROM MATTHISON]

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

? 1799.



TO ——

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

? 1796.



EPITAPH ON A BAD MAN

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!

1801.



THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT

Ere the birth of my life, if I wish'd it or no, No question was asked me—it could not be so! If the life was the question, a thing sent to try, And to live on be Yes; what can No be? to die.

NATURE'S ANSWER

Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear? Think first, what you are! Call to mind what you were! I gave you innocence, I gave you hope, Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope. Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair? Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare! Then die—if die you dare!

1811.



THE GOOD, GREAT MAN

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

REPLY TO THE ABOVE

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

Morning Post, Sept. 23,1802.



INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH

This Sycamore, oft musical with bees,— Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy The small round basin, which this jutting stone Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring, Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath, Send up cold waters to the traveller With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance, Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page, As merry and no taller, dances still, Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount. Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss, A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade. Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree. Drink, Pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy heart Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound, Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!

1802.



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!

? 183O.

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal) 'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honouring with religious love the Great Of older times, he hated to excess, With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, The hollow puppets of an hollow age, Ever idolatrous, and changing ever Its worthless idols! Learning, power, and time, (Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, Even to the gates and inlets of his life! But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, And with a natural gladness, he maintained The citadel unconquered, and in joy Was strong to follow the delightful Muse. For not a hidden path, that to the shades Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads, Lurked undiscovered by him; not a rill There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, But he had traced it upward to its source, Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell, Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone, Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, He bade with lifted torch its starry walls Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts! O studious Poet, eloquent for truth! Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love! Here, rather than on monumental stone, This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.

? 1809.



EPITAPH

Stop, Christian passer-by!—Stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.— O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.; That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death! Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!

9th November 1833.



NOTES

I am indebted to Mr. Heinemann, the owner of the copyright of Dykes Campbell's edition of Coleridge's Poetical Works (Macmillan & Co., 1893) for permission to use that text (one of the most carefully edited texts of any English poet) in this volume of selections. My aim, in making these selections, has been to give every poem of Coleridge's that seems to me really good, and nothing else. Not every poem, none perhaps of those in blank verse, is equal throughout; but I think readers of Coleridge will be surprised to find how few of the poems contained in this volume are not of almost flawless workmanship, as well of incomparable poetic genius. Scarcely any English poet gains so much as Coleridge by not being read in a complete edition. The gulf between his best and his worst work is as wide as the gulf between good and evil. Even Wordsworth, even Byron, is not so intolerable to read in a complete edition. But Coleridge, much more easily than Byron or Wordsworth, can be extricated from his own lumber-heaps; it is rare in his work to find a poem which is really good in parts and not really good as a whole. I have taken every poem on its own merits as poetry, its own technical merits as verse; and thus have included equally the frigid eighteenth-century conceits of "The Kiss" and the modern burlesque license of the comic fragments. But I have excluded everything which has an interest merely personal, or indeed any other interest than that of poetry; and I have thus omitted the famous "Ode on the Departing Year," in spite of the esteem in which Coleridge held it, and in spite of its one exquisite line—

"God's image, sister of the Seraphim"—

and I have omitted it because as a whole it is untempered rhetoric, shapeless in form; and I have also omitted confession pieces such as that early one which contains, among its otherwise too emphatic utterances, the most delicate and precise picture which Coleridge ever drew of himself:

"To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned Energic Reason and a shaping mind, The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part, And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart— Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand. I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows, A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish doze."

Every poem that I have given I have given in full, and, without exception, in the form in which Coleridge left it. The dates given after the poems are Dykes Campbell's; occasionally I have corrected the date given in the text of his edition by his own correction in the notes.

p. I. The Ancient Mariner. The marginal analysis which Coleridge added in reprinting the poem (from the Lyrical Ballads) in Sibylline Leaves, has been transferred to this place, where it can be read without interrupting the narrative in verse.

PART I

An ancient Mariner meeteth three Gallants bidden to a wedding-feast, and detaineth one.

The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old sea-faring man, and constrained to hear his tale.

The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line.

The Wedding-Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his tale.

The ship driven by a storm toward the south pole.

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.

And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.

PART II

His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner, for killing the bird of good luck.

