Made drossy Lead as ductile as pure Gold.
First published in 1893.
49
My unwash'd follies call for Penance drear:
But when more hideous guilt this heart infests
Instead of fiery coals upon my Pate,
O let a titled Patron be my Fate;—
That fierce Compendium of Ægyptian Pests!
Right reverend Dean, right honourable Squire,
Lord, Marquis, Earl, Duke, Prince,—or if aught higher,
However proudly nicknamed, he shall be
Anathema Maránatha to me!
First published, Lit. Rem., i. 281.
FOOTNOTES:
[988:1] One of the earliest of Coleridge's Notebooks, which fell into the hands of his old schoolfellow, John Mathew Gutch, the printer and proprietor of Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, was purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum in 1868, and is now included in Add. MSS. as No. 27901. The fragments of verse contained in the notebook are included in P. W. 1893, pp. 453-8. The notebook as a whole was published by Professor A. Brandl in 1896 (S. T. Coleridge's Notizbuch aus den Jahren 1795-1798). Nineteen entries are included by H. N. Coleridge in Poems and Poetical Fragments published in Literary Remains, 1836, i. 277-80.
[988:2] An incorrect version of the lines was published in Lit. Rem., ii. 280.
FRAGMENTS[996:1]
1
And, see, a daisy peeps upon its slope!
I wipe the dimming waters from mine eye;
Even on the cold grave lights the Cherub Hope.[996:2]
? 1787. First published in Poems, 1852 (p. 379, Note 1). First collected 1893.
2
With arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my head
Posts on, as bent on speed, now passaging
Edges the stiffer Breeze, now, yielding, drifts,
Now floats upon the air, and sends from far
A wildly-wailing Note.
Now first published from an MS. Compare Fragment No. 29 of Fragments from a Notebook.
3
OVER MY COTTAGE
But Prudence sits upon the watch;
Nor Dun nor Doctor lifts the latch!
1799. First published from an MS. in 1893. Suggested by Lessing's Sinngedicht No. 104.
4
In the lame and limping metre of a barbarous Latin poet—
Sit meum, amice, precor: quia certe sum mage pauper.
But and if this will not do,
Let it be mine, because that I
Am the poorer of the Two!
Nov. 1, 1801. First published in the Preface to Christabel, 1816. First collected 1893.
5
And Love wants courage without a name.[997:1]
Dec. 1801. Now first published from an MS.
6
Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze—
'Tis there indeed,—but where is it not?—
It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven,
Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake,
Whose very murmur does of it partake!
And low and close the broad smooth mountain is more a thing of Heaven than when distinct by one dim shade, and yet undivided from the universal cloud in which it towers infinite in height.
? 1801. First published from an MS. in 1893.
7
To her whose Spirit has been newly given
To her guardian Saint in Heaven—
Whose Beauty lieth in the grave—
(Unconquered, as if the Soul could find no purer Tabernacle, nor place of sojourn than the virgin Body it had before dwelt in, and wished to stay there till the Resurrection)—
Cold to the Touch and blooming to the eye.
Sept. 1803. Now first published from an MS.
8
[THE NIGHT-MARE DEATH IN LIFE]
Than if 'twere truth. It has been often so:
Must I die under it? Is no one near?
Will no one hear these stifled groans and wake me?
? 1803. Now first published from an MS.
9
That intercept the dazzle, not the Light;
That veil the finite form, the boundless power reveal,
Itself an earthly sun of pure intensest white.
1803. First published from an MS. in 1893.
10
A BECK IN WINTER[998:1]
The Alder, a vast hollow Trunk, and ribb'd—
All mossy green with mosses manifold,
And ferns still waving in the river-breeze
[999]Sent out, like fingers, five projecting trunks—
The shortest twice 6 (?) of a tall man's strides.—
One curving upward in its middle growth
Rose straight with grove of twigs—a pollard tree:—
The rest more backward, gradual in descent—
One in the brook and one befoamed its waters:
One ran along the bank in the elk-like head
And pomp of antlers—
Jan. 1804. Now first published from an MS. (pencil).
