[1]

Verse, a] Verse is a with the alternative? Vērse ă breeze MS. 1.

[2]

clung] clings MS. 1, Bijou.

[6]

When I] When I 1828, 1829.

[8]

This house of clay MS. 1, Bijou.

[10]

O'er hill and dale and sounding sands MS. 1, Bijou.

[11]

then] then 1828, 1829.

[12]

skiffs] boats MS. 1, Bijou.

[20]

came] come Bijou.

[21]

Of Beauty, Truth, and Liberty MS. 1, Bijou.

[23]

Ere I] Ere I 1828, 1829. woful] mournful Literary Souvenir.

[25]

many] merry Bijou.

[27]

fond] false MS. 1, Bijou.

[32]

make believe] make believe 1828, 1829.

[34]

drooping] dragging MS. 1, Bijou.

[42-4]
That only serves to make me grieve
 Now I am old!
 Now I am old,—ah woful Now

MS. 1.

[44-5]
In our old age
 Whose bruised wings quarrel with the bars of the still narrowing cage.

Inserted in 1832.

[49]

Two lines were added in 1832:—

O might Life cease! and Selfless Mind,
 Whose total Being is Act, alone remain behind.

THE REPROOF AND REPLY[441:1]

Or, The Flower-Thief's Apology, for a robbery committed in Mr. and Mrs. ——'s garden, on Sunday morning, 25th of May, 1823, between the hours of eleven and twelve.

"Fie, Mr. Coleridge!—and can this be you?
 Break two commandments? and in church-time too!
 Have you not heard, or have you heard in vain,
 The birth-and-parentage-recording strain?—
 Confessions shrill, that out-shrill'd mack'rel drown 5
 Fresh from the drop—the youth not yet cut down—
 Letter to sweet-heart—the last dying speech—
 And didn't all this begin in Sabbath-breach?
 You, that knew better! In broad open day,
 Steal in, steal out, and steal our flowers away? 10
 What could possess you? Ah! sweet youth. I fear
 The chap with horns and tail was at your ear!"
Such sounds of late, accusing fancy brought
 From fair Chisholm to the Poet's thought.
 Now hear the meek Parnassian youth's reply:— 15
 A bow—a pleading look—a downcast eye,—
 And then:
[442]"Fair dame! a visionary wight,
 Hard by your hill-side mansion sparkling white,
 His thoughts all hovering round the Muses' home,
 Long hath it been your Poet's wont to roam, 20
 And many a morn, on his becharméd sense
 So rich a stream of music issued thence,
 He deem'd himself, as it flowed warbling on,
 Beside the vocal fount of Helicon!
 But when, as if to settle the concern, 25
 A Nymph too he beheld, in many a turn,
 Guiding the sweet rill from its fontal urn,—
 Say, can you blame?—No! none that saw and heard
 Could blame a bard, that he thus inly stirr'd;
 A muse beholding in each fervent trait, 30
 Took Mary H—— for Polly Hymnia!
 Or haply as there stood beside the maid
 One loftier form in sable stole array'd,
 If with regretful thought he hail'd in thee
 Chisholm, his long-lost friend, Mol Pomene! 35
 But most of you, soft warblings, I complain!
 'Twas ye that from the bee-hive of my brain
 Did lure the fancies forth, a freakish rout,
 And witch'd the air with dreams turn'd inside out.
"Thus all conspir'd—each power of eye and ear, 40
 And this gay month, th' enchantress of the year,
 To cheat poor me (no conjuror, God wot!)
 And Chisholm's self accomplice in the plot.
 Can you then wonder if I went astray?
 Not bards alone, nor lovers mad as they;— 45
 All Nature day-dreams in the month of May.
 And if I pluck'd 'each flower that sweetest blows,'—
 Who walks in sleep, needs follow must his nose.
"Thus, long accustom'd on the twy-fork'd hill,[442:1]
 To pluck both flower and floweret at my will; 50
 The garden's maze, like No-man's-land, I tread,
 Nor common law, nor statute in my head;
 For my own proper smell, sight, fancy, feeling,
 [443]With autocratic hand at once repealing
 Five Acts of Parliament 'gainst private stealing! 55
 But yet from Chisholm who despairs of grace?
 There's no spring-gun or man-trap in that face!
 Let Moses then look black, and Aaron blue,
 That look as if they had little else to do:
 For Chisholm speaks, 'Poor youth! he's but a waif! 60
 The spoons all right? the hen and chickens safe?
 Well, well, he shall not forfeit our regards—
 The Eighth Commandment was not made for Bards!'"[443:1]

1823.

FOOTNOTES:

[441:1] First published in Friendship's Offering for 1834, as the first of four 'Lightheartednesses in Rhyme'. A motto was prefixed:—'I expect no sense, worth listening to, from the man who never does talk nonsense,'—Anon. In F. O., 1834, Chisholm was printed C—— in line 14, C——m in lines 35, 56, and 60, C——m's in line 43. In 1834, 1844 the name was omitted altogether. The text of the present edition follows the MS. First collected in P. W., 1834. A MS. version is in the possession of Miss Edith Coleridge. These lines were included in 1844, but omitted from 1852, 1863, and 1870.

[442:1] The English Parnassus is remarkable for its two summits of unequal height, the lower denominated Hampstead, the higher Highgate.

[443:1] Compare 'The Eighth Commandment was not made for Love', l. 16 of Elegy I of The Love Elegies of Abel Shufflebottom, by R. Southey.

LINENOTES:

Title] The Reproof and Reply (the alternative title is omitted) 1834.

[31]

Mary H——] Mary —— 1834, 1844.

[38]

Did lure the] Lured the wild F. O. 1834.

FIRST ADVENT OF LOVE[443:2]

O fair is Love's first hope to gentle mind!
 As Eve's first star thro' fleecy cloudlet peeping;
 And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind.
 O'er willowy meads, and shadow'd waters creeping,
 And Ceres' golden fields;—the sultry hind 5
 Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping.

? 1824.

FOOTNOTES:

[443:2] First published in 1834. In a MS. note, dated September 1827, it is included in 'Relics of my School-boy Muse: i. e. fragments of poems composed before my fifteenth year', P. W., 1852, Notes, p. 379; but in an entry in a notebook dated 1824, Coleridge writes: 'A pretty unintended couplet in the prose of Sidney's Arcadia:—

'And, sweeter than a gentle south-west wind
 O'er flowery fields and shadowed waters creeping
 In summer's extreme heat.'

The passage which Coleridge versified is to be found in the Arcadia:—

'Her breath is more sweet than a gentle south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowing fields and shadowed waters in the heat of summer.'

LINENOTES:

Title] Love's First Hope 1893.

THE DELINQUENT TRAVELLERS[443:3]

Some are home-sick—some two or three,
 Their third year on the Arctic Sea—
 [444]Brave Captain Lyon tells us so[444:1]—
 Spite of those charming Esquimaux.
 But O, what scores are sick of Home, 5
 Agog for Paris or for Rome!
 Nay! tho' contented to abide,
 You should prefer your own fireside;
 Yet since grim War has ceas'd its madding,
 And Peace has set John Bull agadding, 10
 'Twould such a vulgar taste betray,
 For very shame you must away!
 'What? not yet seen the coast of France!
 The folks will swear, for lack of bail,
 You've spent your last five years in jail!' 15
Keep moving! Steam, or Gas, or Stage,
 Hold, cabin, steerage, hencoop's cage—
 Tour, Journey, Voyage, Lounge, Ride, Walk,
 Skim, Sketch, Excursion, Travel-talk—
 For move you must! 'Tis now the rage, 20
 The law and fashion of the Age.
 If you but perch, where Dover tallies,
 So strangely with the coast of Calais,
 With a good glass and knowing look,
 You'll soon get matter for a book! 25
 Or else, in Gas-car, take your chance
 Like that adventurous king of France,
 Who, once, with twenty thousand men
 Went up—and then came down again;
 At least, he moved if nothing more: 30
 And if there's nought left to explore,
 Yet while your well-greased wheels keep spinning,
 The traveller's honoured name you're winning,
 And, snug as Jonas in the Whale,
 You may loll back and dream a tale. 35
 Move, or be moved—there's no protection,
 Our Mother Earth has ta'en the infection—
 [445](That rogue Copernicus, 'tis said
 First put the whirring in her head,)
 A planet She, and can't endure 40
 T'exist without her annual Tour:
 The name were else a mere misnomer,
 Since Planet is but Greek for Roamer.
 The atmosphere, too, can do no less
 Than ventilate her emptiness, 45
 Bilks turn-pike gates, for no one cares,
 And gives herself a thousand airs—
 While streams and shopkeepers, we see,
 Will have their run toward the sea—
 And if, meantime, like old King Log, 50
 Or ass with tether and a clog,
 Must graze at home! to yawn and bray
 'I guess we shall have rain to-day!'
 Nor clog nor tether can be worse
 Than the dead palsy of the purse. 55
 Money, I've heard a wise man say,
 Makes herself wings and flys away:
 Ah! would She take it in her head
 To make a pair for me instead!
 At all events, the Fancy's free, 60
 No traveller so bold as she.
 From Fear and Poverty released
 I'll saddle Pegasus, at least,
 And when she's seated to her mind,
 I within I can mount behind: 65
 And since this outward I, you know,
 Must stay because he cannot go,
 My fellow-travellers shall be they
 Who go because they cannot stay—
 Rogues, rascals, sharpers, blanks and prizes, 70
 Delinquents of all sorts and sizes,
 Fraudulent bankrupts, Knights burglarious,
 And demireps of means precarious—
 All whom Law thwarted, Arms or Arts,
 Compel to visit foreign parts, 75
 All hail! No compliments, I pray,
 I'll follow where you lead the way!
 But ere we cross the main once more,
 Methinks, along my native shore,
 Dismounting from my steed I'll stray 80
 [446]Beneath the cliffs of Dumpton Bay.[446:1]
 Where, Ramsgate and Broadstairs between,
 Rude caves and grated doors are seen:
 And here I'll watch till break of day,
 (For Fancy in her magic might 85
 Can turn broad noon to starless night!)
 When lo! methinks a sudden band
 Of smock-clad smugglers round me stand.
 Denials, oaths, in vain I try,
 At once they gag me for a spy, 90
 And stow me in the boat hard by.
 Suppose us fairly now afloat,
 Till Boulogne mouth receives our Boat.
 But, bless us! what a numerous band
 Of cockneys anglicise the strand! 95
 Delinquent bankrupts, leg-bail'd debtors,
 Some for the news, and some for letters—
 With hungry look and tarnished dress,
 French shrugs and British surliness.
 Sick of the country for their sake 100
 Of them and France French leave I take—
 And lo! a transport comes in view
 I hear the merry motley crew,
 Well skill'd in pocket to make entry,
 Of Dieman's Land the elected Gentry, 105
 And founders of Australian Races.—
 The Rogues! I see it in their faces!
 Receive me, Lads! I'll go with you,
 Hunt the black swan and kangaroo,
 And that New Holland we'll presume 110
 Old England with some elbow-room.
 Across the mountains we will roam,
 And each man make himself a home:
 Or, if old habits ne'er forsaking,
 Like clock-work of the Devil's making, 115
 Ourselves inveterate rogues should be,
 We'll have a virtuous progeny;
 And on the dunghill of our vices
 Raise human pine-apples and spices.
 Of all the children of John Bull 120
 With empty heads and bellies full,
 [447]Who ramble East, West, North and South,
 With leaky purse and open mouth,
 In search of varieties exotic
 The usefullest and most patriotic, 125
 And merriest, too, believe me, Sirs!
 Are your Delinquent Travellers!

