[21]
From black anxiety that gnaws my heart.
 For her who droops far off on a sick bed.

Watchman, 1797, 1803.

[24]
Th' attempered brain, that ev'n the saddest thoughts

Watchman, 1797, 1803.

TO A PRIMROSE[149:2]

THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON

Nitens et roboris expers
 Turget et insolida est: et spe delectat.

Ovid, Metam. [xv. 203].

Thy smiles I note, sweet early Flower,
 That peeping from thy rustic bower
 The festive news to earth dost bring,
 A fragrant messenger of Spring.
[150]But, tender blossom, why so pale? 5
 Dost hear stern Winter in the gale?
 And didst thou tempt the ungentle sky
 To catch one vernal glance and die?
Such the wan lustre Sickness wears
 When Health's first feeble beam appears; 10
 So languid are the smiles that seek
 To settle on the care-worn cheek,
When timorous Hope the head uprears,
 Still drooping and still moist with tears,
 If, through dispersing grief, be seen 15
 Of Bliss the heavenly spark serene.
And sweeter far the early blow,
 Fast following after storms of Woe,
 Than (Comfort's riper season come)
 Are full-blown joys and Pleasure's gaudy bloom. 20

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[149:2] First published in The Watchman, No. viii, April 27, 1796: reprinted in Literary Remains, 1836, i. 47. First collected in Appendix to 1863.

LINENOTES:

Motto: et] at L. R., App. 1863.

[17-20]

om. L. R., App. 1863

VERSES[150:1]

ADDRESSED TO J. HORNE TOOKE AND THE COMPANY WHO MET ON
JUNE 28TH, 1796, TO CELEBRATE HIS POLL AT THE
WESTMINSTER ELECTION

Britons! when last ye met, with distant streak
 So faintly promis'd the pale Dawn to break:
 So dim it stain'd the precincts of the Sky
 E'en Expectation gaz'd with doubtful Eye.
 But now such fair Varieties of Light 5
 O'ertake the heavy sailing Clouds of Night;
 Th' Horizon kindles with so rich a red,
 That tho' the Sun still hides his glorious head
 Th' impatient Matin-bird, assur'd of Day,
 Leaves his low nest to meet its earliest ray; 10
 Loud the sweet song of Gratulation sings,
 And high in air claps his rejoicing wings!
 Patriot and Sage! whose breeze-like Spirit first
 The lazy mists of Pedantry dispers'd
 [151](Mists in which Superstition's pigmy band 15
 Seem'd Giant Forms, the Genii of the Land!),
 Thy struggles soon shall wak'ning Britain bless,
 And Truth and Freedom hail thy wish'd success.
 Yes Tooke! tho' foul Corruption's wolfish throng
 Outmalice Calumny's imposthum'd Tongue, 20
 Thy Country's noblest and determin'd Choice,
 Soon shalt thou thrill the Senate with thy voice;
 With gradual Dawn bid Error's phantoms flit,
 Or wither with the lightning's flash of Wit;
 Or with sublimer mien and tones more deep, 25
 Charm sworded Justice from mysterious Sleep,
 'By violated Freedom's loud Lament,
 Her Lamps extinguish'd and her Temple rent;
 By the forc'd tears her captive Martyrs shed;
 By each pale Orphan's feeble cry for bread; 30
 By ravag'd Belgium's corse-impeded Flood,
 And Vendee steaming still with brothers' blood!'
 And if amid the strong impassion'd Tale,
 Thy Tongue should falter and thy Lips turn pale;
 If transient Darkness film thy aweful Eye, 35
 And thy tir'd Bosom struggle with a sigh:
 Science and Freedom shall demand to hear
 Who practis'd on a Life so doubly dear;
 Infus'd the unwholesome anguish drop by drop,
 Pois'ning the sacred stream they could not stop! 40
 Shall bid thee with recover'd strength relate
 How dark and deadly is a Coward's Hate:
 What seeds of death by wan Confinement sown,
 When Prison-echoes mock'd Disease's groan!
 Shall bid th' indignant Father flash dismay, 45
 And drag the unnatural Villain into Day
 Who[151:1] to the sports of his flesh'd Ruffians left
 Two lovely Mourners of their Sire bereft!
 'Twas wrong, like this, which Rome's first Consul bore,
 So by th' insulted Female's name he swore 50
 Ruin (and rais'd her reeking dagger high)
 Not to the Tyrants but the Tyranny!