11
Access in every virtue, in thy Sight
More wise, more wakeful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength.—
1804. Now first published from an MS.
12
This is not Life:—
O hopeless Hope, and Death's Hypocrisy!
And with perpetual promise breaks its promises.
1804-5. Now first published from an MS.
13
Mute as the battlements and crags and towers
That Fancy makes in the clouds, yea, as mute
As the moonlight that sleeps on the steady vanes.
(or)
His skeleton and flitting ghost are there,
Sole tenants—
And all the City silent as the Moon
That steeps in quiet light the steady vanes
Of her huge temples.
1804-5. Now first published from an MS.
14
Body that veiling brightness, beamest bright;
Fair cloud which less we see, than by thee see the light.
1805. First published from an MS. in 1893.
15
Felt in an uncertain state:
Comfort, peace, and rest adieu
Should I prove at last untrue!
Self-confiding wretch, I thought
I could love thee as I ought,
Win thee and deserve to feel
All the Love thou canst reveal,
And still I chuse thee, follow still.
1805. First published from an MS. in 1893.
16
But it pass'd smoothly on towards the sea—
Smoothly and lightly between Earth and Heaven:
So, thin a cloud,
It scarce bedimm'd the star that shone behind it:
And Hesper now
Paus'd on the welkin blue, and cloudless brink,
A golden circlet! while the Star of Jove—
That other lovely star—high o'er my head
Shone whitely in the centre of his Haze
. . . one black-blue cloud
Stretch'd, like the heaven, o'er all the cope of Heaven.
Dec. 1797. First published from an MS. in 1893.
17
[NOT A CRITIC—BUT A JUDGE]
Who, in the work, forgets me and the world and himself!
You who have eyes to detect, and Gall to Chastise the imperfect,
Have you the heart, too, that loves,—feels and rewards the Compleat?
1805. Now first published from an MS.
18
March 1806. First published from an MS. in 1893.
19
[DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI]
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!
Flash, like a love-thought, thro' me, Death!
And take a life that wearies me.
Leghorn, June 7, 1806. First published in Letters of S. T. C., 1875, ii. 499, n. 1. Now collected for the first time. Adapted from Percy's version of 'Waly, Waly, Love be bonny', st. 3.
And shake the green leaves aff the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou cum?
For of my life I am wearie.
20
That crests its head with clouds, beneath the flood
Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank
Of its wide base controls the fronting bank—
(By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away
The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay)
High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits
His channel'd brow; low murmurs stir by fits
And dark below the horrid Faquir sits—
An Horror from its broad Head's branching wreath
Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath—
1806-7. Now first published from an MS.
21
As vainly Strength speaks to a broken Mind.[1001:1]
1807. First published in Thomas Poole and His Friends, 1888, ii. 195.
22
Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul,
The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself.
Its own yet not itself.
Now first published from an MS.
23
In Bush and Bushet;
No tree, but in it
A cooing Cushat.
May 1807. Now first published from an MS.
24
Smok'd in the sun-thaw.
1798. Now first published from an MS. Compare Frost at Midnight, ll. 69-70, ante, p. 242.
25
| And in Life's noisiest hour There whispers still the ceaseless love of thee, |
|||
| The heart's self-solace commune |
|
and soliloquy. | |
1807. Now first published from an MS.
26
And to the leading love-throb in the heart,
Through all my being, through my pulses beat;
You lie in all my many thoughts like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve,
On rippling stream, or cloud-reflecting lake;
And looking to the Heaven that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the lot that made me love you.
1807. Now first published from an MS.
27
Now first published from an MS.
28
In the dawn of spring and sultry summer,
In hedge or tree the hours beguiling
With notes as of one who brass is filing.
1807. Now first published from an MS.
29
FRAGMENT OF AN ODE ON NAPOLEON
From thy sweet murmurs far, O Hippocrene!
Turbid and black upboils an angry fount
Tossing its shatter'd foam in vengeful spleen—
Phlegethon's rage Cocytus' wailings hoarse
Alternate now, now mixt, made known its headlong course:
Thither with terror stricken and surprise,
(For sure such haunts were ne'er to Muse's choice)
Euterpe led me. Mute with asking eyes
I stood expectant of her heavenly voice.