1824.

FOOTNOTES:

[443:3] From an hitherto unpublished MS., formerly in the possession of Coleridge's friend and amanuensis Joseph Henry Green.

[444:1] The Private Journal of Captain G. F. Lyon of the Mt. Hecla, during the recent voyage of discovery under Captain Parry, was published by John Murray in 1824. In a letter dated May, 1823, Lucy Caroline Lamb writes to Murray:—'If there is yet time, do tell Captain Lyon, that I, and others far bettor than I am, are enchanted with his book.' Memoirs . . . of John Murray, 1891, i. 145.

[446:1] A coast village near Ramsgate. Coleridge passed some weeks at Ramsgate in the late autumn of 1824.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE[447:1]

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY 1825

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
 The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—[447:2]
 And Winter slumbering in the open air,
 Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
 And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, 5
 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! 10
 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.

1825.

FOOTNOTES:

[447:1] First printed in the Bijou for 1828: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834. These lines, as published in the Bijou for 1828, were an excerpt from an entry in a notebook, dated Feb. 21, 1825. They were preceded by a prose introduction, now for the first time printed, and followed by a metrical interpretation or afterthought which was first published in the Notes to the Edition of 1893. For an exact reproduction of the prose and verse as they appear in the notebook, vide Appendices of this edition.

[447:2] Compare the last stanza of George Herbert's Praise:—

O raise me thus! Poor Bees that work all day,
 Sting my delay,
 Who have a work as well as they,
 And much, much more.

LINENOTES:

Title] Lines composed on a day in February. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq. Bijou: Lines composed on the 21st of February, 1827 1828, 1829, 1834.

[1]

Slugs] Snails erased MS. S. T. C.: Stags 1828, 1829, 1885.

[11]
 
 
With unmoist lip and wreathless brow I stroll
With lips unmoisten'd wreathless brow I stroll		  
MS. S. T. C.

SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM[448:1]

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND

FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S
'BOOK OF THE CHURCH' (1825)

POET
I note the moods and feelings men betray,
 And heed them more than aught they do or say;
 The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed
 Still-born or haply strangled in its birth;
 These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed! 5
 These mark the spot where lies the treasure—Worth!
Milner, made up of impudence and trick,[448:2]
 With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick,
 Rome's Brazen Serpent—boldly dares discuss
 The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss! 10
 And with grim triumph and a truculent glee[448:3]
 Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy,
 [449]That made an empire's plighted faith a lie,
 And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye—
 (Pleas'd with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart 15
 To stand outmaster'd in his own black art!)
 Yet Milner—
FRIEND
Enough of Milner! we're agreed,
 Who now defends would then have done the deed.
 But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway,
 Who but must meet the proffered hand half way 20
 When courteous Butler—
POET (aside)
(Rome's smooth go-between!)
FRIEND
Laments the advice that soured a milky queen—
 (For 'bloody' all enlightened men confess
 An antiquated error of the press:)
 Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, 25
 With actual cautery staunched the Church's wounds!
 And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur
 We damn the French and Irish massacre,
 Yet blames them both—and thinks the Pope might err!
 What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield 30
 Against such gentle foes to take the field
 Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?
POET
What think I now? Even what I thought before;—
 What Milner boasts though Butler may deplore,
 Still I repeat, words lead me not astray 35
 When the shown feeling points a different way.
 Smooth Butler can say grace at slander's feast,[449:1]
 And bless each haut-gout cook'd by monk or priest;
 [450]Leaves the full lie on Milner's gong to swell,
 Content with half-truths that do just as well; 40
 But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks,[450:1]
 And with him shares the Irish nation's thanks!
So much for you, my friend! who own a Church,
 And would not leave your mother in the lurch!
 But when a Liberal asks me what I think— 45
 Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink,
 And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam,
 In search of some safe parable I roam—
 An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!
Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, 50
 I see a tiger lapping kitten's food:
 And who shall blame him that he purs applause,
 When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause;
 And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws!
 Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, 55
 I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws
 More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt,
 Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws!

1825, or 1826.

FOOTNOTES:

[448:1] First published in the Evening Standard, May 21, 1827. 'The poem signed ΕΣΤΗΣΕ appeared likewise in the St. James's Chronicle.' See Letter of S. T. C. to J. Blanco White, dated Nov. 28, 1827. Life, 1845, i. 439, 440. First collected in 1834. I have amended the text of 1834 in lines 7, 17, 34, 39 in accordance with a MS. in the possession of the poet's granddaughter, Miss Edith Coleridge. The poem as published in 1834 and every subsequent edition (except 1907) is meaningless. Southey's Book of the Church, 1825, was answered by Charles Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church, 1825, and in an anonymous pamphlet by the Vicar Apostolic, Dr. John Milner, entitled Merlin's Strictures. Southey retaliated in his Vindiciae Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1826. In the latter work he addresses Butler as 'an honourable and courteous opponent'—and contrasts his 'habitual urbanity' with the malignant and scurrilous attacks of that 'ill-mannered man', Dr. Milner. In the 'Dialogue' the poet reminds his 'Friend' Southey that Rome is Rome, a 'brazen serpent', charm she never so wisely. In the Vindiciae Southey devotes pp. 470-506 to an excursus on 'The Rosary'—the invention of St. Dominic. Hence the title—'Sancti Dominici Pallium'.

[448:2] These lines were written before this Prelate's decease. Standard, 1827.

[448:3] Trŭcŭlĕnt: a tribrach as the isochronous substitute for the Trochee ¯ ˘. N. B. If our accent, a quality of sound were actually equivalent to the Quantity in the Greek ¯ ˘ ¯, or dactyl ¯ ˘ ˘ at least. But it is not so, accent shortens syllables: thus Spīrĭt, sprite; Hŏnĕy, mŏnĕy, nŏbŏdy, &c. MS. S. T. C.

[449:1] 'Smooth Butler.' See the Rev. Blanco White's Letter to C. Butler, Esq. MS. S. T. C., Sd. 1827.

[450:1] 'Your coadjutor the Titular Bishop Milner'—Bishop of Castabala I had called him, till I learnt from the present pamphlet that he had been translated to the see of Billingsgate.' Vind. Ecl. Angl. 1826, p. 228, note.

LINENOTES:

Title]—A dialogue written on a Blank Page of Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church. Sd. 1827.

[7]

Milner] —— 1834, 1852: Butler 1893.

[17]

Milner—Milner] ——, —— 1834, 1852: Butler—Butler 1893. Yet Milner] Yet Miln—Sd. 1827.

[25]

Who with a zeal that passed Sd. 1827.

[30]

spear] helm Sd. 1827.

[32]

beckoning] proffered Sd. 1827.

[34]

Milner] —— 1834, 1852: Butler 1893. boasts] lauds Sd. 1827.

[35]

repeat] reply Sd. 1827.