Christabel

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A 996,258
1817
ARTES SCIENTIA
VERITAS
LIBRARY CHTHE
OF IGAN
RSITY OF MI
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SI- QUERISPENINSULA AMO NAM

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CIRCUMSPICE
1869 8
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JOHN LONG'S CARLTON CLASSICS
Christabel ,
And other Poems
Edited by HANNAFORD BENNETT

A
JOHN LONG'S CARLTON CLASSICS
PRICES :-Decorative Wrapper, 3d. net ;
Cloth, 6d. net ; Leather, Is. net
Double Volume, double price.
THE FIRST TWELVE VOLUMES
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
By LORD BYRON
Much Ado About Nothing
By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Warren Hastings
By LORD MACAULAY
The Four Georges
By W. M. THACKERAY
Tales (Selected)
By EDGAR ALLAN POE
Christabel, and other Poems
By S. T. COLERIDGE
A Sentimental Journey
By LAURENCE STERNE
The Blessed Damozel, and other Poems
By DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
The Life of Nelson (double vol.)
By ROBERT SOUTHEY
On Heroes and Hero-Worship (double vol.)
By THOMAS CARLYLE
Sonnets. ByWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Rasselas. By SAMUEL JOHNSON
Additional Volumes will be announced in
due course
JOHN LONG, PUBLISHER, LONDON
pq
Christabel
And other Poems
2By
4
4
S. T. Coleridge
With Biographical Introduction

by
Hannaford Bennett
BREVIS
LONGH
DIGA4-
BRS
JOHN-LONG
London
John Long
13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket
MCMV
Biographical Introduction
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, the youngest of

thirteen children, was born at Ottery St Mary,
on the 21st of October 1772. His father, the
Rev. John Coleridge, was vicar of the parish and
master of the old Free Grammar School. He was
a devout, simple-minded man, a Hebrew scholar,
and the author of several unimportant works.
His illustrious son was wont to compare him to
Parson Adams : " My father," he added, " was not
a first-rate genius ; he was, however, a first-rate
Christian."
Coleridge received the rudiments of education
at home. Just before his tenth birthday his father
died , and, in July 1782, the boy obtained an
admission to Christ's Hospital through the
influence of Sir Francis Buller, the judge, who
had been a pupil at his father's Grammar School.
Coleridge remained eight years at Christ's Hospital,
but was not happy at school, and once tried to
escape to become a cobbler's apprentice. He
joined in no sports but revelled in books. Wander-
ing through London streets, his hand touched a
5
6 Biographical Introduction Blog
gentleman's coat, and he was mistaken for a pick-

pocket. Explaining that he had imagined himself Colleg
Leander, swimming the Hellespont, he was released 94 Co
by his captor, who was sufficiently interested to The
subscribe for him to a library. Coleridge went heycall
through the catalogue. " My whole being, " he says, on
66
was to crumple myself up in a sunny corner and h
read, read, read." Before his fifteenth year he
had translated eight hymns from the Greek. andea
Charles Lamb was one of his school-fellows, and thege
in an oft-quoted essay on Christ's Hospital has left Itis
a picture of him as, "logician, metaphysicia n, ngirers
youngfunds
bard," the "inspired charity boy, " the " ,
Mirandula," who entranced passers-by as he un-
folded "in his deep and sweet intonations the Titolpl
mysteries of Iamblichus and Plotinus. ”
for น2
In 1791 Coleridge, then captain of his school,
eyfor
was awarded an exhibition to Jesus College, acc
epte
Cambridge. He did not distinguish himself to ther
the extent that might have been expected . He Ad Th
gained the Browne Medal for Greek Ode on the us ad
slave trade, but did not take a degree. In g ma
e r
December 1793 , having contracted a few debts month
and been refused by a Miss Mary Evans, he Col
e
wandered despondently to London, and enlisted isefro
in the Fifteenth Light Dragoons, under the name ever
y
of Silas Tomkyn Comberback. His friends asmall
Biographical Introduction 7
ultimately procured his discharge, and he returned

to Jesus College, but only for a few months.
In 1794 Coleridge visited Oxford and met
Southey. The two men evolved the scheme
which they called " Pantisocracy." The plan was
to form a colony on the banks of the Susquehanna
-a locality which was selected because the name
was poetical- where there should be perfect
freedom and equality. Coleridge had but a vague
idea of the geographical position of the Susque-
hanna : " It is a grand river in America, " he replied
to all inquirers. The project was abandoned for
lack of funds, and Coleridge and Southey de-
termined upon a literary course of life. Cottle,
the Bristol publisher, offered thirty guineas to
Coleridge for a volume of poems, and fifty guineas
to Southey for his Joan of Arc. Both offers were
gladly accepted, and the two authors sought to
obtain further supplies by lecturing. In 1794 they
published The Fall of Robespierre, and in 1795
Conciones ad Populam. In the autumn of 1795
Coleridge married Miss Sarah Fricker of Bristol,
and a month later Southey espoused one of her
sisters. Coleridge was without means, but he had
a promise from Cottle to pay him a guinea and a
half for every hundred lines which he wrote. He
took a small cottage at Nether Stowey, and became
8 Biographical Introduction
acquainted with Wordsworth, who was living at

Alfoxden. In 1796 he started the Watchman,
which was to advocate liberal opinions, but it
satisfied no one, and expired with the tenth
number. While living at Nether Stowey, Coleridge
frequently preached in the Unitarian chapel in the
neighbouring town of Taunton. During the next
three years most of his leading poems were com-
posed, though some were not published until a later
date. His best poems were the work of a young
man of twenty-five. The first part of Christabel,
and the Ancient Mariner, belong to 1797. The
second part of Christabel, the Ode to Dejection,
Youth and Age, and A Visionary Hope, are the
only important poems of his later life.
In 1798 Coleridge was enabled, through the
liberality of Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood to
visit Germany in company with Wordsworth. He
went through a complete course of German
literature, and remained abroad rather better than
a year. On his return he published a translation
of Schiller's Wallenstein, and commenced writing
for the Morning Post. He settled with Southey
at Keswick, in order to be near Wordsworth, who
lived close by at Grasmere, but during the next
sixteen years he completed little or nothing. He
went abroad once again, and for a time acted as
Biographical Introduction 9
secretary to the Governor of Malta.On his return
he rejoined Southey at Keswick, and planned the
Friend, a periodical publication which had only a
short life. In 1810 he quitted the Lakes, leaving
his wife and family behind, and he did not again
return to them.Coleridge had long been a victim
of the opium habit, and in 1814 was taking as
much as two quarts of laudanum a week. Kubla
Khan, composed under its influence, resembles
one of De Quincey's opium dreams. Full of
compunction for his mental and physical collapse,
and resolving to make a final effort to retrieve
himself, Coleridge entered the house of Mr Gill-
man, a surgeon of Highgate. To what extent he
broke away from the habit is uncertain, but he
entered upon a period of great literary activity,
and lived happily with the Gillmans for the rest
of his days. He died on the 25th of July 1834.
Contemporary testimony to Coleridge's great
powers was universal. Wordsworth said that
many men of his age had done wonderful things,
but that Coleridge was the only wonderful man he
had ever known. Southey considered his mind
"infinitely and ten thousand thousand-fold the
mightiest of his generation. " De Quincey speaks
of him as "the largest and most spacious intellect,
the subtlest and most comprehensive, in my
ΙΟ Biographical Introduction
judgment, that has yet existed among men, " and

Charles Lamb saw in him, "an archangel-a little
damaged." In our own time Mr Swinburne has
said that " an age that should forget or neglect
him might forget or neglect any poet that ever
lived."
HANNAFORD BENNETT
1
a buso u
Lesa
Contents
PAGE
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 5
CHRISTABEL · 13
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 42 y
KUBLA KHAN ; OR, A VISION IN A DREAM 70 /
THE PAINS OF SLEEP 74
LOVE . 77 /
RECANTATION 82
INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK
LADIE · 87
LEWTI ; OR, THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT 90
THE PICTURE ; OR, THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION 94
THE NIGHT-SCENE : A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT 102
TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN 107
TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT THE THEATRE 108
LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM 110
THE KEEPSAKE 112
TO A YOUNG LADY ON HER RECOVERY FROM A
FEVER · · 114
TO A LADY, WITH FALCONER'S " SHIPWRECK " · 115
II
12 Contents
PAGE
HOME-SICK : WRITTEN IN GERMANY 117
SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL · 118
ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION . 119
THE VISIONARY HOPE · I20
THE HAPPY HUSBAND 122
ON RE- VISITING THE SEA-SHORE AFTER LONG
ABSENCE . · 124
RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE 126
THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS 128
LINES WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE,
IN THE HARTZ FOREST 129
THE EOLIAN HARP . 132
ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF
FEBRUARY 1796 . 135
REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF
RETIREMENT • 137
DEJECTION : AN ODE 141
PHANTOM OR FACT ? A DIALOGUE IN VERSE 148
WORK WITHOUT HOPE 150
YOUTH AND AGE 151
A DAY DREAM 153
LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF
BERENGARIUS 155
TO A LADY, OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION 157
Christabel
PREFACE.'
THE first part of the following poem was written in the

year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, at
Stowey in the county of Somerset. The second part, after
my return from Germany, in the year one thousand eight
hundred, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the latter date,
my poetic powers have been, till very lately, in a state of
suspended animation. But as, in my very first conception of
the tale, I had the whole present to my mind, with the whole-
ness, no less than with the loveliness of a vision ; I trust that
I shall yet be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to
come.
It is probable, that if the poem had been finished at either
ofthe former periods, or if even the first and second part had
been published in the year 1800, the impression of its
originality would have been much greater than I dare at
present expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to
blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose
of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from
myself. For there is among us a set of critics, who seem to
hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional ;
who have no notion that there are such things as fountains
in the world, small as well as great ; and who would there-
fore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a
perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident,
'To the edition of 1816.
13
14 Christabel
however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the

celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of
having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone
and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to
vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking
coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggrel
version of two monkish Latin hexameters :
'Tis mine and it is likewise yours

But an if this will not do ;
Let it be mine, good friend ! for I
Am the poorer of the two.
I have only to add, that the metre of the Christabel is
not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so
from its being founded on a new principle : namely, that of
counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though
the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line
the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless
this occasional variation in number of syllables is not intro-
duced wantonly or for the mere ends of convenience, but is
in correspondence with some transition in the nature of
the imagery or passion.
PART THE FIRST
'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock ,

And the owls have awakened the crowing cock ;
Tu-whit !-Tu-whoo !
And hark, again ! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff, which S
S
Christabel 15
From her kennel beneath the rock

Maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour ;
Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud ;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.
Is the night chilly and dark ?

