Poems of Coleridge

TO A GENTLEMAN

[WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND

 
  Friend of the wise! and Teacher of the Good!
  Into my heart have I received that Lay
  More than historic, that prophetic Lay
  Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
  Of the foundations and the building up
  Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
  What may be told, to the understanding mind
  Revealable; and what within the mind
  By vital breathings secret as the soul
  Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
  Thoughts all too deep for words!—
 
 
                            Theme hard as high!
  Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
  (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),
  Of tides obedient to external force,
  And currents self-determined, as might seem,
  Or by some inner Power; of moments awful,
  Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
  When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received
  The light reflected, as a light bestowed—
  Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
  Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
  Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
  Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
  Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
  Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams,
  The guides and the companions of thy way!
 
 
  Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense
  Distending wide, and man beloved as man,
  Where France in all her towns lay vibrating
  Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst
  Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
  Is visible, or shadow on the main.
  For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,
  Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,
  Amid a mighty nation jubilant,
  When from the general heart of human kind
  Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity!
  —Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
  So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure
  From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self,
  With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
  Far on-herself a glory to behold,
  The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
  Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice,
  Action and joy!—An orphic song indeed,
  A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
  To their own music chaunted!
 
 
                                  O great Bard!
  Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
  With steadfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
  Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
  Have all one age, and from one visible space
  Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
  Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
  Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
  Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old,
  And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
  Among the archives of mankind, thy work
  Makes audible a linked lay of Truth,
  Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
  Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes
  Ah! as I listen'd with a heart forlorn,
  The pulses of my being beat anew:
  And even as life retains upon the drowned,
  Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains—
  Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
  Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
  And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope;
  And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;
  Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
  And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;
  And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
  And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
  Commune with thee had opened out—but flowers
  Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
  In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!
 
 
    That way no more! and ill beseems it me,
  Who came a welcomer in herald's guise,
  Singing of glory, and futurity,
  To wander back on such unhealthful road,
  Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill
  Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
  Strew'd before thy advancing!
 
 
  Nor do thou,
  Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour
  Of thy communion with my nobler mind
  By pity or grief, already felt too long!
  Nor let my words import more blame than needs.
  The tumult rose and ceased: for Peace is nigh
  Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart.
  Amid the howl of more than wintry storms,
  The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours
  Already on the wing.
 
 
  Eve following eve,
  Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
  Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed
  And more desired, more precious, for thy song,
  In silence listening like a devout child,
  My soul lay passive, by thy various strain
  Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
  With momentary stars of my own birth,
  Fair constellated foam, still darting off
  Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,
  Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.
 
 
  And when—O Friend! my comforter and guide!
  Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!—
  Thy long sustained Song finally closed,
  And thy deep voice had ceased—yet thou thyself
  Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
  That happy vision of beloved faces—
  Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
  I sate, my being blended in one thought
  (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)
  Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound—
  And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.
 

January 1807.

HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI

Besides the Rivers, Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."

 
  Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star
  In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
  On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC!
  The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
  Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
  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 worshipped the Invisible alone.
 
 
    Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
  So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
  Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought,
  Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy:
  Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
  Into the mighty vision passing—there
  As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!
 
 
    Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
  Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
  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 called you forth from night and utter death,
  From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
  Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
  For ever shattered and the same for ever?
  Who gave you your invulnerable life,
  Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy.
  Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
  And who commanded (and the silence came),
  Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
 
 
    Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
  Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
  Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
  And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
  Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
  Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven
  Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
  Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
  Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—
  GOD! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
  Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, GOD!
  GOD! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
  Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
  And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
  And in their perilous fall shall thunder, GOD!
 
 
    Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
  Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
  Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm!
  Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
  Ye signs and wonders of the element!
  Utter forth GOD, and fill the hills with praise!
 
 
    Thou too; hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
  Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
  Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
  Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast—
  Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
  That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
  In adoration, upward from thy base
  Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
  Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
  To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise,
  Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
  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.
 

1802

FROST AT MIDNIGHT

 
  The Frost performs its secret ministry,
  Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
  Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
  The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
  Have left me to that solitude, which suits
  Abstruser musings: save that at my side
  My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
  'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
  And vexes meditation with its strange
  And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
  This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
  With all the numberless goings-on of life,
  Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
  Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
  Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
  Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
  Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
  Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
  Making it a companionable form,
  Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
  By its own moods interprets, every where
  Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
  And makes a toy of Thought.
 
