[340:1] First published in the Morning Post, January 10, 1800: reprinted in Essays on His Own Times, 1850, i. 233-7. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, 1880.

[341:1] This sarcasm on the writings of moralists is, in general, extremely just; but had Talleyrand continued long enough in England, he might have found an honourable exception in the second volume of Dr. Paley's Moral Philosophy; in which both Secret Influence, and all the other Established Forms, are justified and placed in their true light.

[342:1] A fashionable abbreviation in the higher circles for Republicans. Thus Mob was originally the Mobility.

[342:2] Palma non sine pulvere In plain English, an itching palm, not without the yellow dust.

[342:3] The word Initiations is borrowed from the new Constitution, and can only mean, in plain English, introductory matter. If the manuscript would bear us out, we should propose to read the line thus: 'What a plentiful Verbage, what Initiations!' inasmuch as Vintage must necessarily refer to wine, really or figuratively; and we cannot guess what species Lord Grenville's eloquence may be supposed to resemble, unless, indeed, it be Cowslip wine. A slashing critic to whom we read the manuscript, proposed to read, 'What a plenty of Flowers—what initiations!' and supposes it may allude indiscriminately to Poppy Flowers, or Flour of Brimstone. The most modest emendation, perhaps, would be this—for Vintage read Ventage.

[343:1] We cannot sufficiently admire the accuracy of this simile. For as Lord Grenville, though short, is certainly not the shortest man in the House, even so is it with the days in November.

[343:2] An evident plagiarism of the Ex-Bishop's from Dr. Johnson:—

'Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
 And panting Time toil'd after him in vain:
 His pow'rful strokes presiding Truth confess'd,
 And unresisting Passion storm'd the breast.'

[343:3] This line and the following are involved in an almost Lycophrontic tenebricosity. On repeating them, however, to an Illuminant, whose confidence I possess, he informed me (and he ought to know, for he is a Tallow-chandler by trade) that certain candles go by the name of sixteens. This explains the whole, the Scotch Peers are destined to burn out—and so are candles! The English are perpetual, and are therefore styled Fixed Stars! The word Geminies is, we confess, still obscure to us; though we venture to suggest that it may perhaps be a metaphor (daringly sublime) for the two eyes which noble Lords do in general possess. It is certainly used by the poet Fletcher in this sense, in the 31st stanza of his Purple Island:—

'What! shall I then need seek a patron out,
 Or beg a favour from a mistress' eyes,
 To fence my song against the vulgar rout,
 And shine upon me with her geminies?'

LINENOTES:

[14]

With a scorn, like your own Essay, &c., 1850.

APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA[345:1]

The poet in his lone yet genial hour
 Gives to his eyes a magnifying power:
 Or rather he emancipates his eyes
 From the black shapeless accidents of size—
 In unctuous cones of kindling coal, 5
 Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim hole,
 His gifted ken can see
 Phantoms of sublimity.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[345:1] Included in the text of The Historie and Gests of Maxilian: first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, January, 1822, vol. xi, p. 12. The lines were taken from a MS. note-book, dated August 28, 1800. First collected P. and D. W., 1877-80.

LINENOTES:

Title] The Poet's ken P. W., 1885: Apologia, &c. 1907.

[1-4]
The poet's eye in his tipsy hour
 Hath a magnifying power
 Or rather emancipates his eyes
 Of the accidents of size

MS.

[5]

cones] cone MS.

[6]

Or smoke from his pipe's bole MS.

[7]

His eye can see MS.

THE KEEPSAKE[345:2]

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, 5
 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 10
 By rivulet, or spring, or wet roadside,
 That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
 [346]Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not![346:1]
 So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
 With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk 15
 Has worked (the flowers which most she knew I loved),
 And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.
In the cool morning twilight, early waked
 By her full bosom's joyous restlessness,
 Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, 20
 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. 25
 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— 30
 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,) 35
 Nor yet the enhancement 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!

? 1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[345:2] First published in the Morning Post, September 17, 1802 (signed, ΕΣΤΗΣΕ): included in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834. 'It had been composed two years before' (1802), Note, 1893, p. 624. Mr. Campbell may have seen a dated MS. Internal evidence would point to the autumn of 1802, when it was published in the Morning Post.

[346:1] 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 (Vergissmeinnicht) and, we believe, in Denmark and Sweden.

LINENOTES:

[1]

om. M. P.