The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin grey cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full ;
And yet she looks both small and dull .
The night is chill, the cloud is grey :
'Tis a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.
The lovely lady, Christabel,

Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate ?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight ;
And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that's far away.
She stole along, she nothing spoke,

The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
16 Christabel
And naught was green upon the oak,

But moss and rarest misletoe :
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.
The lady sprang up suddenly,

The lovely lady, Christabel !
It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is, she cannot tell.-
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted , old oak tree.
The night is chill ; the forest bare ;

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek-
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can ,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.
Hush beating heart of Christabel !

Jesu, Maria, shield her well !
She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there ?
Christabel 17
There she sees a damsel bright,

Drest in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone :
The neck that made that white robe wan ,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare ;
Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly !
Mary mother, save me now !

(Said Christabel, ) And who art thou ?
The lady strange made answer meet,

And her voice was faint and sweet :-
Have pity on my sore distress,
I scarce can speak for weariness.
Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear,
Said Christabel, How camest thou here ?
And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,
Did thus pursue her answer meet :-
My sire is of a noble line,

And my name is Geraldine :
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn :
B
18 Christabel
They choked my cries with force and fright,

And tied me on a palfrey white .
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
They spurred amain, their steeds were white ;
And once we crossed the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
I have no thought what men they be ;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey's back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.
Some muttered words his comrades spoke.
He placed me underneath this oak,
He swore they would return with haste ;
Whither they went I cannot tell-
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.
Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she,)
And help a wretched maid to flee.
Then Christabel stretched forth her hand

And comforted fair Geraldine :
O well bright dame may you command
The service of Sir Leoline ;
Christabel 19
And gladly our stout chivalry

Will he send forth and friends withall
To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father's hall.
She rose and forth with steps they passed

That strovad to be, and were not, fast.
Her gracious STARS the lady blest,
And thus spake on sweet Christabel ;
All our household are at rest,
The hall as silent as the cell,
Sir Leoline is weak in health
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth
And I beseech your courtesy
This night, to share your couch with me.
They crossed the moat, and Christabel

Took the key that fitted well ;
A little door she opened straight,
All in the middle of the gate ;
The gate that was ironed within and without,
Where an army in battle array had marched out.
The lady sank, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate :
20 Christabel
Then the lady rose again,

And moved, as she were not in pain.
So free from danger, free from fear,

They crossed the court : right glad they were.
And Christabel devoutly cried,
To the lady by her side,
Praise we the Virgin all divine
Who hath rescued thee from thy distress !
Alas, alas ! said Geraldine ,
I cannot speak for weariness.
So free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court : right glad they were.
Outside her kennel, the mastiff old

Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,
Yet she an angry moan- did make !
And what can ail the mastiff bitch ?
Never till now she uttered yell
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch :
For what can ail the mastiff bitch ?
They passed the hall, that echoes still,

Pass as lightly as you will !
The brands were flat, the brands were dying,
Amid their own white ashes lying ;
Christabel 21
But when the lady passed , there came

A tongue of light, a fit of flame ;
And Christabel saw the lady's eye,
And nothing else saw she thereby,
Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,
Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.
O softly tread, said Christabel,
My father seldom sleepeth well.
Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare

And jealous of the listening air
They steal their way from stair to stair
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,
And now they pass the Baron's room ,
As still as death with stifled breath !
And now have reached her chamber door ;
And now doth Geraldine press down
The rushes of the chamber floor.
The moon shines dim in the open air,

And not a moonbeam enters here./
But they without its light can see
The chamber carved so curiously,
Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet :
The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is fastened to an angel's feet.
22 Christabel
The silver lamp burns dead and dim ;

But Christabel the lamp will trim.
She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,
か And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.
O weary lady, Geraldine,

I pray you , drink this cordial wine !
It is a wine of virtuous powers ;
My mother made it of wild flowers.
And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn ?
Christabel answered-Woe is me !
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the grey-haired friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding day.
O mother dear ! that thou wert here !
I would, said Geraldine, she were !
But soon with altered voice, said she-

" Off, wandering mother ! Peak and pine !
I have power to bid thee flee."
Alas ! what ails poor Geraldine ?
Why stares she with unsettled eye ?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
Christabel 23
And why with hollow voice cries she,

" Off, woman, off! this hour is mine-
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman, off ! 'tis given to me."
Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,

And raised to heaven her eyes so blue-
Alas ! said she, this ghastly ride—
Dear lady ! it hath wildered you !
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, "'tis over now ! "
Again the wild-flower wine she drank :

Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,
And from the floor whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright ;
She was most beautiful to see,
(
Like a lady of a far countrée.
And thus the lofty lady spake-

All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel !
And you love them , and for their sake
And for the good which me befel,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself ; for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.
24 Christabel
Quoth Christabel, so let it be!

And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.
But through her brain of weal and woe
So many thoughts moved to and fro,
That vain it were her lids to close ;
So half-way from the bed she rose,
And on her elbow did recline
To look at the lady Geraldine.
Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,

And slowly rolled her eyes around ;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast :
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropt to her feet, and full in view,
Behold ! her bosom and half her side-
A sight to dream of, not to tell !
O shield her ! shield sweet Christabel !
Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs :

Ah ! what a stricken look was hers !
Deep from within she seems half-way
To lift some weight with sick assay,
And eyes the maid and seeks delay ;
Then suddenly as one defied
Christabel 25
Collects herself in scorn and pride,

And lay down by the Maiden's side !—
And in her arms the maid she took,
Ah ! well-a-day !
And with low voice and doleful look
These words did say :
In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell ,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel !
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow ;
But vainly thou warrest,
For this is alone in
Thy power to declare,
That in the dim forest
Thou heardest a low moaning,
And foundest a bright lady, surpassingly fair :
And didst bring her home with thee in love and
in charity,
To shield her and shelter her from the damp
air.
THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE FIRST
It was a lovely sight to see

The lady Christabel, when she
Was praying at the old oak tree.
26 Christabel
Amid the jagged shadows

Of mossy leafless boughs
Kneeling in the moonlight,
To make her gentle vows ;
Her slender palms together prest,
Heaving sometimes on her breast ;
Her face resigned to bliss or bale-
Her face, oh call it fair not pale,
And both blue eyes more bright than clear,
Each about to have a tear.
With open eyes (ah woe is me !)

Asleep, and dreaming fearfully,
Fearfully dreaming, yet I wis,
Dreaming that alone, which is
O sorrow and shame ! ( Can this be she,
The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree ?
And lo ! the worker of these harms,
That holds the maiden in her arms,
Seems to slumber still and mild,
As a mother with her child.
A star hath set, a star hath risen,

O Geraldine ! since arms of thine
Have been the lovely lady's prison.
O Geraldine ! one hour was thine-
Christabel 27
Thou'st had thy will ! By tairn and rill,

The night-birds all that hour were still.
But now they are jubilant anew,
From cliff and tower, tu— whoo ! tu- whoo !
Tu-whoo ! tu-whoo ! from wood and fell !
And see ! the lady Christabel
Gathers herself from out her trance ;
Her limbs relax, her countenance
Grows sad and soft ; the smooth thin lids
Close o'er her eyes ; and tears she sheds-
Large tears that leave the lashes bright !
And oft the while she seems to smile
As infants at a sudden light !
Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,
Like a youthful hermitess,
Beauteous in a wilderness ,
Who, praying always, prays in sleep.
And, if she move unquietly,
Perchance, 'tis but the blood so free,
Comes back and tingles in her feet,
No doubt, she hath a vision sweet.
What if her guardian spirit 'twere,
What if she knew her mother near?
But this she knows, in joys and woes,
That saints will aid if men will call :
For the blue sky bends over all !
28 Christabel
PART THE SECOND
EACH matin bell, the Baron saith,

Knells us back to a world of death.
These words Sir Leoline first said,
When he rose and found his lady dead :
These words Sir Leoline will say,
Many a morn to his dying day,
And hence the custom and law began ,
That still at dawn the sacristan,
Who duly pulls the heavy bell,
Five and forty beads must tell
Between each stroke— a warning knell,
Which not a soul can choose but hear
From Bratha Head to Wyndermere.
Saith Bracy the bard, So let it knell !