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[150:1] First printed in the Transactions of the Philobiblon Society. First published in P. W., 1893. The verses (without the title) were sent by Coleridge in a letter to the Rev. J. P. Estlin, dated July 4, [1796].

[151:1] 'Dundas left thief-takers in Horne Tooke's House for three days, with his two Daughters alone: for Horne Tooke keeps no servant.' S. T. C. to Estlin.

LINENOTES:

[31, 32]

These lines are borrowed from the first edition (4o) of the Ode to the Departing Year.

ON A LATE CONNUBIAL RUPTURE IN HIGH LIFE[152:1]

[PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF WALES]

I sigh, fair injur'd stranger! for thy fate;
 But what shall sighs avail thee? thy poor heart,
 'Mid all the 'pomp and circumstance' of state,
 Shivers in nakedness. Unbidden, start
Sad recollections of Hope's garish dream, 5
 That shaped a seraph form, and named it Love,
 Its hues gay-varying, as the orient beam
 Varies the neck of Cytherea's dove.
To one soft accent of domestic joy
 Poor are the shouts that shake the high-arch'd dome; 10
 Those plaudits that thy public path annoy,
 Alas! they tell thee—Thou'rt a wretch at home!
O then retire, and weep! Their very woes
 Solace the guiltless. Drop the pearly flood
 On thy sweet infant, as the full-blown rose, 15
 Surcharg'd with dew, bends o'er its neighbouring bud.
And ah! that Truth some holy spell might lend
 To lure thy Wanderer from the Syren's power;
 Then bid your souls inseparably blend
 Like two bright dew-drops meeting in a flower. 20

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[152:1] First published in the Monthly Magazine, September 1796, vol. ii, pp. 64-7, reprinted in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, Saturday, Oct. 8, 1796, and in the Poetical Register, 1806-7 [1811, vol. vi, p. 365]. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877, i. 187. The lines were sent in a letter to Estlin, dated July 4, 1796.

LINENOTES:

Title] To an Unfortunate Princess MS. Letter, July 4, 1796.

[17]

might] could MS. Letter, 1796.

[18]

thy] the Felix Farley's, &c.

[20]

meeting] bosomed MS. Letter, 1796.

SONNET[152:2]

ON RECEIVING A LETTER INFORMING ME OF THE BIRTH OF A SON

When they did greet me father, sudden awe
 Weigh'd down my spirit: I retired and knelt
 Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt
 [153]No heavenly visitation upwards draw
 My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart. 5
 Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought
 Th' unquiet silence of confuséd thought
 And shapeless feelings: my o'erwhelméd heart
 Trembled, and vacant tears stream'd down my face.
 And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend, 10
 Lover of souls! and groan for future grace,
 That ere my babe youth's perilous maze have trod,
 Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend,
 And he be born again, a child of God.

Sept. 20, 1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[152:2] First published in the 'Biographical Supplement' to the Biographia Literaria, 1847, ii. 379. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80. This and the two succeeding sonnets were enclosed in a letter to Poole, dated November 1, 1796. A note was affixed to the sonnet 'On Receiving', &c.: 'This sonnet puts in no claim to poetry (indeed as a composition I think so little of them that I neglected to repeat them to you) but it is a most faithful picture of my feelings on a very interesting event. When I was with you they were, indeed, excepting the first, in a rude and undrest shape.'

LINENOTES:

Title] Sonnet written on receiving letter informing me of the birth of a son, I being at Birmingham MS. Letter, Nov. 1, 1796.

[8]

shapeless] hopeless B. L.