[2]

one] one M. P.

[12]

Line 13 precedes line 12 M. P.

[17]

they] all M. P.

[19]

joyous] joyless S. L. 1828.

[19-21]
joyous restlessness,
 Leaving the soft bed to her sister,
 Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,
 Her fair face flushing in the purple dawn,
 Adown the meadow to the woodbine bower

M. P.

Between 19-20 Leaving the soft bed to her sleeping sister S. L. 1817.

[25]

scarcely moving] scarcely-flowing M. P.

[39]

thenceforth] henceforth M. P.

A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY A VIEW[347:1]

OF SADDLEBACK IN CUMBERLAND

On stern Blencartha's perilous height
 The winds are tyrannous and strong;
 And flashing forth unsteady light
 From stern Blencartha's skiey height,
 As loud the torrents throng! 5
 Beneath the moon, in gentle weather,
 They bind the earth and sky together.
 But oh! the sky and all its forms, how quiet!
 The things that seek the earth, how full of noise and riot!

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[347:1] First published in the Amulet, 1833, reprinted in Friendship's Offering, 1834: included in Essays on His Own Times, 1850, iii. 997. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80. These lines are inserted in one of the Malta Notebooks, and appear from the context to have been written at Olevano in 1806; but it is almost certain that they belong to the autumn of 1800 when Coleridge made a first acquaintance of 'Blencathara's rugged coves'. The first line is an adaptation of a line in a poem of Isaac Ritson, quoted in Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, a work which supplied him with some of the place-names in the Second Part of Christabel. Compare, too, a sentence in a letter to Sir H. Davy of Oct. 18, 1800:—'At the bottom of the Carrock Man . . . the wind became so fearful and tyrannous, etc.'

LINENOTES:

Title] A Versified Reflection F. O. 1834. In F. O. 1834, the lines were prefaced by a note:—[A Force is the provincial term in Cumberland for any narrow fall of water from the summit of a mountain precipice. The following stanza (it may not arrogate the name of poem) or versified reflection was composed while the author was gazing on three parallel Forces on a moonlight night, at the foot of the Saddleback Fell. S. T. C.] A —— by the view of Saddleback, near Threlkeld in Cumberland, Essays, &c.

[1]

Blencartha's] Blenkarthur's MS.: Blencarthur's F. O.: Blenharthur's Essays, &c., 1850.

[2]

The wind is F. O.

[4]

Blencartha's] Blenkarthur's MS.: Blencarthur's F. O.: Blenharthur's Essays, &c., 1850.

[8]

oh!] ah! Essays, &c.

THE MAD MONK[347:2]

I heard a voice from Etna's side;
 Where o'er a cavern's mouth
 That fronted to the south
 A chesnut spread its umbrage wide:
 [348]A hermit or a monk the man might be; 5
 But him I could not see:
 And thus the music flow'd along,
 In melody most like to old Sicilian song:
'There was a time when earth, and sea, and skies,
 The bright green vale, and forest's dark recess, 10
 With all things, lay before mine eyes
 In steady loveliness:
 But now I feel, on earth's uneasy scene,
 Such sorrows as will never cease;—
 I only ask for peace; 15
 If I must live to know that such a time has been!'
 A silence then ensued:
 Till from the cavern came
 A voice;—it was the same!
 And thus, in mournful tone, its dreary plaint renew'd: 20
'Last night, as o'er the sloping turf I trod,
 The smooth green turf, to me a vision gave
 Beneath mine eyes, the sod—
 The roof of Rosa's grave!
My heart has need with dreams like these to strive, 25
 For, when I woke, beneath mine eyes I found
 The plot of mossy ground,
 On which we oft have sat when Rosa was alive.—
 Why must the rock, and margin of the flood,
 Why must the hills so many flow'rets bear, 30
 Whose colours to a murder'd maiden's blood,
 Such sad resemblance wear?—
'I struck the wound,—this hand of mine!
 For Oh, thou maid divine,
 I lov'd to agony! 35
 The youth whom thou call'd'st thine
 Did never love like me!
'Is it the stormy clouds above
 That flash'd so red a gleam?
 [349]On yonder downward trickling stream?— 40
 'Tis not the blood of her I love.—
 The sun torments me from his western bed,
 Oh, let him cease for ever to diffuse
 Those crimson spectre hues!
 Oh, let me lie in peace, and be for ever dead!' 45
Here ceas'd the voice. In deep dismay,
 Down thro' the forest I pursu'd my way.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[347:2] First published in the Morning Post, October 13, 1800 (signed Cassiani junior): reprinted in Wild Wreath (By M. E. Robinson), 1804, pp. 141-4. First collected in P. W., 1880 (ii, Supplement, p. 362).

