[299:1] First published in the Morning Post for July 30, 1798, with the following title and introduction:—'Original Poetry. A Tale. The following amusing Tale gives a very humourous description of the French Revolution, which is represented as an Ox': included in Annual Anthology, 1800, and Sibylline Leaves, 1817; reprinted in Essays on His Own Times, 1880, iii 963-9. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80. In a copy of the Annual Anthology of 1800 Coleridge writes over against the heading of this poem, 'Written when fears were entertained of an invasion, and Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Tierney were absurdly represented as having recanted because to [The French Revolution (?)] in its origin they, [having been favourable, changed their opinion when the Revolutionists became unfaithful to their principles (?)].' See Note to P. W., 1893.
The text is that of Sibylline Leaves and Essays on his Own Times.
[300:1] One of the many fine words which the most uneducated had about this time a constant opportunity of acquiring, from the sermons in the pulpit and the proclamations on [in S. L.] the —— corners. An. Anth., S. L.
[302:1] According to the common superstition there are two ways of fighting with the Devil. You may cut him in half with a straw, or he will vanish if you spit over his horns with a fasting spittle. Note by S. T. C. in M. P. According to the superstition of the West-Countries, if you meet the Devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw, or force him to disappear by spitting over his horns. An. Anth., S. L.
LINENOTES:
turn'd out] loosen'd M. P.
ox] beast M. P.
beast] ox M. P.
fastens] fasten'd M. P.
'You cruel dog!' at once they bawl. M. P.
Oh] Ah! M. P., An. Anth.
om. Essays, &c.
run] drive M. P.
fiend] rogue M. P.
Mat, Tom, Bob, Dick M. P.
The baited ox drove on M. P., An. Anth.
No . . . print] The Gospel scarce M. P., An. Anth.
cannot] could M. P.
The ox drove on, right through the town M. P.
may] might M. P., An. Anth.
any] a mad M. P.
heat and fright] flight and fear M. P., An. Anth.
this] the M. P.
beast] ox M. P.
agree] agreed M. P.
scour'd] drove M. P.
Alas] Alack M. P.
cried] bawl'd M. P.
Tom! Walter! Mat! M. P.
lying] bare-faced M. P.
But lo! to interrupt my chat M. P.
In came] In rush'd M. P.
And he rush'd in M. P.
And his fine tongue enchanted!
HEXAMETERS[304:1]
Smooth out the folds of my letter, and place it on desk or on table;
Place it on table or desk; and your right hands loosely half-closing,[304:2]
Gently sustain them in air, and extending the digit didactic,
Rest it a moment on each of the forks of the five-forkéd left hand, 5
Twice on the breadth of the thumb, and once on the tip of each finger;
Read with a nod of the head in a humouring recitativo;
And, as I live, you will see my hexameters hopping before you.
This is a galloping measure; a hop, and a trot, and a gallop!
Breathless and panting, and ready to drop, yet flying still onwards,[304:3]
I would full fain pull in my hard-mouthed runaway hunter;
But our English Spondeans are clumsy yet impotent curb-reins;
And so to make him go slowly, no way left have I but to lame him.
Dorothy, eager of soul, my most affectionate sister!
Many a mile, O! many a wearisome mile are ye distant,
Long, long comfortless roads, with no one eye that doth know us.
O! it is all too far to send you mockeries idle:
Yea, and I feel it not right! But O! my friends, my beloved! 20
Feverish and wakeful I lie,—I am weary of feeling and thinking.
Every thought is worn down, I am weary yet cannot be vacant.
Five long hours have I tossed, rheumatic heats, dry and flushing,
Gnawing behind in my head, and wandering and throbbing about me,
Busy and tiresome, my friends, as the beat of the boding night-spider.[305:1] 25
I forget the beginning of the line:
Now unwillingly closed, now open and aching with darkness.
O! what a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence!
Him that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him;
Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother; 30
Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber;
Even for him it exists, it moves and stirs in its prison;
Lives with a separate life, and 'Is it a Spirit?' he murmurs:
'Sure it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language.'
There was a great deal more, which I have forgotten. . . . The last line which I wrote, I remember, and write it for the truth of the sentiment, scarcely less true in company than in pain and solitude:—
You have all in each other; but I am lonely, and want you!
1798-9.