 
                              But O! how oft,
  How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
  Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
  To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
  With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
  Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
  Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
  From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
  So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
  With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
  Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
  So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
  Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
  And so I brooded all the following morn,
  Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
  Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:
  Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
  A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
  For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
  Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
  My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!
 
 
    Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
  Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
  Fill up the interspersed vacancies
  And momentary pauses of the thought!
  My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
  With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
  And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
  And in far other scenes! For I was reared
  In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
  And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
  But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
  By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
  Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
  Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
  And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
  The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
  Of that eternal language, which thy God
  Utters, who from eternity doth teach
  Himself in all, and all things in himself.
  Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
  Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
 
 
  Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
  Whether the summer clothe the general earth
  With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
  Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
  Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
  Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
  Heard only in the trances of the blast,
  Or if the secret ministry of frost
  Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
  Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
 

February 1798.

THE NIGHTINGALE

A CONVERSATION POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL 1798

 
  No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
  Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
  Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
  Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!
  You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
  Bur* hear no murmuring: it flows silently,
  O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
  A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
  Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
  That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
  A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
  And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
  "Most musical, most melancholy" bird!
  A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!
  In Nature there is nothing melancholy.
  But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced
  With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
  Or slow distemper, or neglected love,
  (And so, poor wretch! fill'd all things with himself,
  And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
  Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he,
  First named these notes a melancholy strain.
  And many a poet echoes the conceit;
  Poet who hath been building up the rhyme
  When he had better far have stretched his limbs
  Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
  By sun or moon-light, to the influxes
  Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
  Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
  And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
  Should share in Nature's immortality,
  A venerable thing! and so his song
  Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
  Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so;
  And youths and maidens most poetical,
  Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
  In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still
  Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
  O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.
 
 
  My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt
  A different lore: we may not thus profane
  Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
  And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale
  That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
  With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
  As he were fearful that an April night
  Would be too short for him to utter forth
  His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
  Of all its music!
 
 
  And I know a grove
  Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
  Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
  This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
  And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
  Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
  But never elsewhere in one place I knew
  So many nightingales; and far and near,
  In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
  They answer and provoke each other's songs,
  With skirmish and capricious passagings,
  And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
  And one low piping sound more sweet than all—
  Stirring the air with such an harmony,
  That should you close your eyes, you might almost
  Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
  Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed,
  You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
  Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
  Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
  Lights up her love-torch.
 
 
                            A most gentle Maid,
  Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
  Hard by the castle, and at latest eve
  (Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate
  To something more than Nature in the grove)
  Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes,
  That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment's space,
  What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
  Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon
  Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky
  With one sensation, and those wakeful birds
  Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
  As if some sudden gale had swept at once
  A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched
  Many a nightingale perch giddily
  On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze,
  And to that motion tune his wanton song
  Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.
 
 
    Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
  And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
  We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
  And now for our dear homes.—That strain again!
  Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe,
  Who, capable of no articulate sound,
  Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
  How he would place his hand beside his ear,
  His little hand, the small forefinger up,
  And bid us listen! And I deem it wise
  To make him Nature's play-mate. He knows well
  The evening-star; and once, when he awoke
  In most distressful mood (some inward pain
  Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream),
  I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,
  And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once,
  Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
  While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped
  tears,
  Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!—
  It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven
  Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
  Familiar with these songs, that with the night
  He may associate joy.—Once more, farewell,
  Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends!
  farewell.
 

THE EOLIAN HARP

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-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved
  Myrtle,
  (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!),
  And watch the clouds, that late were rich with
  light,
  Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
  Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)
  Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
  Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world
  so hushed!
 
 
  The stilly murmur of the distant sea
  Tells us of silence.
 
 
  And that simplest lute,
  Placed length-ways in the clasping casement,
      hark!
  How by the desultory breeze caressed,
  Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
  It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
  Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its
  strings
  Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
  Over delicious surges sink and rise,
  Such a soft floating witchery of sound
  As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
  Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
  Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
  Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
  Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed
  wing!
  O! the one life within us and abroad,
  Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
  A light in sound, a sound-like power in light
  Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every
  where—
  Methinks, it should have been impossible
  Not to love all things in a world so filled;
  Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still
  air
  In 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 eye-lids I behold
  The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
  And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
  Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
  And many idle flitting phantasies,
  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 unhallowed dost thou not reject,
  And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
  Meek daughter in the family of Christ!
  Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
  These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
  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,
  Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
  Peace, and this cot, and thee, dear honoured
  Maid!
 

1795.