LINENOTES:

Title] The Voice from the Side of Etna; or the Mad Monk: An Ode in Mrs. Ratcliff's Manner M. P.

[8]

to] an M. P.

[14]

sorrows] motions M. P.

[16]

Then wherefore must I know M. P.

[23]

I saw the sod M. P.

[26]

woke] wak'd M. P.

[27]

The] That M. P.

[28]

On which so oft we sat M. P.

[31]

a wounded woman's blood M. P.

[38-9]
It is the stormy clouds above
 That flash

M. P.

After 47

The twilight fays came forth in dewy shoon
 Ere I within the Cabin had withdrawn
 The goatherd's tent upon the open lawn—
 That night there was no moon.

M. P.

INSCRIPTION FOR A SEAT BY THE ROAD SIDE
HALF-WAY UP A STEEP HILL FACING SOUTH[349:1]

Thou who in youthful vigour rich, and light
 With youthful thoughts dost need no rest! O thou,
 To whom alike the valley and the hill
 Present a path of ease! Should e'er thine eye
 Glance on this sod, and this rude tablet, stop! 5
 'Tis a rude spot, yet here, with thankful hearts,
 The foot-worn soldier and his family
 Have rested, wife and babe, and boy, perchance
 Some eight years old or less, and scantly fed,
 Garbed like his father, and already bound 10
 To his poor father's trade. Or think of him
 [350]Who, laden with his implements of toil,
 Returns at night to some far distant home,
 And having plodded on through rain and mire
 With limbs o'erlaboured, weak from feverish heat, 15
 And chafed and fretted by December blasts,
 Here pauses, thankful he hath reached so far,
 And 'mid the sheltering warmth of these bleak trees
 Finds restoration—or reflect on those
 Who in the spring to meet the warmer sun 20
 Crawl up this steep hill-side, that needlessly
 Bends double their weak frames, already bowed
 By age or malady, and when, at last,
 They gain this wished-for turf, this seat of sods,
 Repose—and, well-admonished, ponder here 25
 On final rest. And if a serious thought
 Should come uncalled—how soon thy motions high,
 Thy balmy spirits and thy fervid blood
 Must change to feeble, withered, cold and dry,
 Cherish the wholesome sadness! And where'er 30
 The tide of Life impel thee, O be prompt
 To make thy present strength the staff of all,
 Their staff and resting-place—so shalt thou give
 To Youth the sweetest joy that Youth can know;
 And for thy future self thou shalt provide 35
 Through every change of various life, a seat,
 Not built by hands, on which thy inner part,
 Imperishable, many a grievous hour,
 Or bleak or sultry may repose—yea, sleep
 The sleep of Death, and dream of blissful worlds, 40
 Then wake in Heaven, and find the dream all true.

1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[349:1] First published in the Morning Post, October 21, 1800 (Coleridge's birthday) under the signature Ventifrons: reprinted in the Lake Herald, November 2, 1906. Now first included in Coleridge's Poetical Works. Venti Frons is dog-Latin for Windy Brow, a point of view immediately above the River Greta, on the lower slope of Latrigg. Here it was that on Wednesday, August 13, 1800, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy, and Coleridge 'made the Windy Brow seat'—a 'seat of sods'. In a letter to his printers, Biggs and Cottle, of October 10, 1800, Wordsworth says that 'a friend [the author of the Ancient Mariner, &c.] has also furnished me with a few of these Poems in the second volume [of the Lyrical Ballads] which are classed under the title of "Poems on the Naming of Places"' (Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS., Ed. W. Hale White, 1897, pp. 27, 28). No such poems or poem appeared, and it has been taken for granted that none were ever written. At any rate one 'Inscription', now at last forthcoming, was something more than a 'story from the land of dreams'!