And let the drowsy sacristan
Still count as slowly as he can !
There is no lack of such, I ween
As well fill up the space between.
In Langdale Pike and Witch's Lair,
And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent,
With ropes of rock and bells of air
Three sinful sextons' ghosts are pent,
Who all give back, one after t'other,
The death-note to their living brother ;
Christabel 29
And oft too, by the knell offended,

Just as their one ! two ! three ! is ended,
The devil mocks the doleful tale
With a merry peal from Borrowdale.
The air is still ! through mist and cloud
That merry peal comes ringing loud ;
And Geraldine shakes off her dread
And rises lightly from the bed ;
Puts on her silken vestments white,
And tricks her hair in lovely plight,
And nothing doubting of her spell
Awakens the lady Christabel.
"Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel ?
I trust that you have rested well. "
And Christabel awoke and spied
The same who lay down by her side-
O rather say, the same whom she
Raised up beneath the old oak tree !
Nay, fairer yet ! and yet more fair !
For she belike hath drunken deep
Of all the blessedness of sleep !
And while she spake, her looks, her air
Such gentle thankfulness declare,
That (so it seemed) her girded vests
Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts.
" Sure I have sinned ! " said Christabel,
Now heaven be praised if all be well ! "
30 Christabel
And in low faltering tones, yet sweet,

Did she the lofty lady greet
With such perplexity of mind
As dreams too lively leave behind.
So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed

Her maiden limbs, and having prayed
That He, who on the cross did groan,
Might wash away her sins unknown
She forthwith led fair Geraldine
To meet her sire, Sir Leoline.
The lovely maid and the lady tall

Are pacing both into the hall,
And pacing on through page and groom
Enter the Baron's presence room.
The Baron rose, and while he prest

His gentle daughter to his breast,
With cheerful wonder in his eyes
The lady Geraldine espies,
And gave such welcome to the same,
As might beseem so bright a dame !
But when he heard the lady's tale,

And when she told her father's name,
Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale,
Murmuring o'er the name again,
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine ?
Christabel 31
Alas ! they had been friends in youth ;

But whispering tongues can poison truth ;
And constancy lives in realms above ;
And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ;
And to be wroth with one we love,
( Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother :
They parted- ne'er to meet again !

But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
Sir Leoline, a moment's space,

Stood gazing on the damsel's face ;
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine
Came back upon his heart again.
O then the Baron forgot his age,

His noble heart swelled high with rage ;
32 Christabel
He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side.

He would proclaim it far and wide
With trump and solemn heraldry,
That they, who thus had wronged the dame,
Were base as spotted infamy !
" And if they dare deny the same,
My herald shall appoint a week,
And let the recreant traitors seek
My tournay-that there and then
I may dislodge their reptile souls
From the bodies and forms of men ! "
He spake his eye in lightning rolls !
For the lady was ruthlessly seized ; and he kenned
In the beautiful lady the child of his friend !
And now the tears were on his face,

And fondly in his arms he took
Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace,
Prolonging it with joyous look.
Which when she viewed, a vision fell
Upon the soul of Christabel,
The vision of fear, the touch and pain !
She shrunk and shuddered , and saw again
(Ah, woe is me ! Was it for thee,
Thou gentle maid ! such sights to see ? )
Again she saw that bosom old,

Again she felt that bosom cold,
Christabel 33
And drew in her breath with a hissing sound :

Whereat the Knight turned wildly round,
And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid
With eyes upraised , as one that prayed .
The touch, the sight, had passed away.

And in its stead that vision blest,
Which comforted her after-rest
While in the lady's arms she lay,
Had put a rapture in her breast,
And on her lips and o'er her eyes
Spread smiles like light !
With new surprise,

"What ails then my beloved child ? "
The Baron said- His daughter mild
Made answer, "All will yet be well ! "
I ween, she had no power to tell
Aught else : so mighty was the spell.
Yet he, who saw this Geraldine,
Had deemed her sure a thing divine,
Such sorrow with such grace she blended,
As if she feared, she had offended
Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid !
And with such lowly tones she prayed,
She might be sent without delay
Home to her father's mansion.
C
34 Christabel
“ Nay !
Nay, by my soul ! " said Leoline.
" Ho ! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine !
Go thou, with music sweet and loud,
And take two steeds with trappings proud,
And take the youth whom thou lov'st best
To bear thy harp, and learn thy song,
And clothe you both in solemn vest,
And over the mountains haste along,
Lest wandering folk, that are abroad
Detain you on the valley road.
And when he has crossed the Irthing flood,
My merry bard ! he hastes, he hastes
Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood,
And reaches soon that castle good.
Which stands and threatens Scotland's wastes.
Bard Bracy ! bard Bracy ! your horses are fleet,

Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet,
More loud than your horses' echoing feet !
And loud and loud to Lord Roland call,
Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall !
Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free-
Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me.
He bids thee come without delay
With all thy numerous array ;
And take thy lovely daughter home,
Christabel 35
And he will meet thee on the way
With all his numerous array
White with their panting palfreys' foam ,
And, by mine honour ! I will say,
That I repent me of the day
When I spake words of fierce disdain
To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine !-
-For since that evil hour hath flown ,
Many a summer's sun hath shone ;
Yet ne'er found I a friend again
Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine."
The lady fell, and clasped his knees,

Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing ;
And Bracy replied, with faultering voice,
His gracious hail on all bestowing :-
Thy words, thou sire of Christabel,
Are sweeter than my harp can tell ;
Yet might I gain a boon of thee,
This day my journey should not be,
So strange a dream hath come to me :
That I had vowed with music loud
To clear yon wood from things unblest,
Warned by a vision in my rest !
For in my sleep I saw that dove,
That gentle bird, whom thou dost love,
36 Christabel
And call'st by thy own daughter's name-

Sir Leoline ! I saw the same,
Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan,
Among the green herbs in the forest alone.
Which when I saw and when I heard,
I wonder'd what might ail the bird :
For nothing near it could I see,
Save the grass and green herbs underneath the
old tree.
And in my dream, methought, I went

To search out what might there be found ;
And what the sweet bird's trouble meant,
That thus lay fluttering on the ground.
I went and peered, and could descry
No cause for her distressful cry ;
But yet for her dear lady's sake
I stooped, methought the dove to take,
When lo ! I saw a bright green snake
Coiled around its wings and neck.
Green as the herbs on which it couched,
Close by the dove's its head it crouched ;
And with the dove it heaves and stirs.
Swelling its neck as she swelled hers !
I woke ; it was the midnight hour,
The clock was echoing in the tower ;
But though my slumber was gone by,
Christabel 37
This dream it would not pass away—
It seems to live upon my eye !
And thence I vowed this self- same day
With music strong and saintly song
To wander through the forest bare,
Lest aught unholy loiter there.
Thus Bracy said : the Baron, the while,

Half-listening heard him with a smile ;
Then turned to Lady Geraldine,
His eyes made up of wonder and love ;
And said in courtly accents fine,
Sweet maid, Lord Roland's beauteous dove,
With arms more strong than harp or song,
Thy sire and I will crush the snake !
He kissed her forehead as he spake
And Geraldine in maiden wise,
Casting down her large bright eyes,
With blushing cheek and courtesy fine
She turned her from Sir Leoline ;
Softly gathered up her train,
That o'er her right arm fell again ;
And folded her arms across her chest,
And couched her head upon her breast,
And looked askance at Christabel
Jesu, Maria, shield her well !
38 Christabel
A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy,

And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head,
Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye,
And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread
At Christabel she looked askance !—
One moment- and the sight was fled !
But Christabel in dizzy trance,
Stumbling on the unsteady ground-
Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound ;
And Geraldine again turned round,
And like a thing, that sought relief,
Full of wonder and full of grief,
She rolled her large bright eyes divine
Wildly on Sir Leoline.
The maid, alas ! her thoughts are gone,

She nothing sees-no sight but one ! But
The maid, devoid of guile and sin,
I know not how, in fearful wise
So deeply had she drunken in
That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,
That all her features were resigned
To this sole image in her mind :
And passively did imitate
That look of dull and treacherous hate,
And thus she stood, in dizzy trance,
Still picturing that look askance,
Christabel 39
With forced unconscious sympathy

Full before her father's view-
As far as such a look could be,
In eyes so innocent and blue !
And when the trance was o'er, the maid
Paused awhile, and inly prayed,
Then falling at her father's feet,
"By my mother's soul do I entreat
That thou this woman send away !"
She said ; and more she could not say.
For what she knew she could not tell,
O'er-mastered by the mighty spell.
Why is thy cheek so wan and wild,

Sir Leoline ? Thy only child
Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride,
So fair, so innocent, so mild ;
The same, for whom thy lady died !
O by the pangs of her dear mother
Think thou no evil of thy child !
For her, and thee, and for no other,
She prayed the moment ere she died :
Prayed that the babe for whom she died,
Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride !
That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,
Sir Leoline !
40 Christabel
And would'st thou wrong thy only child,

Her child and thine ?
Within the Baron's heart and brain
If thoughts, like these, had any share,
They only swelled his rage and pain,
And did but work confusion there.
His heart was cleft with pain and rage,
His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild,
Dishonoured thus in his old age ;
Dishonoured by his only child,
And all his hospitality
To the insulted daughter of his friend
By more than woman's jealousy,
Brought thus to a disgraceful end—
He rolled his eye with stern regard
Upon the gentle minstrel bard,
And said in tones abrupt, austere-
Why, Bracy ! dost thou loiter here ?
I bade thee hence ! The bard obeyed ;
And turning from his own sweet maid,
The aged knight, Sir Leoline,
Led forth the lady Geraldine !
THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE SECOND
A little child, a limber elf,