FOOTNOTES:
[304:1] First published in Memoirs of W. Wordsworth, 1851, i. 139-41: reprinted in Life by Prof. Knight, 1889, i. 185. First collected as a whole in P. W. [ed. T. Ashe], 1885. lines 30-6, 'O what a life is the eye', &c., were first published in Friendship's Offering, and are included in P. W., 1834. They were reprinted by Cottle in E. R., 1837, i. 226. The 'Hexameters' were sent in a letter, written in the winter of 1798-9 from Ratzeburg to the Wordsworths at Goslar.
[304:2] False metre. S. T. C.
[304:3] 'Still flying onwards' were perhaps better. S. T. C.
[305:1] False metre. S. T. C.
LINENOTES:
strange] fine Letter, 1798-9, Cottle, 1837.
Him] He Cottle, 1837.
Him] He Cottle, 1837.
Him that ne'er smiled at the bosom as babe Letter, 1798-9: He that smiled at the bosom, the babe Cottle, 1837.
Even to him it exists, it stirs and moves Letter, 1798-9: Even to him it exists, it moves and stirs Cottle, 1837.
a Spirit] the Spirit Letter, 1798-9.
a] its Letter, 1798-9.
TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE IN OTTFRIED'S
METRICAL PARAPHRASE OF THE GOSPEL
[This paraphrase, written about the time of Charlemagne, is by no means deficient in occasional passages of considerable poetic merit. There is a flow and a tender enthusiasm in the following lines which even in the translation will not, I flatter myself, fail to interest the reader. Ottfried is describing the circumstances immediately following the birth of our Lord. Most interesting is it to consider the effect when the feelings are wrought above the natural pitch by the belief of something mysterious, while all the images are purely natural. Then it is that religion and poetry strike deepest. Biog. Lit., 1817, i. 203-4.[306:1]]
She hid it not, she bared the breast
Which suckled that divinest babe!
Blessed, blessed were the breasts
Which the Saviour infant kiss'd; 5
And blessed, blessed was the mother
Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes,
Singing placed him on her lap,
Hung o'er him with her looks of love,
And soothed him with a lulling motion. 10
Blessed! for she shelter'd him
From the damp and chilling air;
Blessed, blessed! for she lay
With such a babe in one blest bed,
Close as babes and mothers lie! 15
Blessed, blessed evermore,
With her virgin lips she kiss'd,
With her arms, and to her breast,
She embraced the babe divine,
Her babe divine the virgin mother! 20
There lives not on this ring of earth
A mortal that can sing her praise.
Mighty mother, virgin pure,
In the darkness and the night
For us she bore the heavenly Lord! 25
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[306:1] First published as a footnote to Chapter X of the Biographia Literaria (ed. 1817, i. 203-4). First collected in 1863 (Appendix, pp. 401-2). The translation is from Otfridi Evang., lib. i, cap. xi, ll. 73-108 (included in Schilter's Thesaurus Antiquitatum Teutonicarum, pp. 50-1, Biog. Lit., 1847, i. 213). Otfrid, 'a monk at Weissenburg in Elsass', composed his Evangelienbuch about 870 a.d. (Note by J. Shawcross, Biog. Lit., 1907, ii. 259). As Coleridge says that 'he read through Ottfried's metrical paraphrase of the Gospel' when he was at Göttingen, it may be assumed that the translation was made in 1799.
LINENOTES:
Saviour infant] infant Saviour 1863.
CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES[307:1]
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skiey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it. 5
From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple. 10
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,
Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it 15
Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[307:1] First published in 1834. These lines, which are not 'Hendecasyllables', are a translation of part of Friedrich von Matthisson's Milesisches Mährchen. For the original see Note to Poems, 1852, and Appendices of this edition. There is no evidence as to the date of composition. The emendations in lines 5 and 6 were first printed in P. W., 1893.
LINENOTES:
blest] plac'd 1834, 1844, 1852.
bleat-resounding] bleak-resounding 1834, 1852.
nightly] mighty 1834, 1844.
THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER[307:2]
DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[307:2] First published (together with the 'Ovidian Elegiac Metre', &c.) in Friendship's Offering, 1834: included in P. W., 1834. An acknowledgement that these 'experiments in metre' are translations from Schiller was first made in a Note to Poems, 1844, p. 371. The originals were given on p. 372. See Appendices of this edition. There is no evidence as to the date of composition.
THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE
DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
? 1799.