A STRANGER MINSTREL[350:1]

WRITTEN [TO MRS. ROBINSON,] A FEW WEEKS BEFORE HER DEATH

As late on Skiddaw's mount I lay supine,
 Midway th' ascent, in that repose divine
 [351]When the soul centred in the heart's recess
 Hath quaff'd its fill of Nature's loveliness,
 Yet still beside the fountain's marge will stay 5
 And fain would thirst again, again to quaff;
 Then when the tear, slow travelling on its way,
 Fills up the wrinkles of a silent laugh—
 In that sweet mood of sad and humorous thought
 A form within me rose, within me wrought 10
 With such strong magic, that I cried aloud,
 'Thou ancient Skiddaw by thy helm of cloud,
 And by thy many-colour'd chasms deep,
 And by their shadows that for ever sleep,
 By yon small flaky mists that love to creep 15
 Along the edges of those spots of light,
 Those sunny islands on thy smooth green height,
 And by yon shepherds with their sheep,
 And dogs and boys, a gladsome crowd,
 That rush e'en now with clamour loud 20
 Sudden from forth thy topmost cloud,
 And by this laugh, and by this tear,
 I would, old Skiddaw, she were here!
 A lady of sweet song is she,
 Her soft blue eye was made for thee! 25
 O ancient Skiddaw, by this tear,
 I would, I would that she were here!'
Then ancient Skiddaw, stern and proud,
 In sullen majesty replying,
 Thus spake from out his helm of cloud 30
 (His voice was like an echo dying!):—
 'She dwells belike in scenes more fair,
 And scorns a mount so bleak and bare.'
I only sigh'd when this I heard,
 Such mournful thoughts within me stirr'd 35
 That all my heart was faint and weak,
 So sorely was I troubled!
 No laughter wrinkled on my cheek,
 But O the tears were doubled!
 But ancient Skiddaw green and high 40
 Heard and understood my sigh;
 [352]And now, in tones less stern and rude,
 As if he wish'd to end the feud,
 Spake he, the proud response renewing
 (His voice was like a monarch wooing):— 45
 'Nay, but thou dost not know her might,
 The pinions of her soul how strong!
 But many a stranger in my height
 Hath sung to me her magic song,
 Sending forth his ecstasy 50
 In her divinest melody,
 And hence I know her soul is free,
 She is where'er she wills to be,
 Unfetter'd by mortality!
 Now to the "haunted beach" can fly,[352:1] 55
 Beside the threshold scourged with waves,
 Now where the maniac wildly raves,
 "Pale moon, thou spectre of the sky!"[352:2]
 No wind that hurries o'er my height
 Can travel with so swift a flight. 60
 I too, methinks, might merit
 The presence of her spirit!
 To me too might belong
 The honour of her song and witching melody,
 Which most resembles me, 65
 Soft, various, and sublime,
 Exempt from wrongs of Time!'
Thus spake the mighty Mount, and I
 Made answer, with a deep-drawn sigh:—
 Thou ancient Skiddaw, by this tear, 70
 I would, I would that she were here!'

November, 1800.

FOOTNOTES:

[350:1] First published in Memoirs of the late Mrs. Robinson, Written by herself. With some Posthumous Pieces, 1801, iv. 141: reprinted in Poetical Works of the late Mrs. Mary Robinson, 1806, i. xlviii, li. First collected in P. W., 1877-80.

[352:1] 'The Haunted Beach,' by Mrs. Robinson, was included in the Annual Anthology for 1800.

[352:2] From 'Jasper', a ballad by Mrs. Robinson, included in the Annual Anthology for 1800.

LINENOTES:

[1]

Skiddaw's] Skiddaw 1801.

[8]

wrinkles] wrinkle 1801.

[13]

chasms so deep 1801.

[17]

sunny] sunshine 1801.

[32]

in] by 1801.

[38]

on] now 1801.

[57]

Now to the maniac while he raves 1801.

ALCAEUS TO SAPPHO[353:1]

How sweet, when crimson colours dart
 Across a breast of snow,
 To see that you are in the heart
 That beats and throbs below.
All Heaven is in a maiden's blush, 5
 In which the soul doth speak,
 That it was you who sent the flush
 Into the maiden's cheek.
Large steadfast eyes! eyes gently rolled
 In shades of changing blue, 10
 How sweet are they, if they behold
 No dearer sight than you.
And, can a lip more richly glow,
 Or be more fair than this?
 The world will surely answer, No! 15
 I, Sappho, answer, Yes!
Then grant one smile, tho' it should mean
 A thing of doubtful birth;
 That I may say these eyes have seen
 The fairest face on earth! 20

1800.

FOOTNOTES: