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    Poems of Coleridge
    Poems of Coleridge
    Poems of Coleridge
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    Poems of Coleridge

    By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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    "Poems of Coleridge" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGood Press
    Release dateNov 25, 2019
    ISBN4057664617743
    Poems of Coleridge
    Author

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher, whose Lyrical Ballads (1798), written with William Wordsworth, started the English Romantic movement. He was born in Ottery St Mary where his father was the vicar, and he was at school with Charles Lamb and Leigh Hunt, and spent two years at Jesus College, Cambridge. He is best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, but his critical work, especially on Shakespeare was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He also suffered from poor physical health that may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these concerns with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium addiction.

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      Poems of Coleridge - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

      Samuel Taylor Coleridge

      Poems of Coleridge

      Published by Good Press, 2019

      [email protected]

      EAN 4057664617743

      Table of Contents

      INTRODUCTION

      SELECTIONS FROM THE. POEMS OF COLERIDGE

      THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

      CHRISTABEL

      KUBLA KHAN

      LEWTI. OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT

      THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE. A FRAGMENT

      LOVE

      THE THREE GRAVES

      DEJECTION: AN ODE

      II

      III

      IV

      ODE TO TRANQUILLITY

      FRANCE: AN ODE

      FEARS IN SOLITUDE

      THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON

      TO A GENTLEMAN

      HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE. VALE OF CHAMOUNI

      FROST AT MIDNIGHT

      THE NIGHTINGALE

      THE EOLIAN HARP

      THE PICTURE

      THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO

      THE TWO FOUNTS

      A DAY-DREAM

      SONNET

      LINES TO W. LINLEY, ESQ.

      DOMESTIC PEACE

      SONG

      HUNTING SONG

      WESTPHALIAN SONG

      YOUTH AND AGE

      WORK WITHOUT HOPE

      TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY

      LOVE'S APPARITION AND EVANISHMENT

      L'ENVOY

      LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION

      DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE

      LOVE'S FIRST HOPE

      PHANTOM

      PHANTOM OR FACT

      AUTHOR

      LINES

      FORBEARANCE

      SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM

      ON DONNE'S POETRY

      ON A BAD SINGER

      NE PLUS ULTRA

      HUMAN LIFE

      THE BUTTERFLY

      THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL

      THE VISIONARY HOPE

      THE PAINS OF SLEEP

      LOVE'S BURIAL-PLACE

      LOVE, A SWORD

      THE KISS

      NOT AT HOME

      NAMES

      TO LESBIA

      THE DEATH OF THE STARLING

      ON A CATARACT

      HYMN TO THE EARTH

      THE VISIT OF THE GODS

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

      THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN

      EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

      ON AN INFANT. WHICH DIED BEFORE BAPTISM

      EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

      AN ODE TO THE RAIN

      ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION

      LINES ON A CHILD

      THE KNIGHT'S TOMB

      FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER

      THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMBSTONE

      THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS

      COLOGNE

      SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER. OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS

      LIMBO

      METRICAL FEET

      THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER. DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

      THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE. DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

      CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES

      TO ——

      EPITAPH. ON A BAD MAN

      THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT

      THE GOOD, GREAT MAN

      INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH

      INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE

      EPITAPH

      NOTES

      PART IV

      PART VII

      INTRODUCTION

      THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

      CHRISTABEL

      KUBLA KHAN

      LEWTI

      THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE

      LOVE

      THE THREE GRAVES

      DEJECTION: AN ODE

      ODE TO TRANQUILLITY

      FRANCE: AN ODE

      FEARS IN SOLITUDE

      THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON

      TO A GENTLEMAN (W. WORDSWORTH)

      HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE

      FROST AT MIDNIGHT

      THE NIGHTINGALE

      THE EOLIAN HARP

      THE PICTURE

      THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO

      THE TWO FOUNTS

      A DAY-DREAM

      SONNET

      LINES TO W. LINLEY, ESQ.

      DOMESTIC PEACE

      SONG FROM ZAPOLYA

      HUNTING SONG FROM ZAPOLYA

      WESTPHALIAN SONG

      YOUTH AND AGE

      WORK WITHOUT HOPE

      TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY

      LOVE'S APPARITION

      LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE

      DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE

      LOVE'S FIRST HOPE

      PHANTOM

      TO NATURE

      FANCY IN NUBIBUS

      CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT

      PHANTOM OR FACT?

      LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS

      FORBEARANCE

      SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM

      ON DONNE'S POETRY

      ON A BAD SINGER

      NE PLUS ULTRA

      HUMAN LIFE

      THE BUTTERFLY

      THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL

      THE VISIONARY HOPE

      THE PAINS OF SLEEP

      LOVE'S BURIAL-PLACE

      LOVE, A SWORD

      THE KISS

      NOT AT HOME

      NAMES (FROM LESSING)

      To LESBIA (FROM CATULLUS)

      THE DEATH OF THE STARLING (FROM CATULLUS)

      ON A CATARACT (FROM STOLBERG)

      HYMN TO THE EARTH (FROM STOLBERG)

      THE VISIT OF THE GODS (FROM SCHILLER)

      TRANSLATION (FROM OTTFRIED)

      THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN

      EPITAPHS ON AN INFANT

      AN ODE TO THE RAIN

      ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION

      SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL

      LINES ON A CHILD

      THE KNIGHT'S TOMB

      FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER

      THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMBSTONE

      THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS

      COLOGNE

      SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS

      LIMBO

      METRICAL FEET

      THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER (FROM SCHILLER)

      THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE (FROM SCHILLER)

      CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES (FROM MATTHISON)

      To——

      EPITAPH ON A BAD MAN

      THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT

      THE GOOD, GREAT MAN

      INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH

      INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE

      A TOMBLESS EPITAPH

      EPITAPH

      NOTES

      INTRODUCTION

      Table of Contents

      In one of Rossetti's invaluable notes on poetry, he tells us that to him the leading point about Coleridge's work is its human love. We may remember Coleridge's own words:

      "To be beloved is all I need,

      And whom I love, I love indeed."

      Yet love, though it is the word which he uses of himself, is not really what he himself meant when using it, but rather an affectionate sympathy, in which there seems to have been little element of passion. Writing to his wife, during that first absence in Germany, whose solitude tried him so much, he laments that there is no one to love. Love is the vital air of my genius, he tells her, and adds: I am deeply convinced that if I were to remain a few years among objects for whom I had no affection, I should wholly lose the powers of intellect.

      With this incessant, passionless sensibility, it was not unnatural that his thirst for friendship was stronger than his need of love; that to him friendship was hardly distinguishable from love. Throughout all his letters there is a series of causeless explosions of emotion, which it is hardly possible to take seriously, but which, far from being insincere, is really, no doubt, the dribbling overflow of choked-up feelings, a sort of moral leakage. It might be said of Coleridge, in the phrase which he used of Nelson, that he was heart-starved. Tied for life to a woman with whom he had not one essential sympathy, the whole of his nature was put out of focus; and perhaps nothing but the joy of grief, and the terrible and fettering power of luxuriating over his own sorrows, and tracing them to first principles, outside himself or in the depths of his sub- consciousness, gave him the courage to support that long, everpresent divorce.

      Both for his good and evil, he had never been able to endure emotion without either diluting or intensifying it with thought, and with always self-conscious thought. He uses identically the same words in writing his last, deeply moved letter to Mary Evans, and in relating the matter to Southey. He cannot get away from words; coming as near to sincerity as he can, words are always between him and his emotion. Hence his over-emphasis, his rhetoric of humility. In 1794 he writes to his brother George: Mine eyes gush out with tears, my heart is sick and languid with the weight of unmerited kindness. Nine days later he writes to his brother James: My conduct towards you, and towards my other brothers, has displayed a strange combination of madness, ingratitude, and dishonesty. But you forgive me. May my Maker forgive me! May the time arrive when I shall have forgiven myself! Here we see both what he calls his gangrened sensibility and a complete abandonment to the feelings of the moment. It is always a self- conscious abandonment, during which he watches himself with approval, and seems to be saying: Now that is truly 'feeling'! He can never concentrate himself on any emotion; he swims about in floods of his own tears. With so little sense of reality in anything, he has no sense of the reality of direct emotion, but is preoccupied, from the moment of the first shock, in exploring it for its universal principle, and then nourishes it almost in triumph at what he has discovered. This is not insincerity; it is the metaphysical, analytical, and parenthetic mind in action. I have endeavoured to feel what I ought to feel, he once significantly writes.

