Dreams, (the soul herself forsaking,) Tearful raptures, boyish mirth; Silent adorations, making
A blessed shadow of this earth!
O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!
I cannot die, if life be love.
THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS. CUPID, if storying legends* tell aright, Once framed a rich elixir of delight. A chalice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd, And in it nectar and ambrosia mix'd: With these the magic dews, which evening brings, Brush'd from th' Idalian star by faery wings: Each tender pledge of sacred faith he join'd, Each gentler pleasure of th' unspotted mindDay-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness
And hope, the blameless parasite of wo.
The eyeless chemist heard the process rise,
The steamy chalice bubbled up in sighs;
Sweet sounds transpired, as when th' enamour'd
dove
Pours the soft murmuring of responsive love.
The finish'd work might envy vainly blame,
And "Kisses" was the precious compound's name.
With half the god his Cyprian mother blest,
And breathed on SARA's lovelier lips the rest.
Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived,
Who seeks a heart in the unthinking man.
Like shadows on a stream, the forms of life
Impress their characters on the smooth forehead:
Naught sinks into the bosom's silent depth.
Quick sensibility of pain and pleasure
Moves the light fluids lightly; but no soul
Warmeth the inner frame.
HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.
Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides, and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the gentiana major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."
HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
* Effinixt quondam blandum meditata laborem Basia lascivâ Cypria Diva mana. Ambrosiæ succos occultâ temperat arte, Fragransque infuso nectare tingit opus. Sufficit et partem mellis, quod subdolus olim Non impune favis surripuisset Amor.
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy:
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale! O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink: Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who call'd you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shatter'd and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam? And who commanded, (and the silence came,) Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amainTorrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
Decussos violæ foliis ad miscet odores
Et spolia æstivis plurima rapta rosis.
Addit et illecebras et mille et mille lepoгез,
Et quot Acidalius gaudia Cestus habet.
Ex his composuit Dea basia; et omnia libans
Invenias nitidæ sparsa per ora Cloës.
God! sing, ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt th' eternal frost!
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou, too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing
peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou
That as I raised my head, a while bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Or father, or the venerable name
Of our adored country! O thou queen,
Thou delegated deity of earth,
O dear, dear England! how my longing eye
Turn'd westward, shaping in the steady clouds
Thy sands and high white cliffs!
My native land! Fill'd with the thought of thee this heart was proud,
Yea, mine eye swam with tears: that all the view
From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills,
Floated away, like a departing dream,
Feeble and dim! Stranger, these impulses
Blame thou not lightly; nor will I profane,
With hasty judgment or injurious doubt,
That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel
That God is everywhere! the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty family,
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Himself our Father, and the world our home.
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN
THE HARTZ FOREST.
I STOOD on Brocken's* sovran height, and saw
Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills,
A surging scene, and only limited
By the blue distance. Heavily my way
Downward I dragg'd through fir-groves evermore,
Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral
Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard,
The sweet bird's song became a hollow sound;
And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly,
Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct
From many a note of many a waterfall,
And the brook's chatter: 'mid whose islet stones
The dingy kidling with its tinkling bell
Leap'd frolicsome, or old romantic goat
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on
In low and languid mood:† for I had found
That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive
Their finer influence from the life within:
Fair ciphers else: fair, but of import vague
Or unconcerning, where the heart not finds
History or prophecy of friend, or child,
Or gentle maid, our first and early love,
ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST
OF FEBRUARY, 1796.
SWEET flower! that peeping from thy russet stem
Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering
Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee
With blue voluptuous eye,) alas, poor flower!
These are but flatteries of the faithless year.
Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,
E'en now the keen north-east is on its way.
Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too, too rapid growth,
Nipp'd by consumption 'mid untimely charms?
Or to Bristowa's bard, the wondrous boy!
An amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd to own,
Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong
Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's hope,
Bright flower of hope kill'd in the opening bud?
Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine,
And mock my boding! Dim similitudes
Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour
From anxious SELF, life's cruel task-master!
And the warm wooings of this sunny day
Tremble along my frame, and harmonize
Th' attemper'd organ, that even saddest thoughts
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tones
Play'd deftly on a soft-toned instrument.
COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE.
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown
With white-flower'd jasmin, and the broad-leaved
(Meet emblems they of innocence and love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE
Slow saddening 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!
The stilly murmur of the distant sea
Tells us of silence.
And that simplest lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement,
How by the desultory breeze caress'd,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Low was our pretty cot: our tallest rose
Peep'd at the chamber window. We could hear,
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch
Thick jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentler gales from Fairy-land,
Where melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O the one life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere-
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so fill'd;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is music slumbering on her instrument.
And thus, my love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd,
And many idle, flitting fantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute!
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps,
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the soul of each, and God of all?
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said, and holily dispraised
These shapings of th' unregenerate mind!
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of Him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healed me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this cut, and thee, heart-honour'd
Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings; for he paused, and look'd
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round again,
And sigh'd, and said, it was a blessed place.
And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear
Long listening to the viewless sky-lark's note,
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wings,) in whisper'd tones
I've said to my beloved, "Such, sweet girl!
The inobtrusive song of happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd,
And the heart listens!"
From that low dell, steep up the stony mount
I climb'd with perilous toil, and reach'd the top,
O! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount,
The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep,
Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;
And river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;
And seats, and lawns, the abbey and the wood,
And cots, and hamlets, and faint city spire;
The channel there, the islands, and white sails,
Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless
It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought,
Had built him there a temple: the whole world
Seem'd imaged in its vast circumference,
No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour! It was a luxury, to be!
Ah! quiet dell; dear cot, and mount sublime!
I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled,
That I should dream away th' intrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye
Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth:
And he that works me good with unmoved face,
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,
My benefactor, not my brother man!
Yet even this, this cold beneficence,
Praise, praise it, O my soul! oft as thou scann'st
The sluggard pity's vision-weaving tribe!
Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude
Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.
Yet oft, when after honourable toil
Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear cot!
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose,
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet abode!
Ah!-had none greater! And that all had such!
It might be so-but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy kingdom come!
TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE OF
OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON.
Notus in fratres animi paterni.
A BLESSED lot hath he, who having pass'd
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisp'd its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest friend!
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb life's upland road,
Yet cheer'd and cheering; now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest, and blessing may ye live!
To me th' Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed
A different fortune and more different mind-
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd
Its first domestic loves; and hence through life
Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while
Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
At mine own home and birthplace: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest friend!
Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;
Didst trace my wanderings with a father's eye;
And boding evil, yet still hoping good,
Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrow'd in silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,
That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever,
Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee!
O! 'tis to me an ever-new delight,
To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve,
We, in our sweet sequester'd orchard plot,
Sit on the tree crook'd earthward; whose old
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirr'd by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads!
Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,
When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear
To my wild firstling-lays? Since then my son
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times
Cope with the tempest's swell!
These various strains,
Which I have framed in many a various mood,
Accept, my brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!
A TOMBLESS EPITΑΡΗ.
'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!
(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends,
Masking his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths,
And honouring with religious love the great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
Dropp'd the collected shower; and some most false, With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
False and fair-foliaged as the manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E'en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest
damps,
Mix'd their own venom with the rain from heaven,
That I woke poison'd! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one friend,
Beneath th' impervious covert of one oak,
I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of husband and of father; nor unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths
Bright with no fading colours!
My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life
Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
The hollow puppets of a 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,
E'en 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 unconquer'd, 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,
Lurk'd undiscover'd 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 cull'd
Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,
Piercing the long-neglected holy cove,
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.
INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A
HEATH.
THIS sycamore, oft musical with bees,-
Such tents the patriarchs loved! O long unharm'd
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 mayst 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!
THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON.
In the June of 1797, some long-expected friends paid a visit to the author's cottage; and on the morning of their arrival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from walking during the whole time of their stay. One evening, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the following lines in the garden bower.
WELL, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrace, e'en when age Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, mean
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told:
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;-that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the waterfall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,*
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.
Now, my friends emerge Beneath the wide, wide heaven-and view again The many-steepled tract magnificent Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles Of purple shadow! Yes, they wander on In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles; for thou hast pined And hunger'd after nature, many a year, In the great city pent, winning thy way With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my friend, Struck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; and of such hues As veil th' Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes Spirits perceive his presence.
A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself was there! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance ay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass,
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall
That nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure:
No plot so narrow, be but nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to love and beauty! and sometimes
''Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty orb's dilated glory,
* The asplenium scolopendrium, called in some countries the adder's tongue, in others the hart's tongue; but Withering gives the adder's tongue as the trivial name of the ophioglossum only.
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