SONNET[153:1]

COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR HAVING
RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH OF A SON,
SEPT. 20, 1796

Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll
 Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)
 Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
 Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul
 Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said[153:2] 5
 [154]We liv'd, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.[154:1]
 O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,
 If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead,
 (As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear)
 I think that I should struggle to believe 10
 Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere
 Sentenc'd for some more venial crime to grieve;
 Did'st scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick reprieve,
 While we wept idly o'er thy little bier!

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[153:1] First published in 1797: included in 1803, Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834.

[153:2] Ἦν που ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ πρὶν ἐν τῷδε τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ εἴδει γενέσθαι. Plat. Phaedon. Cap. xviii. 72 e.

[154:1] Almost all the followers of Fénelon believe that men are degraded Intelligences who had all once existed together in a paradisiacal or perhaps heavenly state. The first four lines express a feeling which I have often had—the present has appeared like a vivid dream or exact similitude of some past circumstances. MS. Letter to Poole, Nov. 1, 1796.

LINENOTES:

Title] Sonnet composed on my journey home from Birmingham MS. Letter, 1796: Sonnet ix. To a Friend, &c. 1797: Sonnet xvii. To a Friend, &c. 1803.

[1-11]
Oft of some unknown Past such Fancies roll
 Swift o'er my brain as make the Present seem
 For a brief moment like a most strange dream
 When not unconscious that she dreamt, the soul
 Questions herself in sleep! and some have said
 We lived ere yet this fleshly robe we wore.

MS. Letter, 1796.

[6]

robe of flesh] fleshy robe 1797, 1803.

[8]

art] wert MS. Letter, 1796, 1797, 1803.

SONNET[154:2]

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE
FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME

Charles! my slow heart was only sad, when first
 I scann'd that face of feeble infancy:
 For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
 All I had been, and all my child might be!
 But when I saw it on its mother's arm, 5
 And hanging at her bosom (she the while
 Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile)
 Then I was thrill'd and melted, and most warm
 Impress'd a father's kiss: and all beguil'd
 Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, 10
 I seem'd to see an angel-form appear—
 'Twas even thine, belovéd woman mild!
 So for the mother's sake the child was dear,
 And dearer was the mother for the child.

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[154:2] First published in 1797: included in 1803, Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The 'Friend' was, probably, Charles Lloyd.

LINENOTES:

Title] To a Friend who wished to know, &c. MS. Letter, Nov. 1, 1796: Sonnet x. To a Friend 1797: Sonnet xix. To a Friend, &c. 1803.

[4]

child] babe MS. Letter, 1796, 1797, 1803.

[5]

saw] watch'd MS. Letter, 1796.

[11]

angel-form] Angel's form MS. Letter, 1796, 1797, 1803.

[13]

Comforts on his late eve, whose youthful friend. MS. correction by S. T. C. in copy of Nugae Canorae in the British Museum.

SONNET[155:1]

[TO CHARLES LLOYD]

The piteous sobs that choke the Virgin's breath
 For him, the fair betrothéd Youth, who lies
 Cold in the narrow dwelling, or the cries
 With which a Mother wails her darling's death,
 These from our nature's common impulse spring, 5
 Unblam'd, unprais'd; but o'er the piléd earth
 Which hides the sheeted corse of grey-hair'd Worth,
 If droops the soaring Youth with slacken'd wing;
 If he recall in saddest minstrelsy
 Each tenderness bestow'd, each truth imprest, 10
 Such grief is Reason, Virtue, Piety!
 And from the Almighty Father shall descend
 Comforts on his late evening, whose young breast
 Mourns with no transient love the Agéd Friend.