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.

The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

A Spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.

The shipmates, in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner:

In sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.

PART III

The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.

A flash of joy;

And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide?

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.

And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun.

The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton- ship.

Like vessel, like crew!

Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.

No twilight within the courts of the Sun.

At the rising of the Moon,

One after another,

His shipmates drop down dead.

But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.



PART IV

The Wedding-Guest feareth that a Spirit is talking to him;

But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.

Their beauty and their happiness.

He blesseth them in his heart.

The spell begins to break.

PART V

By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;

But not by the souls of the men, nor by daemons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.

The lonesome Spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.

The Polar Spirit's fellow-daemons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.

PART VI

The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure.

The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.

The curse is finally expiated.

And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.

The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,

And appear in their own forms of light.



PART VII

The Hermit of the Wood,

Approacheth the ship with wonder.

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The ancient Mariner is saved in the Pilot's boat.

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him.

And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land,

And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.

p. 27. Christabel. Coleridge at his best represents the imaginative temper in its essence, pure gold, with only just enough alloy to give it firm bodily substance. "Christabel" is not, like "Kubla Khan," a disembodied ecstasy, but a coherent effort of the imagination. Yet, when we come to the second part, the magic is already half gone out of it. Rossetti says, in a printed letter, with admirable truth: "The conception, and partly the execution, of the passage in which Christabel repeats by fascination the serpent-glance of Geraldine, is magnificent; but that is the only good narrative passage in part two. The rest seems to have reached a fatal facility of jingling, at the heels whereof followed Scott." A few of the lines seem to sink almost lower than Scott, and suggest a Gilbert parody:

"He bids thee come without delay With all thy numerous array.

* * * * *

And he will meet thee on the way With all his numerous array."

But in the conclusion, which has nothing whatever to do with the poem, Coleridge is his finest self again: a magical psychologist. It is interesting to know that Crashaw was the main influence upon Coleridge while writing "Christabel," and that the "Hymn to the Name and Honour of the admirable S. Teresa" was "ever present to his mind while writing the second part."

p. 61. Love. This poem was originally published, in the Morning Post of December 21, 1799, as part of an "Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie." This introduction begins:

"O leave the lily on its stem; O leave the rose upon the spray; O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids! And listen to my lay.

A cypress and a myrtle bough This morn around my harp you twined, Because it fashion'd mournfully Its murmurs in the wind.

And now a tale of love and woe, A woeful tale of love I sing; Hark, gentle maidens! hark, it sighs And trembles on the string."

p. 65. The Three Graves. Coleridge only published what he calls "the following humble fragment" of what was to have been a poem in six parts; but he wrote an imperfect sketch of the first two parts, which was published from the original MS. by Dykes Campbell in his edition. The poem as Coleridge left it is sufficiently complete, and I have ventured to divide it into Part I. and Part II., instead of the usual Part III. and Part IV. It is Coleridge's one attempt to compete with Wordsworth on what Wordsworth considered his own ground, and it was first published by Coleridge in The Friend of September 21, 1809, on the advice of Wordsworth and Southey. "The language," we are told in an introductory note, "was intended to be dramatic; that is, suited to the narrator; and the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a poem, but of a common Ballad-tale. Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusively psychological." Exclusively, it would be unjust to say; but to a degree beyond those of any similar poem of Wordsworth, certainly.

p. 78. Dejection. This ode was originally addressed to Wordsworth, but before it was published in its first form, the "William" of the still existing MS. was changed to "Edmund"; in later editions "Edmund" was changed to "Lady," except in the seventh stanza, where "Otway" is substituted. The reference in this stanza is to Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray," and the germ of the passage occurs in a letter of Coleridge to Poole, printed by Dykes Campbell in the notes to his edition: "Greta Hall, Feb. 1, 1801.—O my dear, dear Friend! that you were with me by the fireside of my study here, that I might talk it over with you to the tune of this night- wind that pipes its thin, doleful, climbing, sinking notes, like a child that has lost its way, and is crying aloud, half in grief, and half in the hope to be heard by its mother."