Singing, dancing to itself,
Christabel 41
A fairy thing with red round cheeks

That always finds, and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father's eyes with light ;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last
Must needs express his love's excess
With words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so unlike each other ;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm .
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be true !)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's most used to do.
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT
MARINER
IN SEVEN PARTS
Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles

in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis
nobis enarrabit ? et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et
singulorum munera ? Quid agunt ? quæ loca habitant ?
Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum,
nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in
animo, tanquam in Tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi
imaginem contemplari : ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ
minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas
cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque
servandus, ut certe ab incertis, diem a nocte , distinguamus.
T. BURNET : ARCHEOL. PHIL. p. 68.
PART THE FIRST

V ་
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
" By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide

And I am next of kin ;
The guests are met, the feast is set :
May'st hear the merry din."
42
Rime of the Ancient Mariner 43
He holds him with his skinny hand ,

"There was a ship, " quoth he.
"Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon ! "
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye-

The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child :
The Mariner hath his will.
V V
The Wedding- Guest sat on a stone :
He cannot chuse but hear ;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the light-house top.
The Sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he !
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.
Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon-
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
44 Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she ;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot chuse but hear ;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong :
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled .
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold :
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen :
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound !
At length did cross an Albatross :

Thorough the fog it came ;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew,
The ice did split with a thunder-fit ;
The helmsman steered us through !
And a good south wind sprung up behind ;

The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo !
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine ;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.
"God save thee, ancient Mariner !

From the fiends, that plague thee thus !-
Why look'st thou so ? "-With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
t r
46 Rime of the Ancien Marine
PART THE SECOND
THE Sun now rose upon the right :

Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind,

But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo !
And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work ' em woe :
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
Nor dim nor red , like God's own head,

The glorious Sun uprist :
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they , such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free :
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down

'Twas sad as sad could be ;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea !
All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot : O Christ !

That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
t r
e ien ine
48 Rim of the Anc Mar
About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night ;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.
And some in dreams assured were

Of the spirit that plagued us so :
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root ;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah! well-a-day ! what evil looks

Had I from old and young !
Instead of the cross , the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
PART THE THIRD
THERE passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time ! a weary time !
How glazed each weary eye,
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.
At first it seemed a little speck,

And then it seemed a mist :
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist !

And still it neared and neared :
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered .
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail ;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood !
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail ! a sail !
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

Agape they heard me call :
Gramercy ! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.
See ! see ! (I cried) she tacks no more !

Hither to work us weal ;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel !
The western wave was all a-flame,

The day was well nigh done !
D
Almost upon the western wave

Rested the broad bright Sun ;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.
And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,

(Heaven's Mother send us grace !)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered,
With broad and burning face.
Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)

How fast she nears and nears !
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres !
Are those her ribs through which the Sun,

Did peer, as through a grate ?
And is that Woman all her crew ?
Is that a DEATH ? and are there two ?
IS DEATH that woman's mate ?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold :
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-Mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice ;
"The game is done ! I've won ! I've won ! "
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out :

At one stride comes the dark ;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
We listened and looked sideways up !

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip !
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white
From the sails the dew did drip-
Till clombe above the eastern bar
The horned Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.
One after one, by the star-dogged Moon

Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.
Four times fifty living men,

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.
The souls did from their bodies fly,-

They fled to bliss or woe !
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my CROSS-BOW !
PART THE FOURTH
"I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner !

I fear thy skinny hand !
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand. '
I fear thee and thy glittering eye,

And thy skinny hand, so brown . ".
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding- Guest !
This body dropt not down.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea !
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
The many men, so beautiful !

And they all dead did lie :
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on ; and so did I.
I looked upon the rotting sea,

And drew my eyes away ;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.
For the two last lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr
Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from Nether
Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in the
Autumn of 1797, that this Poem was planned, and in part
composed.
I looked to Heaven, and tried to pray ;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat ;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.
The cold sweat melted from their limbs,

Nor rot nor reek did they :
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.
An orphan's curse would drag to Hell

A spirit from on high ;
But oh ! more horrible than that
Is a curse in a dead man's eye !
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.
The moving Moon went up the sky,

And nowhere did abide :
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,

Like April hoar-frost spread ;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship,

I watched the water-snakes :
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire :
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam ; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things ! no tongue

Their beauty might declare :
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware :
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blest them unaware.
The self-same moment I could pray ;

And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
PART THE FIFTH
OH sleep ! it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole !
To Mary Queen the praise be given !
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck,

That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew ;
And when I awoke, it rained.
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,

My garments all were dank ;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.
I moved, and could not feel my limbs :

I was so light- almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.
And soon I heard a roaring wind :

It did not come anear ;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.
The upper air burst into life !

And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about !
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.
And the coming wind did roar more loud,

And the sails did sigh like sedge ;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud ;
The Moon was at its edge.
The thick black cloud was cleft, and still

The Moon was at its side :
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.
The loud wind never reached the ship,

Yet now the ship moved on !
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,

Nor spake nor moved their eyes ;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ;

Yet never a breeze up blew ;
The mariners all ' gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do :
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother's son,

Stood by me, knee to knee :
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.
“ I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! "

Be calm, thou Wedding- Guest !
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest :
For when it dawned-they dropped their arms,

And clustered round the mast ;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed .
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the Sun ;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.
t Mariner
58 Rime of the Ancien
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky

I heard the sky-lark sing ;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning !
And now 'twas like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute ;
And now it is an angel song,
That makes the Heavens be mute.
It ceased ; yet still the sails made on

A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,

Yet never a breeze did breathe :
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath .
Under the keel nine fathom deep,

From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.
The Sun, right up above the mast,

Had fixed her to the ocean :
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion-
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.
Then like a pawing horse let go,

She made a sudden bound :
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.
How long in that same fit I lay,

I have not to declare ;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two VOICES in the air.
"Is it he?" quoth one, " Is this the man ?

By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low,
The harmless Albatross.
The spirit who bideth by himself

In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow."
The other was a softer voice,

As soft as honey-dew :
Quoth he, " The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do."
PART THE SIXTH
FIRST VOICE
BUT tell me, tell me ! speak again,

Thy soft response renewing—
What makes that ship drive on so fast ?
What is the OCEAN doing ?
SECOND VOICE
Still as a slave before his lord,

The OCEAN hath no blast ;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast-
If he may know which way to go ;

For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see ! how graciously
She looketh down on him.
FIRST VOICE
But why drives on that ship so fast,

Without or wave or wind ?
SECOND VOICE
The air is cut away before,

And closes from behind.
Fly, brother, fly ! more high, more high

Or we shall be belated :
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner's trance is abated.
I woke, and we were sailing on

As in a gentle weather :
'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high ;
The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck,

For a charnel-dungeon fitter :
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,

Had never passed away :
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.
And now this spell was snapt : once more

I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen-
Like one, that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head ;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breathed a wind on me,

Nor sound nor motion made :
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.
It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek

Like a meadow-gale of spring-
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sailed softly too :
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze-
On me alone it blew.
Oh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed

The light-house top I see ?
Is this the hill ? is this the kirk ?
Is this mine own countree ?
We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray-
O let me be awake, my God !
Or let me sleep alway.
The harbour-bay was clear as glass,

So smoothly it was strewn !
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,

That stands above the rock :
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.
And the bay was white with silent light,

Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.
A little distance from the prow

Those crimson shadows were :
I turned my eyes upon the deck-
Oh, Christ ! what saw I there !
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,

And, by the holy rood !
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.
This seraph-band, each waved his hand :

It was a heavenly sight !
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light :
This seraph-band, each waved his hand ,

No voice did they impart—
No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.
But soon I heard the dash of oars

I heard the Pilot's cheer ;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.
The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy,

I heard them coming fast :
Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.
I saw a third- I heard his voice :

It is the Hermit good !
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away ?
The Albatross's blood.
PART THE SEVENTH
THIS Hermit good lives in that wood

Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! 3
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.
He kneels at morn, and noon and eve―

He hath a cushion plump :
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.
The skiff-boat neared : I heard them talk,

"Why this is strange, I trow !
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now ? "
" Strange, by my faith ! " the Hermit said

"And they answered not our cheer !
The planks looked warped ! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere !
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were
Brown skeletons of leaves that lag

My forest-brook along ;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young. "
"Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look—

(The Pilot made reply)
I am a-feared "—" Push on, push on ! "
Said the Hermit cheerily.
E
The boat came closer to the ship,

But I nor spake nor stirred ;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.
Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread :
It reached the ship, it split the bay ;
The ship went down like lead.
Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound ,

Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat ;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.
Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,

The boat spun round and round ;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.
I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked

And fell down in a fit ;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.
I took the oars : the Pilot's boy,

Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
" Ha ! ha !" quoth he, " full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row."
And now, all in my own countree ,

I stood on the firm land !
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.
" O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man ! "

The Hermit crossed his brow.
" Say quick," quoth he, " I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou ? "
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale ;
And then it left me free.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns ;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land ;

I have strange power of speech ;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me :
To him my tale I teach .
What loud uproar bursts from that door !