ON A CATARACT[308:1]
FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE
Thou leapest from forth
The cell of thy hidden nativity;
Never mortal saw
The cradle of the strong one; 5
Never mortal heard
The gathering of his voices;
The deep-murmured charm of the son of the rock,
That is lisp'd evermore at his slumberless fountain.
There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil 10
At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing;
It embosoms the roses of dawn,
It entangles the shafts of the noon,
And into the bed of its stillness
The moonshine sinks down as in slumber, 15
That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven
May be born in a holy twilight!
Looks up and beholds
Above thee the cliff inaccessible;— 20
Thou at once full-born
Madd'nest in thy joyance,
Whirlest, shatter'st, splitt'st,
Life invulnerable.
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[308:1] First published in 1834. For the original (Unsterblicher Jüngling) by Count F. L. Stolberg see Note to Poems, 1844, pp. 371-2, and Appendices of this edition.
LINENOTES:
Title] Improved from Stolberg. On a Cataract, &c. 1844, 1852.
The cleft of thy ceaseless Nativity
Between 7 and 13.
When he feeds evermore at the slumberless Fountain.
There abideth a Cloud,
At the Portal a Veil,
At the shrine of thy self-renewing;
It embodies the Visions of Dawn,
It entangles, &c.
Below thee the cliff inaccessible MS. S. T. C.
Wheelest, shatter'st, start'st.
TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE[309:1]
IMITATED FROM STOLBERG
The birth-place, this, of William Tell.
Here, where stands God's altar dread,
Stood his parents' marriage-bed.
Him his loving mother prest;
And kissed the babe, and blessed the day,
And prayed as mothers use to pray.
The child thy servant still to live!' 10
But God had destined to do more
Through him, than through an arméd power.
Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause—
A spirit to his rocks akin, 15
The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein!
Alone did God the boy commit:
Where flashed and roared the torrent, oft
His soul found wings, and soared aloft! 20
Had formed his limbs to strength and grace:
On wave and wind the boy would toss,
Was great, nor knew how great he was!
Made strong by God, his native land
Would rescue from the shameful yoke
Of Slavery——the which he broke!
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[309:1] First published in Sibylline Leaves, 1817: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834. For the original (Bei Wilhelm Tells Geburtsstätte im Kanton Uri) by Count F. L. Stolberg see Appendices of this edition. There is no evidence as to the date of composition.
LINENOTES:
Slavery] Slavery, all editions to 1834.
THE VISIT OF THE GODS[310:1]
IMITATED FROM SCHILLER
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone:
Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler,
Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler; 5
Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his throne!
They advance, they float in, the Olympians all!
With Divinities fills my
Terrestrial hall!
Due entertainment,
Celestial quire?
Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance
Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance,
That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! 15
Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul!
O give me the nectar!
O fill me the bowl!
Pour out for the poet, 20
Hebe! pour free!
Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,
That Styx the detested no more he may view,
And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!
Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Paean, I cry! 25
The wine of the Immortals
Forbids me to die!
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[310:1] First published in Sibylline Leaves, 1817: included in 1828, 1829 ('Vision of the Gods', Contents, vol. i, pp. 322-3 of both editions), and in 1834. For Schiller's original (Dithyrambe) see Appendices of this edition.
FROM THE GERMAN[311:1]
The golden fruits in darker foliage glow?
Soft blows the wind that breathes from that blue sky!
Still stands the myrtle and the laurel high!
Know'st thou it well, that land, beloved Friend? 5
Thither with thee, O, thither would I wend!
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[311:1] First published in 1834. For the original ('Mignon's Song') in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister see Appendices of this edition.
WATER BALLAD[311:2]
[FROM THE FRENCH]
Come, bear me quickly o'er
This stream so brightly flowing
To yonder woodland shore.
But vain were my endeavour 5
To pay thee, courteous guide;
Row on, row on, for ever
I'd have thee by my side.
I seek my father-land.'— 10
'Say, when I there have placed thee,
Dare I demand thy hand?'
'A maiden's head can never
So hard a point decide;
Row on, row on, for ever 15
I'd have thee by my side.'
The wanderer ceased to roam,
For, seated by her lover,
The boat became her home. 20
And still they sang together
As steering o'er the tide:
'Row on through wind and weather
For ever by my side.'
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[311:2] First published in The Athenaeum, October 29, 1831. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80. For the original ('Barcarolle de Marie') of François Antoine Eugène de Planard see Appendices of this edition.