Her voice entranc'd my terror and made flow
In a rude understrain the maniac fount below.
'Whene'er (the Goddess said) abhorr'd of Jove
Usurping Power his hands in blood imbrues—
? 1808. Now first published from an MS.
30
The gentle breathing of the cradled Babe,
The silence of the Mother's love-bright eye,
And tender smile answering its smile of Sleep.
1803. First published from an MS. in 1893.
31
Imprison'd in adjoining cells,
Across whose thin partition-wall
The builder left one narrow rent,
And where, most content in discontent,
A joy with itself at strife—
Die into an intenser life.
1808. First published from an MS. in 1893.
Another Version
Two wedded hearts, if ere were such,
Contented most in discontent,
Still there cling, and try in vain to touch!
[1004] O Joy! with thy own joy at strife,
That yearning for the Realm above
Wouldst die into intenser Life,
And Union absolute of Love!
1808. First published from an MS. in 1893.
32
Compare all living creatures dear—
Thoughts, which have found their harbour in thy heart
Dearest! me thought of him to thee so dear!
1809. First published from an MS. in 1893.
33
EPIGRAM ON KEPLER
FROM THE GERMAN
As Kepler—yet his Country saw him die
For very want! the Minds alone he fed,
And so the Bodies left him without bread.
1799. First published in The Friend, Nov. 30, 1809 (1818, ii. 95; 1850, ii. 69). First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 374.
LINENOTES:
spirit] Genius MS.
yet] and MS.
Minds] Souls MS. erased.
34
A flight of Hope for ever on the wing
But made Tranquillity a conscious thing;
And wheeling round and round in sportive coil,
Fann'd the calm air upon the brow of Toil.
1810. First published from an MS. in 1893.
35
The worst the world can wreak on me—the worst
That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb
With whisper'd discontent the dying prayer—
I have beheld the whole of all, wherein
My heart had any interest in this life
To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes
[1005] That nothing now is left. Why then live on?
That hostage that the world had in its keeping
Given by me as a pledge that I would live—
That hope of Her, say rather that pure Faith
In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce
With the tyranny of Life—is gone, ah! whither?
What boots it to reply? 'tis gone! and now
Well may I break this Pact, this league of Blood
That ties me to myself—and break I shall.
1810. First published from an MS. in 1893.
36
The high, large, long, unbreaking surges
Of the Pacific main.
1811. First published from an MS. in 1893.
37
Slowly my wisdom, and how slowly comes
My Virtue! and how rapidly pass off
My Joys! my Hopes! my Friendships, and my Love!
1811. Now first published from an MS.
38
As 'twere a giant angry in his sleep—
Nature! sweet nurse, O take me in thy lap
And tell me of my Father yet unseen,
Sweet tales, and true, that lull me into sleep
And leave me dreaming.
1811. First published from an MS. in 1893.
39
His tender smiles, Love's day-dawn on his lips,
Put on such heavenly, spiritual light,
At the same moment in his steadfast eye
Were Virtue's native crest, th' innocent soul's
Unconscious meek self-heraldry,—to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
He suffer'd nor complain'd;—though oft with tears
[1006] He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,—
And sometimes with a deeper holier grief
Mourn'd for the oppressor—but this in sabbath hours—
A solemn grief, that like a cloud at sunset,
Was but the veil of inward meditation
Pierced thro' and saturate with the intellectual rays
It soften'd.
1812. First published (with many alterations of the MS.) in Lit. Rem., i. 277. First collected P. and D. W., 1887, ii. 364. Compare Teresa's speech to Valdez, Remorse, Act IV, Scene ii, lines 52-63 (ante, p. 866).
40
[ARS POETICA]
In the two following lines, for instance, there is nothing objectionable, nothing which would preclude them from forming, in their proper place, part of a descriptive poem:—
Bend from the sea-blast, seen at twilight eve.'
But with a small alteration of rhythm, the same words would be equally in their place in a book of topography, or in a descriptive tour. The same image will rise into a semblance of poetry if thus conveyed:—
By twilight-glimpse discerned, mark! how they flee
From the fierce sea-blast, all their tresses wild
Streaming before them.'
1815. First published in Biog. Lit., 1817, ii. 18; 1847, ii. 20. First collected 1893.
41
TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST STROPHE OF
PINDAR'S SECOND OLYMPIC
'As nearly as possible word for word.'
(or)
Ye hymns the sovereigns of harps!
What God? what Hero?
What Man shall we celebrate?
Truly Pisa indeed is of Jove,
But the Olympiad (or, the Olympic games) did Hercules establish,
The first-fruits of the spoils of war.
But Theron for the four-horsed car
[1007] That bore victory to him,
It behoves us now to voice aloud:
The Just, the Hospitable,
The Bulwark of Agrigentum,
Of renowned fathers
The Flower, even him
Who preserves his native city erect and safe.
1815. First published in Biog. Lit., 1817, ii. 90; 1847, ii. 93. First collected 1893.
42
Which the solicitude of weak mortality,
Its back toward Religion's rising sun,
Casts on the thin mist of th' uncertain future.
1816. First published from an MS. in 1893.
43
TRANSLATION OF A FRAGMENT OF HERACLITUS[1007:1]
To win the sense by words of rhetoric,
Lip-blossoms breathing perishable sweets;
But by the power of the informing Word
Roll sounding onward through a thousand years
Her deep prophetic bodements.
1816. First published in Lit. Rem., iii. 418, 419. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 367.
44
And wiser men than I went worse astray.
First published as Motto to Essay II, The Friend, 1818, ii. 37; 1850, ii. 27. First collected 1893.
45
IMITATED FROM ARISTOPHANES
(Nubes 315, 317.)
αἵπερ γνώμην καὶ διάλεξιν καὶ νοῦν ἡμῖν παρέχουσι
καὶ τερατείαν καὶ περίλεξιν καὶ κροῦσιν καὶ καταληψιν.
For the ancients . . . had their glittering vapors, which (as the comic poet tells us) fed a host of sophists.
Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech,
Sense most sententious, wonderful fine effect,
And how to talk about it and about it,
Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy.
1817. First published in The Friend, 1818, iii. 179; 1850, iii. 138. First collected 1893.
46
Roll round and round and still renew their cycle—
Man rushes like a winged Cherub through
The infinite space, and that which has been
Can therefore never be again——
1820. First published from an MS. in 1893.
47
TO EDWARD IRVING
But you, honored Irving, are as little disposed as myself to favor such doctrine! [as that of Mant and D'Oyly on Infant Baptism].
A different lore! We may not thus profane
The Idea and Name of Him whose Absolute Will
Is Reason—Truth Supreme!—Essential Order!
1824. First published in Aids to Reflection, 1825, p. 373. First collected 1893.
48
[LUTHER—DE DÆMONIBUS]
The devils are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in dark pooly places, ready to hurt and prejudice people, etc.—Doctoris Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia—(Translated by Captain Henry Bell. London, 1652, p. 370).
The devil is a bore;—'
No matter for that! quoth S. T. C.,
I love him the better therefore.
Yes! heroic Swan, I love thee even when thou gabblest like a goose; for thy geese helped to save the Capitol.
1826. First published in Lit. Rem., 1839, iv. 52. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 367.
49
THE NETHERLANDS
Willows whose Trunks beside the shadows stood
Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp:—
Farmhouses that at anchor seem'd—in the inland sky
The fog-transfixing Spires—
Water, wide water, greenness and green banks,
And water seen—
June 1828. Now first published from an MS.
50
ELISA[1009:1]
TRANSLATED FROM CLAUDIAN
Et quicquid mittis Thura putare decet.
The above adapted from an Epigram of Claudian [No. lxxxii, Ad Maximum Qui mel misit], by substituting Thura for Mella: the original Distich being in return for a present of Honey.
Imitation
Sweet Gifts and full of fragrance to her Friend
Enough for Him to know they come from Her:
Whate'er she sends is Frankincense and Myrrh.
ANOTHER ON THE SAME SUBJECT BY S. T. C. HIMSELF
Nam quicquid donas, te redolere puto.
Translation