The wedding-guests are there :
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are :
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer !
O Wedding-Guest ! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide wide sea :
So lonely 'twas, that God Himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company !—
To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay !
Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding- Guest !
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.
The Mariner, whose eye is bright,

Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn :
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
KUBLA KHAN ; OR, A VISION IN A
DREAM
A FRAGMENT
THE following fragment is here published at the request of

a poet of great and deserved celebrity, and as far as the
Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psycho-
logical curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic
merits.
In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill

health, had retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock
and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devon-
shire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne
had been prescribed , from the effects of which he fell asleep
in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following
sentence, or words of the same substance, in " Purchas's
Pilgrimage : " " Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace
to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten
miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall. " The
Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep ,
at least of the external senses, during which time he has the
most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less
than from two to three hundred lines ; if that indeed can be
called composition in which all the images rose up before him
as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent
expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort.
On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct re-
collection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper
instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here
70
Kubla Khan 71
preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out

by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him
above an hour, and on his return to his room, found to his
no small surprise and mortification, that though he still re-
tained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport
of the vision, yet with the exception of some eight or ten
scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like
the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had
been cast, but, alas ! without the after restoration of the
latter :
Then all the charm

Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes—
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return ! And lo, he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror.
Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind the

Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what
had been originally, as it were, given to him, Záμepbv adiov
aow: but the to-morrow is yet to come.
As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of
a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the
dream of pain and disease. Note to the first Edition, 1816.
IN Xanadu did KUBLA KHAN

A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where ALPH, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
-Down to a sunless sea.
72 Kubla Khan
So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning, moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seeth-
ing,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And ' mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
Kubla Khan 73
The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
'And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
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 expressed !
Only a sense of supplication,
A sense o'er all my soul impressed
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me everywhere
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.
But yester-night I prayed 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!
74
The Pains of Sleep 75
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 seemed 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
76 The Pains of Sleep
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.
LOVE
ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,

Had blended with the lights of eve ;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve !
She leant against the armed man,

The statue of the armed knight ;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
77
78 Love
Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope my joy ! my Genevieve !
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace ;
For well she knew, I could not chuse
But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand ;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined ; and ah !

The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.
She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace ;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
Love 79
But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain- woods,
Nor rested day nor night ;
That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade, -
There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright ;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight !
And that unknowing what he did,

He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land ;-
And how she wept, and clasped his knees ;

And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate
:-
The scorn that crazed his brain :-
And that she nursed him in a cave ;

And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay.
80 Love
His dying words-but when I reached

That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity !
All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve ;
The music, and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve ;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued ,
Subdued and cherished long !
She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin-shame ;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,

As conscious of my look she stepped-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms,

She pressed me with a meek embrace ;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.
Love 81
'Twas partly Love, and partly Fear,

And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.
I calmed her fears, and she was calm,

And told her love with virgin pride ;
And so I won my Genevieve.
My bright and beauteous Bride.
RECANTATION
ILLUSTRATED BY THE STORY OF THE MAD OX
AN Ox, long fed with musty hay,

And work'd with yoke and chain,
Was turn'd out on an April day,
When fields are in their best array,
And growing grasses sparkle gay,
At once with sun and rain.
The grass was fine, the sun was bright,

With truth I may aver it,
The Ox was glad, as well he might,
Thought a green meadow no bad sight,
And frisk'd to show his huge delight,
Much like a beast of spirit.
Stop, neighbours ! stop ! why these alarms ?

The Ox is only glad-
But still they pour from cots and farms,
Halloo the parish is up in arms,
(A hoaxing hunt has always charms)
Halloo ! the Ox is mad !
82
Recantation 83
The frighted beast scamper'd about,

Plunge through the hedge he drove-
The mob pursue with hideous rout,
A bull-dog fastens on his snout,
He gores the dog, his tongue hangs out-
He's mad, he's mad, by Jove !
"Stop, neighbours, stop ! " aloud did call

A sage of sober hue.
But all at once on him they fall,
Old women shriek and children squall,
What, would you have him toss us all !
And, damme ! who are you ?
"You'd have him gore the parish-priest

And run against the altar-
You fiend ! " The sage his warnings ceased,
And north and south and west and east,
Halloo ! they follow the poor beast—
Mat, Dick, Tom, Bob, and Walter.
The frighted beast ran through the town,

All followed, boys and dad,
Bull-dog, parson, shopman, clown,
The publican rushed from the " Crown,"
Halloo hamstring him ! cut him down !
They drove the poor Ox mad.
84 Recantatio
n
Should you a rat to madness teaze,

Why, even a rat would plague you :
There's no philosopher but sees
That rage and fear are one disease-
Though that may burn and this may freeze,
They're both alike the ague.
And so, this Ox, in frantic mood,

Faced round like any Bull-
The mob turn'd tail and he pursued
Till they with fright and fear were stew'd,
And not a chick of all this brood
But had his belly-full.
Old Nick's astride the beast, ' tis clear—

Old Nicholas to a tittle !
But all agree, he'd disappear,
Would but the parson venture near,
And through his teeth right o'er the steer,
Squirt out some fasting spittle. ¹
Through gardens, lanes, and fields new-plough'd ,

Through his hedge and through her hedge,
1
According to a superstition of the West Countries, if you
meet the Devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw,
or you may cause him instantly to disappear by spitting over
his horns.
Recantation 85
He plung'd and toss'd and bellow'd loud,

Till in his madness he grew proud,
To see this helter-skelter crowd
That had more wrath than courage.
But here once more to view did pop

The man that kept his senses,
And now he cried, " Stop, neighbours , stop !
The Ox is mad, I would not swop,
No, not a school-boy's farthing top
For all the parish fences .
"The Ox is mad ! Ho ! Dick, Bob, Mat !

What means this coward fuss ?
Ho ! stretch this rope across the plat,
'Twill trip him up,—or if not that,
Why, damme ! we must lay him flat-
""
See, here's my blunderbuss !
"A lying dog ! Just now he said

The Ox was only glad,
Let's break his presbyterian head ! ".
"Hush ! " quoth the sage, " you've been misled ,
No quarrels now, let's all make head—
You drove the poor Ox mad ! "
86 Recantation
As thus I sat in careless chat,

With the morning's wet newspaper,
In eager haste, without his hat,
As blind and blundering as a bat.
In came that fierce aristocrat,
Our pursy woollen-draper.
And so my Muse perforce drew bit,

As in he rushed and panted ;-
"Well, have you heard ? "_" No, not a whit."
"What, han't you heard ? ". -" Come, out with it ! "
"That Tierney votes for Mister Pitt,
And Sheridan's recanted ! "
INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF
THE DARK LADIE
IN Coleridge's early publication, and in the French edition

copied from it, these verses were united with those now
printed separately called " Love, " beginning " All thoughts,
all passions, all delights," and the whole was called as above,
with the following note prefixed.
(The following poem is intended as the introduction to a
somewhat longer one. The use of the old ballad word
Ladie for Lady is the only piece of obsoleteness in it ; and
as it is professedly a tale of ancient times, I trust that the
affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity (as Camden says)
will grant me their pardon, and perhaps be induced to admit
a force and propriety in it. A heavier objection may be
adduced against the Author, that in these times of fear and
expectation, when novelties explode around us in all directions,
he should presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-
fashioned love ; and five years ago, I own I should have
felt the force of this objection . But alas, explosion has
succeeded explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases to
appear new, and it is possible that now even a simple story,
wholly uninspired with politics or personality, may find
some attention amid the hubbub of revolutions, as to those
who have remained a long time by the falls of Niagara, the
lowest whispering becomes distinctly audible. )
S. T. C.
Dec. 21, 1799.
87
Dark
Ladi
The
888
O LEAVE the lily on its step,

O leave the rose upon its 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 fashioned mournfully
Its murmurs to 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.
But most my own dear Genevieve,

It sighs and trembles most for thee !
O come and hear what cruel wrongs
Befell the Dark Ladie.
And now once more a tale of woe,

A woeful tale of Love I sing ;
For thee, my Genevieve ! it sighs,
And trembles on the string.
The Dark Ladie 89
When last I sang the cruel scorn

That crazed this bold and lonely Knight ,
And how he roamed the mountain- woods ,
Nor rested day or night,
I promised thee a sister tale

Of man's perfidious cruelty ;
Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong
Befel the Dark Ladie.
LEWTI ; OR, THE CIRCASSIAN
LOVE-CHAUNT
AT midnight by the stream I roved,

To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti ! from my mind
Depart ; for Lewti is not kind .
The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam

And the shadow of a star
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream ;
But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half sheltered from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew-
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair.
Image of Lewti ! from my mind
Depart, for Lewti is not kind.
I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the Moon it passed ;
Still brighter and more bright it grew,
With floating colours not a few,
Till it reached the Moon at last :
90
Lewti 91
Then the cloud was wholly bright,

With a rich and amber light !
And so with many a hope I seek
And with such joy I find my Lewti ;
And even so my pale wan cheek
Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty !
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind,
If Lewti never will be kind.
The little cloud-it floats away,

Away it goes ; away so soon ?
Alas ! it has no power to stay :
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey-
Away it passes from the Moon !
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky-
And now 'tis whiter than before !
As white as my poor cheek will be,
When, Lewti ! on my couch I lie,
A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind-
And yet, thou did'st not look unkind.
I saw a vapour in the sky,