p. 9O. Fears in Solitude. Coleridge, who was so often his own best critic, especially when the criticism was to remain inactive, wrote on an autograph copy of this poem now belonging to Professor Dowden: "N.B.—The above is perhaps not Poetry,—but rather a sort of middle thing between Poetry and Oratory—sermoni propriora.—Some parts are, I am conscious, too tame even for animated prose." It is difficult to say whether, in such poems as this, Coleridge is overtaken by his besetting indolence, or whether he is deliberately writing down to the theories of Wordsworth. Another criticism of his own on his early blank verse, where he speaks of "the utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead plumb down of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle and sinew in the single lines," applies only too well to the larger part of his work in this difficult metre, so apt to go to sleep by the way.

p. 1O7. Hymn before Sun-rise. Coleridge was never at Chamouni, and the suggestion of his poem is to be found in a poem of twenty lines by a German poetess, Frederike Brun. Some of the rhetoric of his poem Coleridge got from the German poetess; the imagination is all his own. It is perhaps a consequence of its origin that the imagination and the rhetoric never get quite clear of one another, and that, in spite of some magical lines (wholly Coleridge's) like:

"O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars:"

the poem remains somewhat external, a somewhat deliberate heaping up of hosannas.

p. 114. The Nightingale. The persons supposed to take part in this "conversation poem" are of course William and Dorothy Wordsworth.

p. 134. A Day-Dream. "There cannot be any doubt, I think, that the 'Asra' of this poem is Miss Sarah Hutchinson; 'Mary,' her sister (Mrs. Wordsworth); 'our sister and our friend,' Dorothy and William Wordsworth." (DYKES CAMPBELL.)

p. 142. Work without Hope. "What could be left to hope for when the man could already do such work?" asks Mr. Swinburne. With this exquisite poem, in which Coleridge's style is seen in its most faultless union of his finest qualities, compare this passage from a letter to Lady Beaumont, about a year earlier: "Though I am at present sadly below even my par of health, or rather unhealth, and am the more depressed thereby from the consciousness that in this yearly resurrection of Nature from her winter sleep, amid young leaves and blooms and twittering nest-building birds, the sun so gladsome, the breezes with such healing on their wings, all good and lovely things are beneath me, above me, and everywhere around me, and all from God, while my incapability of enjoying, or, at best, languor in receiving them, is directly or indirectly from myself, from past procrastination, and cowardly impatience of pain." It was always upon some not less solid foundation that Coleridge built these delicate structures.

p. 147. Phantom. This, almost Coleridge's loveliest fragment of verse, was composed in sleep, like "Kubla Khan," "Constancy to an Ideal Object," and "Phantom or Fact?" There is a quality, in this and some other poems of Coleridge, which he himself has exquisitely rendered in the passage on Ariel in the lectures on Shakespeare: "In air he lives, from air he derives his being, in air he acts; and all his colours and properties seem to have been obtained from the rainbow and the skies. There is nothing about Ariel that cannot be conceived to exist either at sunrise or sunset: hence all that belongs to Ariel belongs to the delight the mind is capable of receiving from the most lovely external appearances. "Coleridge is the Ariel of English Poetry: glittering in the song from "Zapolya," translucent in the "Phantom," infantine, with a note of happy infancy almost like that of Blake, in "Something Childish, but very Natural." In these poems, and in the "Ode to the Rain," and the "Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath," there is a unique way of feeling, which he can render to us on those rare occasions when his sensations are uninterrupted; by thought, which clouds them, or by emotion, which disturbs them. He reveals mysterious intimacies with natural things, the "flapping" flame or a child's scarcely more articulate moods. And in some of them, which are experiments in form, he seems to compete gaily with the Elizabethan lyrists, doing wonderful things in jest, like one who is for once happy and disengaged, and able to play with his tormentor, verse.

p. 153. Forbearance. "Gently I took that which urgently came" is from Spenser's "Shepherds' Calendar": "But gently tooke that ungently came."

p. 154. Sancti Dominici Pallium. The "friend," as Dykes Campbell points out, was Southey, whose "Book of the Church" had been attacked by Charles Butler. This is one of Coleridge's most masterly experiments in dealing with material hardly possible to turn into poetry. What exquisite verse, and what variety of handling! The eighteenth-century smooth force and pungency of the main part of it ends in an anticipation of the burlesque energy of some of Mr. George Meredith's most characteristic verse. Anyone coming upon the lines:

"More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt, Impearling a tame wild-cat's whiskered jaws,"

would have assigned them without hesitation to the writer of "A Certain People" and other sonnets in the "Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth."

p. 158. Ne plus ultra. This mysterious fragment is one of the most original experiments which Coleridge ever made, both in metre and in language (abstract terms becoming concrete through intellectual passion) and may seem to anticipate "The Unknown Eros."

p. 164. The Pains of Sleep. In a letter to Sir George and Lady Beaumont, dated September 22, 1803, Coleridge wrote, describing his journey to Scotland: "With the night my horrors commence. During the whole of my journey three nights out of four I have fallen asleep struggling and resolving to lie awake, and, awaking, have blest the scream which delivered me from the reluctant sleep.... These dreams, with all their mockery of guilt, rage, unworthy desires, remorse, shame, and terror, formed at the time the subject of some Verses, which I had forgotten till the return of my complaint, and which I will send you in my next as a curiosity."

p. 169. Names. Coleridge was as careless as the Elizabethans in acknowledging the originals of the poems which he translated, whether, as in this case, he was almost literal, or, as in the case of the Chamouni poem, he used his material freely. The lines "On a Cataract" are said to be "improved from Stolberg" in the edition of 1848, edited by Mrs. H. N. Coleridge; and the title may suit the whole of them.

p. 182. Answer to a Child's Question. I have omitted the four lines, printed in brackets in Campbell's edition, which were omitted, I think rightly, by Coleridge in reprinting the poem from the Morning Post of October 16, 1802.

p. 183. Lines on a Child. This exquisite fragment is printed in Coleridge's works in a prefatory note to the prose "Wanderings of Cain." It was written, he tells us, "for the purpose of procuring a friend's judgment on the metre, as a specimen" of what was to have been a long poem, in imitation of "The Death of Abel," written in collaboration with Wordsworth. "The Ancient Mariner was written instead."

p. 188. The two Round Spaces on the Tombstone. This poem was printed in the Morning Post of December 4, 180O, under the title: "The two Round Spaces: a Skeltoniad;" and it is this text which is here given, from Campbell's edition. The "fellow from Aberdeen" was Sir James Mackintosh. Coleridge apologised for reprinting the verses, "with the hope that they will be taken, as assuredly they were composed, in mere sport." No apology was needed; they are the most rich, ripe, and Rabelaisian comic verses he ever wrote, full-bodied and exultant in their exuberance of wayward and good-humoured satire.

p. 192. Sonnets Attempted in the Manner of Contemporary Writers. Dykes Campbell quotes a letter of Coleridge to Cottle, which he attributes to the year 1797, in which Coleridge says: "I sent to the Monthly Magazine three mock sonnets in ridicule of my own Poems, and Charles Lloyd's, and Charles Lamb's, etc. etc., exposing that affectation of unaffectedness, of jumping and misplaced accent, in commonplace epithets, flat lines forced into poetry by italics (signifying how well and mouthishly the author would read them), puny pathos, etc. etc. The instances were all taken from myself and Lloyd and Lamb. I signed them 'Nehemiah Higginbottom.' I think they may do good to our young Bards."

Coleridge's humour, which begins as early as 1794, with the lines on "Parliamentary Oscillators," is one of the outlets of an oppressively ingenious mind, over-packed with ideas, which he cannot be content to express in prose. He delights, as in an intellectual exercise, in the grapple with difficult technique, the victorious wrestle with grotesque rhymes. All the comic poems are unusually rich and fine in rhythm, which seems to exult in its mastery over material so foreign to it.

Yet he has not always or wholly command of this humour. The famous "Lines to a Young Ass" were first written as a joke, and there is some burlesque strength in such lines as:

"Where Toil shall wed young Health, that charming Lass! And use his sleek cows for a looking-glass."

But the mood went, the jest was so far forgotten as to be taken seriously by himself, and turned into the sober earnest which it remains; a kind of timidity of the original impression crept in, and we are left to laugh rather at than with the poet.

THE END