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[155:1] First published in Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer. By her Grandson, 1796, folio. It prefaced the same set of Lloyd's Sonnets included in the second edition of Poems by S. T. Coleridge, 1797. It was included in C. Lloyd's Nugae Canorae, 1819. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND[155:2]

ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR

Composed in 1796

A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep,
 But a green mountain variously up-piled,
 Where o'er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep,
 Or colour'd lichens with slow oozing weep;
 Where cypress and the darker yew start wild; 5
 And, 'mid the summer torrent's gentle dash
 Dance brighten'd the red clusters of the ash;
 Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguil'd,
 Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep;
 Till haply startled by some fleecy dam, 10
 [156]That rustling on the bushy cliff above
 With melancholy bleat of anxious love,
 Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb:
 Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb,
 E'en while the bosom ach'd with loneliness— 15
 How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless
 The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime
 Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round,
 Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!
O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark 20
 The berries of the half-uprooted ash
 Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,—
 Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,
 Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;
 In social silence now, and now to unlock 25
 The treasur'd heart; arm linked in friendly arm,
 Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
 Muttering brow-bent, at unwatch'd distance lag;
 Till high o'er head his beckoning friend appears,
 And from the forehead of the topmost crag 30
 Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears
 That shadowing Pine its old romantic limbs,
 Which latest shall detain the enamour'd sight
 Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,
 Tinged yellow with the rich departing light; 35
 And haply, bason'd in some unsunn'd cleft,
 A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears,
 Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!
 Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,
 Stretch'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine, 40
 And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,
 Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine
 To cheat our noons in moralising mood,
 While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedew'd:
 Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, 45
 To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,
 Where smiling with blue eye, Domestic Bliss
 Gives this the Husband's, that the Brother's kiss!
Thus rudely vers'd in allegoric lore,
 The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace; 50
 [157]That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
 And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour
 To glad, and fertilise the subject plains;
 That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,
 And many a fancy-blest and holy sod 55
 Where Inspiration, his diviner strains
 Low-murmuring, lay; and starting from the rock's
 Stiff evergreens, (whose spreading foliage mocks
 Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,
 And Bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!) 60
 O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,
 Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;
 And from the stirring world up-lifted high
 (Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,
 To quiet musings shall attune the mind, 65
 And oft the melancholy theme supply),
 There, while the prospect through the gazing eye
 Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,
 We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,
 Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, 70
 As neighbouring fountains image each the whole:
 Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth
 We'll discipline the heart to pure delight,
 Rekindling sober joy's domestic flame.
 They whom I love shall love thee, honour'd youth! 75
 Now may Heaven realise this vision bright!

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[155:2] First published in 1797: included in 1803, Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, and 1834.

LINENOTES:

Title] To C. Lloyd on his proposing to domesticate, &c. 1797: To a Friend, &c. 1803. 'Composed in 1796' was added in S. L.

[8]

those still] stilly 1797: stillest 1803.

[11]

cliff] clift S. L., 1828, 1829.

[16]

How heavenly sweet 1797, 1803.

[42]

youth] Lloyd 1797: Charles 1803.

[46]

lone] low 1797, 1803.

[60]

And mad oppression's thunder-clasping rage 1797, 1803.

[69]

We'll laugh at wealth, and learn to laugh at fame 1797, 1803.

[71]

In 1803 the poem ended with line 71. In the Sibylline Leaves, 1829, the last five lines were replaced.

[72]

hath drunk] has drank 1797: hath drank S. L., 1828, 1829.

[75]

She whom I love, shall love thee. Honour'd youth 1797, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829. The change of punctuation dates from 1834.

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE[157:1]
[C. Lloyd]

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
 O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
 [158]To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
 Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
 Moan haply in a dying mother's ear: 5
 Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
 O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,
 Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
 Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
 The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart 10
 Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
 Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
 What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
 O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
 All effortless thou leave Life's commonweal 15
 A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[157:1] First published in the Cambridge Intelligencer, December 17, 1796: included in the Quarto Edition of the Ode on the Departing Year, 1796, in Sibylline Leaves, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The lines were sent in a letter to John Thelwall, dated December 17, 1796 (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i. 207, 208).

LINENOTES:

Title] Lines, &c., C. I.: To a Young Man who abandoned himself to a causeless and indolent melancholy MS. Letter, 1796.

[6-7]

These lines were omitted in the MS. Letter and 4o 1796, but were replaced in Sibylline Leaves, 1817.

[8]

Or seek some widow's MS. Letter, Dec. 17, 1796.

[11]

eye] eyes MS. Letter, Dec. 9, 1796, C. I.