Thin, and white, and very high ;
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud :
Perhaps the breezes that can fly
92 Lewti
Now below and now above,

Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud
Of Lady fair- that died for love.
For maids, as well as youths, have perished
From fruitless love too fondly cherished.
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind-
For Lewti never will be kind.
Hush my heedless feet from under

Slip the crumbling banks for ever :
Like echoes to a distant thunder,
They plunge into the gentle river.
The river-swans have heard my tread,
And startle from their reedy bed.
O beauteous Birds ! methinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune !
O beauteous Birds ! 'tis such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the Moon ,
I would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.
I know the place where Lewti lies,

When silent night has closed her eyes :
It is a breezy jasmine-bower,
The Nightingale sings o'er her head :
VOICE of the Night ! had I the power
Lewti 93
That leafy labyrinth to thread,

And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,
I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,
As these two swans together heave
On the gently swelling wave.
Oh ! that she saw me in a dream ,

And dreamt that I had died for care !
All pale and wasted I would seem,
Yet fair withal, as spirits are !
I'd die indeed, if I might see
Her bosom heave, and heave for me !
Soothe, gentle image ! soothe my mind !
To-morrow Lewti may be kind.
THE PICTURE ; OR, THE LOVER'S
RESOLUTION
THROUGH weeds and thorns, and matted under-

wood
I force my way ; now climb, and now descend
O'er rocks , or bare or mossy, with wild foot
Crushing the purple whorts ; while oft unseen,
Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves,
The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil,
I know not, ask not whither ! A new joy,
Lovely as light, sudden as summer-gust,
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,
Beckons me on, or follows from behind,
Playmate, or guide ! The master- passion quelled ,
I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark
The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak ,
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake
Soar up, and form a melancholy vault
High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.
94
The Picture 95
Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse ;

Here too the love-lorn Man who, sick in soul
And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of unconscious life
In tree or wild flower.- Gentle Lunatic !
If so he might not wholly cease to be,
He would far rather not be that, he is ;
But would be something, that he knows not of,
In winds or waters, or among the rocks !
But hence, fond wretch ! breathe not contagion

here :
No myrtle-walks are these : these are no groves
Where Love dare loiter ! If in sullen mood
He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore
His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn
Make his plumes haggard . Like a wounded bird
Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs,
Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades !
And you, ye EARTH-WINDS ! you that make at
morn
The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs !
You, O ye wingless AIRS ! that creep between
The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,
Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,
The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed-
Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless Damp,
96 The Picture
Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.

Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes !
With prickles sharper than his darts bemock
His little Godship, making him perforce
Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's
back.
This is my hour of triumph ! I can now

With my own fancies play the merry fool,
And laugh away worse folly, being free.
Here will I seat myself, beside this old,
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine
Clothes as with net-work : here will I couch my
limbs,
Close by this river, in this silent shade,
As safe and sacred from the step of man
As an invisible world- unheard, unseen,
And listening only to the pebbly brook
That murmurs with a dead, yet bell-like sound
Tinkling, or bees, that in the neighbouring trunk
Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me,
Was never Love's accomplice, never raised
The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek ;
Ne'er played the wanton- never half disclosed
The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence
Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth,
The Picture
97
Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove
Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart
Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.
Sweet breeze ! thou only, if I guess aright,

Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast,
That swells its little breast, so full of song,
Singing above me, on the mountain-ash.
And thou too, desert Stream ! no pool of thine ,
Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve,
Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe ,
The face, the form divine, the downcast look
Contemplative ! Behold ! her open palm
Presses her cheek and brow ! her elbow rests
On the bare branch of half- uprooted tree,
That leans towards its mirror ! Who, erewhile
Who from her countenance turned , or looked by
stealth
(For fear is true love's cruel nurse ), he now
With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye,
Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes
Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain,
E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed ,
But not unheeded gazed : for see, ah ! see,
The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks
The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,
Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells :
G
re
98 The Pictu
And suddenly, as one that toys with time,

Scatters them on the pool ! Then all the charm
Is broken- all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes !
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return ! And lo ! he stays :
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror ; and behold
Each wild flower on the marge inverted there,
And there the half-uprooted tree— but where,
O where the virgin's snowy arm, that leaned
On its bare branch ? He turns, and she is gone !
Homeward she steals through many a woodland
maze
Which he shall seek in vain . Ill- fated youth !
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime
In mad Love-yearning by the vacant brook,
Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou
Behold'st her shadow still abiding there,
The Naiad of the Mirror !
Not to thee,
O wild and desert Stream ! belongs this tale :
Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs
The Picture 99
Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,

Making thee doleful as a cavern-well :
Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest
On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild
stream !
This be my chosen haunt-emancipate

From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone,
I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,
Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms.
Lo stealing through the canopy of firs
How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,
Isle of the river, whose disparted waves
Dart off asunder with an angry sound,
How soon to re-unite ! And see ! they meet,
Each in the other lost and found : and see
Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun
Throbbing within them, Heart at once and Eye !
With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds,
The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,
Dimness o'erswum with lustre ! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds ;
And hark, the noise of a near waterfall !
I pass forth into light- I find myself
Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful
Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods, )
Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock
100 The Picture
That overbrows the cataract. How bursts

The landscape on my sight ! Two crescent hills
Fold in behind each other, and so make
A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem,
With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages,
Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,
The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray,
Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass
Swings in its winnow ! All the air is calm.
The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with
light,
Rises in columns : from this house alone,
Close by the waterfall, the column slants,
And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is THIS ?
That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke ,
And close beside its porch a sleeping child,
His dear head pillowed on a sleeping dog-
One arm between its fore legs, and the hand
Holds loosely its small handful of wild- flowers ,
Unfilleted, and of unequal lengths.
A curious picture, with a master's haste
Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin,
Peeled from the birchen bark ! Divinest maid !
Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries
Her pencil ! See, the juice is scarcely dried
On the fine skin ! She has been newly here ;
The Picture ΙΟΙ
And lo ! yon patch of heath has been her couch—

The pressure still remains ! O blessed couch !
For this mayst thou flower early, and the Sun,
Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long
Upon thy purple bells ! O Isabel !
Daughter of genius ! stateliest of our maids !
More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed
The Lesbian woman of immortal song !
O child of genius ! stately, beautiful,
And full of love to all, save only me,
And not ungentle e'en to me ! My heart,
Why beats it thus ? Through yonder coppice-
wood
Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straight-
way
On to her father's house . She is alone !
The night draws on- such ways are hard to hit-
And fit it is I should restore this sketch,
Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn
To keep the relique ? 'twill but idly feed
The passion that consumes me. Let me haste !
The picture in my hand which she has left ;
She cannot blame me that I followed her :
And I may be her guide the long wood through.
THE NIGHT-SCENE :
A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT
SANDOVAL
You loved the daughter of Don Manrique ?

EARL HENRY
Loved ?
SANDOVAL
Did you not say you wooed her ?

EARL HENRY
Once I loved
Her whom I dared not woo !
SANDOVAL
And wooed, perchance,
One whom you loved not !
EARL HENRY
Oh ! I were most base,
Not loving Oropeza . True, I wooed her,
Hoping to heal a deeper wound ; but she
Met my advances with impassioned pride,
That kindled love with love. And when her sire,
102
The Night- Scene 103
Who in his dream of hope already grasped

The golden circlet in his hand, rejected
My suit with insult, and in memory
Of ancient feuds poured curses on my head,
Her blessings overtook and baffled them !
But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance
Art inly reasoning whilst thou listenest to me.
SANDOVAL
Anxiously, Henry ! reasoning anxiously.

But Oropeza-
EARL HENRY
Blessings gather round her !

Within this wood there winds a secret passage,
Beneath the walls, which opens out at length
Into the gloomiest covert of the Garden-
The night ere my departure to the army,
She, nothing trembling, led me through that
gloom,
And to that covert by a silent stream ,
Which, with one star reflected near its marge,
Was the sole object visible around me.
No leaflet stirred ; the air was almost sultry ;
So deep, so dark, so close, the umbrage o'er us !
No leaflet stirred ;-yet pleasure hung upon
The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air.
104 The Night- Scene
A little further on an arbour stood,

Fragrant with flowering trees- I well remember
What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness
Their snow-white blossoms made- thither she led
me,
To that sweet bower ! Then Oropeza trembled—
I heard her heart beat- if ' twere not my own.
SANDOVAL
A rude and scaring note, my friend !
EARL HENRY
Oh ! no !
I have small memory of aught but pleasure.
The inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams
Still flowing, still were lost in those of love :
So love grew mightier from the fear, and Nature,
Fleeing from Pain, sheltered herself in Joy.
The stars above our heads were dim and steady,
Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us :
We were all life, each atom of our frames
A living soul- I vowed to die for her :
With the faint voice of one who, having spoken,
Relapses into blessedness, I vowed it :
That solemn vow, a whisper scarcely heard,
A murmur breathed against a lady's ear.
The Night- Scene 105
Oh ! there is joy above the name of pleasure,

Deep self-possession, an intense repose.
SANDOVAL (with a sarcastic smile)