      Coleridge had many friends, to some of whom, as to Lamb, his friendship was the most priceless thing in life; but the friendship which meant most to him, not only as a man, but as a poet, was the friendship with Wordsworth and with Dorothy Wordsworth. There is a sense of the word Love, he wrote to Wordsworth in 1812, in which I never felt it but to you and one of your household. After his quarrel in that year he has an agony of weeping. After fifteen years of such religious, almost superstitious idolatry and self-sacrifice! he laments. Now it was during his first, daily companionship with the Wordsworths that he wrote almost all his greatest work. The Ancient Mariner and Christabel were both written in a kind of rivalry with Wordsworth; and the Ode on Dejection was written after four months' absence from him, in the first glow and encouragement of a return to that one inspiring comradeship. Wordsworth was the only poet among his friends whom he wholly admired, and Wordsworth was more exclusively a poet, more wholly absorbed in thinking poetry and thinking about poetry, and in a thoroughly practical way, than almost any poet who has ever lived. It was not only for his solace in life that Coleridge required sympathy; he needed the galvanizing of continual intercourse with a poet, and with one to whom poetry was the only thing of importance. Coleridge, when he was by himself, was never sure of this; there was his magnum opus, the revelation of all philosophy; and he sometimes has doubts of the worth of his own poetry. Had Coleridge been able to live uninterruptedly in the company of the Wordsworths, even with the unsympathetic wife at home, the opium in the cupboard, and the magnum opus on the desk, I am convinced that we should have had for our reading to-day all those poems which went down with him into silence.

      What Coleridge lacked was what theologians call a saving belief in Christianity, or else a strenuous intellectual immorality. He imagined himself to believe in Christianity, but his belief never realized itself in effective action, either in the mind or in conduct, while it frequently clogged his energies by weak scruples and restrictions which were but so many internal irritations. He calls upon the religion which he has never firmly apprehended to support him under some misfortune of his own making; it does not support him, but he finds excuses for his weakness in what seem to him its promises of help. Coleridge was not strong enough to be a Christian, and he was not strong enough to rely on the impulses of his own nature, and to turn his failings into a very actual kind of success. When Blake said, If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise, he expressed a profound truth which Nietzsche and others have done little more than amplify. There is nothing so hopeless as inert or inactive virtue: it is a form of life grown putrid, and it turns into poisonous, decaying matter in the soul. If Coleridge had been more callous towards what he felt to be his duties, if he had not merely neglected them, as he did, but justified himself for neglecting them, on any ground of intellectual or physical necessity, or if he had merely let them slide without thought or regret, he would have been more complete, more effectual, as a man, and he might have achieved more finished work as an artist.

      To Coleridge there was as much difficulty in belief as in action, for belief is itself an action of the mind. He was always anxious to believe anything that would carry him beyond the limits of time and space, but it was not often that he could give more than a speculative assent to even the most improbable of creeds. Always seeking fixity, his mind was too fluid for any anchor to hold in it. He drifted from speculation to speculation, often seeming to forget his aim by the way, in almost the collector's delight over the curiosities he had found in passing. On one page of his letters he writes earnestly to the atheist Thelwall in defence of Christianity; on another page we find him saying, My Spinosism (if Spinosism it be, and i' faith 'tis very like it); and then comes the solemn assurance: I am a Berkleyan. Southey, in his rough, uncomprehending way, writes: Hartley was ousted by Berkeley, Berkeley by Spinoza, and Spinoza by Plato; when last I saw him Jacob Behmen had some chance of coming in. The truth is that he plays with systems; so it seemed to Southey, who could see no better. To Coleridge all systems were of importance, because in every system there was its own measure of truth. He was always setting his mind to think about itself, and felt that he worked both hard and well if he had gained a clearer glimpse into that dark cavern. Yet I have not been altogether idle, he writes in December, 180O, having in my own conceit gained great light into several parts of the human mind which have hitherto remained either wholly unexplained or most falsely explained. In March, 1801, he declares that he has completely extricated the notions of time and space. This, he says, "I have done; but I trust that I am about to do more—namely, that I shall be able to evolve all the five senses, and to state their growth and the causes of their difference, and in this evolvement to solve the process of life and consciousness. He hopes that before his thirtieth year he will thoroughly understand the whole of Nature's works. My opinion is this, he says, defining one part at least of his way of approach to truth, that deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and that all truth is a species of revelation." On the other hand, he assures us, speaking of that magnum opus which weighed upon him and supported him to the end of his life, the very object throughout from the first page to the last [is] to reconcile the dictates of common sense with the conclusions of scientific reasoning.

      This magnum opus, a work which should contain all knowledge and proclaim all philosophy, had, says Mr. Ernest Coleridge, been Coleridge's dream from the beginning. Only a few months before his death, we find him writing to John Sterling: "Many a fond dream have I amused myself with, of

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