No other than as eastern sages paint,
The God, who floats upon a Lotos leaf,
Dreams for a thousand ages ; then awaking,
Creates a world, and smiling at the bubble,
Relapses into bliss.
EARL HENRY
Ah! was that bliss
Feared as an alien, and too vast for man ?
For suddenly, impatient of its silence,
Did Oropeza, starting, grasp my forehead .
I caught her arms ; the veins were swelling on
them .
Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice,
Oh ! what if all betray me ? what if thou ?
I swore, and with an inward thought that seemed
The purpose and the substance of my being,
I swore to her, that were she red with guilt,
I would exchange my unblenched state with
hers.-
Friend ! by that winding passage, to that bower
I now will go - all objects there will teach me
Unwavering love, and singleness of heart.
106 The Night- Scene
Go, Sandoval ! I am prepared to meet her—

Say nothing of me-I myself will seek her-
Nay, leave me, friend ! I cannot bear the torment
And keen inquiry of that scanning eye.
[Earl HENRY retires into the wood.
SANDOVAL (alone)
O Henry ! always striv'st thou to be great

By thine own act-yet art thou never great
But by the inspiration of great passion.
The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
And shape themselves : from Earth to Heaven
they stand ,
As though they were the pillars of a temple,
Built by Omnipotence in its own honour !
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit
Is fled the mighty columns were but sand,
And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins !
TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN,
WHOM THE AUTHOR HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS

OF HER INNOCENCE
MYRTLE-LEAF that, ill besped,

Pinest in the gladsome ray,
Soiled beneath the common tread,
Far from thy protecting spray !
When the Partridge o'er the sheaf

Whirred along the yellow vale,
Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf !
Love the dalliance of the gale.
Lightly didst thou, foolish thing !

Heave and flutter to his sighs,
While the flatterer, on his wing,
Wooed and whispered thee to rise.
Gaily from thy mother-stalk

Wert thou danced and wafted high-
Soon on this unsheltered walk
Flung to fade, to rot and die.
107
TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT
THE THEATRE
MAIDEN, that with sullen brow

Sittest behind those virgins gay,
Like a scorched and mildewed bough,
Leafless ' mid the blooms of May !
Him who lured thee and forsook,

Oft I watched with angry gaze,
Fearful saw his pleading look,
Anxious heard his fervid phrase.
Soft the glances of the youth,

Soft his speech, and soft his sigh ;
But no sound like simple truth,
But no true love in his eye.
Loathing thy polluted lot,

Hie thee, Maiden, hie thee hence !
Seek thy weeping Mother's cot,
With a wiser innocence.
108
To an Unfortunate Woman 109
Thou hast known deceit and folly,

Thou hast felt that vice is woe :
With a musing melancholy
Inly armed, go, Maiden ! go.
Mother sage of Self-dominion,

Firm thy steps, O Melancholy !
The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion
Is the memory of past folly.
Mute the sky-lark and forlorn,

While she moults the firstling plumes,
That had skimmed the tender corn ,
Or the bean-field's odorous blooms.
Soon with renovated wing

Shall she dare a loftier flight,
Upward to the day-star spring
And embathe in heavenly light.
LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT- ROOM
NOR cold, nor stern, my soul ! yet I detest

These scented Rooms, where, to a gaudy throng
Heaves the proud Harlot her distended breast,
In intricacies of laborious song.
These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign

To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint ;
But when the long-breathed singer's uptrilled
strain
Bursts in a squall-they gape for wonderment.
Hark! the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate !

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer
My lady eyes some maid of humbler state
While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.
O give me, from this heartless scene released,
To hear our old musician, blind and grey,
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kissed ,

His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.
IIO
Lines Composed in a Concert- Room 111
Or lies the purple evening on the bay

Ofthe calm glossy lake, O let me hide
Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees
For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied,
On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at
ease,
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,
Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow,
That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.
But O , dear Anne ! when midnight wind careers,

And the gust pelting on the out-house shed
Makes the cock shrilly on the rain-storm crow,
To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe,
Ballad of ship-wrecked sailor floating dead,
Whom his own true-love buried in the sands !
Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures

Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures
The Things of Nature utter ; birds or trees
Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves,
Or where the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves,
Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.
THE KEEPSAKE
THE tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil,

The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,
Or mountain -finch alighting . And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands , like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet FORGET-ME-NOT !!
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has worked (the flowers which most she knew I
loved),
And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.
' One of the names ( and meriting to be the only one) of

the Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris, a flower from six to
twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye.
It has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany
(Vergissmein nicht) and, we believe, in Denmark and Sweden.
II2
The Keepsake 113
In the cool morning twilight, early waked

By her full bosom's joyless restlessness ,
Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,
Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower,
Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning
breeze,
Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung,
Making a quiet image of disquiet
In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool .
There, in that bower where first she owned her
love,
And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretched
The silk upon the frame, and worked her name
Between the Moss-ROSE and FORGET-ME-NOT-
Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair !
That forced to wander till sweet spring return,
I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look,
Her voice (that even in her mirthful mood
Has made me wish to steal away and weep),
Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss
With which she promised, that when spring
returned
She would resign one half of that dear name,
And own thenceforth no other name but mine !
H
TO A YOUNG LADY
ON HER RECOVERY FROM A FEVER
WHY need I say, Louisa dear !

How glad I am to see you here,
A lovely convalescent ;
Risen from the bed of pain, and fear,
And feverish heat incessant.
The sunny Showers, the dappled Sky,

The little Birds that warble high,
Their vernal loves commencing,
Will better welcome you than I
With their sweet influencing .
Believe me, while in bed you lay,

Your danger taught us all to pray :
You made us grow devouter !
Each eye looked up and seemed to say,
How can we do without her?
Besides, what vexed us worse, we knew,

They have no need of such as you
In the place where you were going :
This World has angels all too few,
And Heaven is overflowing !
114
TO A LADY
WITH FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK ""
АH! not by Cam or Isis , famous streams ,

In arched groves, the youthful poet's choice ;
Nor while half-listening, ' mid delicious dreams,
To harp and song from lady's hand and voice ;
Nor yet while gazing in sublimer mood

On cliff, or cataract, in Alpine dell ;
Nor in dim cave with bladdery sea-weed strewed,
Framing wild fancies to the ocean's swell ;
Our sea-bard sang this song ! which still he sings,

And sings for thee, sweet friend ! Hark, Pity,
hark !
Now mounts, now totters on the Tempest's wings,
Now groans, and shivers, the replunging Bark !
Cling to the shrouds ! " In vain ! The breakers

roar-
Death shrieks ! With two alone of all his clan
Forlorn the poet paced the Grecian shore,
No classic roamer, but a ship-wrecked man !
115
116 To a Lady
Say then, what muse inspired these genial strains,

And lit his spirit to so bright a flame?
The elevating thought of suffered pains,
Which gentle hearts shall mourn ; but chief, the
name
Of Gratitude ! Remembrances of Friend,

Or absent or no more ! Shades of the Past,
Which Love makes Substance ! Hence to thee I
send ,
O dear as long as life and memory last !
I send with deep regards of heart and head,

Sweet maid, for friendship formed ! this work to
thee :
And thou, the while thou can'st not choose but
shed
A tear for FALCONER, wilt remember ME.
HOME-SICK
WRITTEN IN GERMANY
'Tis sweet to him, who all the week

Through city crowds must push his way,
To stroll alone through fields and woods,
And hallow thus the Sabbath- Day.
And sweet it is, in summer bower,

Sincere, affectionate and gay,
One's own dear children feasting round,
To celebrate one's marriage-day.
But what is all, to his delight,

Who having long been doomed to roam ,
Throws off the bundle from his back,
Before the door of his own home ?
Home-sickness is a wasting pang ;

This feel I hourly more and more :
There's Healing only in thy wings,
Thou Breeze that playest on Albion's shore !
117
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.
118
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 ! "
119
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.
120
The Visionary Hope 121
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.
THE HAPPY HUSBAND
A FRAGMENT
OFT, oft methinks, the while with Thee

I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear
And dedicated name, I hear
A promise and a mystery,
A pledge of more than passing life,
Yea, in that very name of Wife !
A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep !

A feeling that upbraids the heart
With happiness beyond desert,
Than gladness half requests to weep !
Nor bless I not the keener sense
And unalarming turbulence
Of transient joys, that ask no sting

From jealous fears, or coy denying ;
But born beneath Love's brooding wing,
And into tenderness soon dying,
Wheel out their giddy moment, then
Resign the soul to love again.
122
The Happy Husband 123
A more precipitated vein

Of notes, that eddy in the flow
Of smoothest song, they come, they go,
And leave their sweeter understrain
Its own sweet self-a love of Thee
That seems, yet cannot greater be !
ON RE-VISITING THE SEA-SHORE,
AFTER LONG ABSENCE ,
UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT

TO BATHE
GOD be with thee, gladsome Ocean !

How gladly greet I thee once more !
Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion,
And men rejoicing on thy shore.
Dissuading spake the mild Physician,

"Those briny waves for thee are Death !"
But my soul fulfilled her mission,
And lo ! I breathe untroubled breath !
FASHION'S pining Sons and Daughters,

That seek the crowd they seem to fly,
Trembling they approach thy waters ;
And what cares Nature , if they die ?
Me a thousand hopes and pleasures ,

A thousand recollections bland,
Thoughts sublime, and stately measures ,
Revisit on thy echoing strand :
124
On Re-visiting the Sea- Shore 125
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.
RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE
I
How warm this woodland wild Recess !
Love surely hath been breathing here.
And this sweet bed of heath, my dear !
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,
As if to have you yet more near.
II
Eight springs have flown, since last I lay

On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills,
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills
Float here and there, like things astray,
And high o'erhead the sky-lark shrills.
III
No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name ; yet why
That asking look ? that yearning sigh ?
That sense of promise everywhere ?
Beloved ! flew your spirit by?
126
Recollections of Love 127
IV
As when a mother doth explore
The rose-mark on her long-lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild !
As whom I long had loved before→
So deeply, had I been beguiled .
V
You stood before me like a thought,
A dream remembered in a dream .
But when those meek eyes first did seem
To tell me, Love within you wrought-
O Greta, dear domestic stream !
VI
Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep,
Has not Love's whisper evermore ,
Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar ?
Sole voice, when other voices sleep,
Dear under-song in Clamour's hour.
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 the Idalian star by faëry wings :
Each tender pledge of sacred faith he join❜d ,
Each gentler pleasure of the unspotted mind-
Day-dreams whose tints with sportive brightness
glow,
And Hope, the blameless parasite of Woe.
The eyeless Chemist heard the process rise, ་ན

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.
E
With half, the god his Cyprian mother blest,
And spread on Sara's lovelier lips the rest !
128
LINES
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN

THE HARTZ FOREST
I STOOD On Brocken's ¹ 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 dragged through fir groves evermore,
Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral
forms
Speckled with sunshine ; and, but seldom heard,
The sweet bird's song became an 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
Leaped frolicsome, or old romantic goat
The highest mountain in the Hartz, and indeed in North

Germany.
I 129
130 Lines
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 Cyphers of vague import, where the Eye
Traces no spot, in which the Heart may read
History or Prophecy of Friend , or Child,
Or gentle Maid, our first and early love ,
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
Turned westward, shaping in the steady clouds
Thy sands and high white cliffs !
My native Land !
Filled 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 ,
When I have gazed

From some high eminence on goodly vales,
And cots and villages embowered below,
The thought would rise that all to me was strange
Amid the scenes so fair, nor one small spot
Where my tired mind might rest, and call it home.
SOUTHEY'S Hymn to the Penates.
Lines 131
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,
Himself our Father, and the World our Home.
S
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
0
Tells us of Silence.
And that simplest Lute,

Placed length-ways in the clasping casement,
hark !
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
132
The Eolian Harp 133
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 everywhere—
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,
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 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,
134 The Eolian Harp
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,

As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute !
CA
And
n 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. P
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
1
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,
1
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honoured
Maid !
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
Month
Hath borrowed 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
Nipped by Consumption ' mid untimely charms?
Or to Bristowa's Bard, the wondrous boy !
An Amaranth, which Earth scarce seemed to own,
Blooming ' mid poverty's drear wintry waste,
Till Disappointment came, and pelting wrong
Beat it to Earth ? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's Hope,
I Chatterton
135
136 On Observing a Blossom
Bright flower of Hope killed 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 harmonise
The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes
Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument.
T
REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT
A PLACE OF RETIREMENT
Sermoni propriora. - HOR.
Low was our pretty Cot : our tallest Rose

Peeped 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 blossomed ; and across the Porch
Thick jasmins twined : the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The VALLEY of SECLUSION ! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath- day by quietness )
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen : methought it calmed
His thirst of idle gold , and made him muse
With wiser feelings : for he paused, and looked
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gazed round again,
And sighed, and said, it was a Blessed Place.
137
138 Reflections
And we were blessed. 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 whispered 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 hushed ,
And the Heart listens ! "
But the time, when first

From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount
I climbed with perilous toil and reached the top,
Oh ! what a goodly scene ! Here the bleak Mount,
The bare bleak Mountain speckled thin with
sheep ;
Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ;
And River, now with bushy rocks o'erbrowed,
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
Ocean-
It seemed like Omnipresence ! God, methought,
Reflections 139
Had built Him there a Temple : the whole World

Seemed 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 constrained to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled ,
That I should dream away the entrusted 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 ,
140 Reflections
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 !
DEJECTION :
AN ODE
" Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon ,
With the old Moon in her arms ;
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear !
We shall have a deadly storm. "
BALLAD OF SIR PATRICK SPENS.
I
WELL ! Ifthe Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo the New-moon winter-bright !
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming on of rain and squally blast.
And oh that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving loud and
fast !
141
142 Dejection
Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst

they awed,
And sent my soul abroad,
Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and
live !
II
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear-
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green :
And still I gaze-and with how blank an eye !
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars ;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen :
Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue ;
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel how beautiful they are !
Dejection 143
III
My genial spirits fail,

And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast ?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west :
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are
within.
IV
O Lady ! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does nature live :
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud !
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth-
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element !
O pure of heart ! thou need'st not ask of me

What this strong music in the soul may be !
144 Dejection
What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady ! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's Effluence, Cloud at once and
Shower,
Joy, Lady ! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—
We in ourselves rejoice !
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
VI
There was a time when, though my path was

rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress .
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness :
For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,
And fruits, and foliage not my own, seemed mine.
But now afflictions bow me down to earth :
Dejection 145
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,

But oh ! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.
For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can ;
And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural Man—
This was my sole resource, my only plan :
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my Soul.
VII
Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,

Reality's dark dream !
I turn from you, and listen to the wind,
Which long has raved unnoticed. What a
scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out
That lute sent forth ! Thou Wind, that ravest
without,
Bare crag, or mountain -tairn,¹ or blasted tree,
Tairn is a small lake, generally if not always applied to

the lakes up in the mountains, and which are the feeders of
those in the valleys. This address to the Storm-wind will not
appear extravagant to those who have heard it at night, and
in a mountainous country.
K
146 Dejection
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,

Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,
Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
Mad Lutanist ! who in this month of showers,
Of dark brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds !
Thou mighty Poet, e'en to Frenzy bold !
What tell'st thou, now about ?
'Tis of the Rushing of an Host in rout,
With groans of trampled men, with smarting
wounds-
At once they groan with pain, and shudder with
the cold !
But hush ! there is a pause of deepest silence !
And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd ,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is
over-
It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and
loud !
A tale of less affright,
And tempered with delight,
As Otway's self had framed the tender lay-
'Tis of a little child
Upon a lonesome wild,
Not far from home, but she hath lost her way :
Dejection 147
And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her
mother hear.
VIII
'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep :

Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep !
Visit her, gentle Sleep ! with wings of healing,
And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,
Silent as though they watched the sleeping
Earth !
With light heart may she rise,
Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,
Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice :
To her may all things live, from Pole to Pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul !
O simple spirit, guided from above
Dear Lady ! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.
Callit a
This Ta
But say
PHANTOM OR FACT ? And ' ti
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 ?
148
Phantom or Fact 149
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.
WORK WITHOUT HOPE
LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827
ALL Nature seems at work. Stags 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.
150
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 liv'd 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 !
151
152 Youth and Age
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 SPRINGTIDE 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.
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 to-
morrow.
'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 fallen, and on the marge remounting
Shines and its shadow shines, fit stars for our
sweet fountain.
153
154 A Day Dream
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 mine 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 !
LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST
WORDS OF BERENGARIUS
OB. ANNO DOM . 1088
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,
155
156 Lines Suggested
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 a 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 th' approaching Noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapours of our MORN .
TO A LADY,
OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT

WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS
NAV, dearest Anna ! why so grave ?

I said, you had no soul, ' tis true !
For what you are, you cannot have :
'Tis I , that have one since I first had you !
I HAVE heard of reasons manifold

Why Love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold-
His eyes are in his mind.
What outward form and feature are

He guesseth but in part ;
But what within is good and fair
He seeth with the heart.
157
EDINBURGH
COLSTON AND COY. LIMITED
PRINTERS
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 04775 7367

Christabel

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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized

by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the

SI- QUERISPENINSULA AMO NAM

Edited by HANNAFORD BENNETT

And other Poems

With Biographical Introduction

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, the youngest of

gentleman's coat, and he was mistaken for a pick-

ultimately procured his discharge, and he returned

acquainted with Wordsworth, who was living at

judgment, that has yet existed among men, " and

THE first part of the following poem was written in the

however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the

'Tis mine and it is likewise yours

PART THE FIRST

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock ,

From her kennel beneath the rock

Is the night chilly and dark ?

The lovely lady, Christabel,

She stole along, she nothing spoke,

And naught was green upon the oak,

The lady sprang up suddenly,

The night is chill ; the forest bare ;

Hush beating heart of Christabel !

There she sees a damsel bright,

Mary mother, save me now !

The lady strange made answer meet,

My sire is of a noble line,

They choked my cries with force and fright,

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand

And gladly our stout chivalry

She rose and forth with steps they passed

They crossed the moat, and Christabel

Then the lady rose again,

So free from danger, free from fear,

Outside her kennel, the mastiff old

They passed the hall, that echoes still,

But when the lady passed , there came

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare

The moon shines dim in the open air,

The silver lamp burns dead and dim ;

O weary lady, Geraldine,

But soon with altered voice, said she-

And why with hollow voice cries she,

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,

Again the wild-flower wine she drank :

And thus the lofty lady spake-

Quoth Christabel, so let it be!

Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs :

Collects herself in scorn and pride,

THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE FIRST

It was a lovely sight to see

Amid the jagged shadows

With open eyes (ah woe is me !)

A star hath set, a star hath risen,

Thou'st had thy will ! By tairn and rill,

PART THE SECOND

EACH matin bell, the Baron saith,

Saith Bracy the bard, So let it knell !