Dreams (the soul herself forsaking), On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc ! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines, How silently! Around thee and above Oye hopes, that stir within me, Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense; Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer Cupid, if storying legends* tell aright, I worshipp'd the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, With these the magic dews, which evening brings, Thou, the meanwhile, wası blending with my Thought, Brush'd from the Idalian star. by faery wings : Yea with my Life and Life's own secret Joy : Each tender pledge of sacred faith he join'd, Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing--there Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn. Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale! And visited all night by troops of stars, Companion of the Morning-Star at dawn, Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, 0 wake, and utter praise' Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who fill’d thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams? And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who call'd you forth from night and utter death, Schiller. From dark and icy caverns callid you forth. For ever shatter'd and the same for ever? Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy Besides the Rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents And who commanded (and the silence came), rush down its sides, and within a few paces of the Glaciers. Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest? the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its “ dowers of loveliest blue.' Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's bron Adown enormous ravines slope arnain Ilast thou a charm to stay the Morning-Star Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice, And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge! Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full Moon? Who bade the Sun Ambrosive succos occulta temperat arte, Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flower Fragransqne infuso nectare tingit opus. Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ?-- God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God! 46 1 Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost' My native land ! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! Fill'd with the thought of thee this heart was proud Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Yea, mine eye swam with tears: that all the view Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills, Ye signs and wonders of the element ! Floated away, like a departing dream, Blame thou not lightly ; nor will I profane, That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel Mankind to be one mighty Family, Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou Himself our Father, and the World our Home. That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dir eyes suffused with tears, ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST CF Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, FEBRUARY, 1796. To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Sweet Flower! that peeping from thy russet stem Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Unfoldest timidly (for in strange sort Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven, This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, month And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising sun Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. With blue voluptuous eye), alas, poor Flower! To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth, Nipp'd by Consumption 'mid untimely charms? WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE An Amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd to own, Or to Bristowa's Bard,* the wondrous boy! Till Disappointment came, and pelting wrong Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's Hope, Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills, Bright flower of Hope kill'd in the opening bud ? A surging scene, and only limited By the blue distance. Heavily my way Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine, Downward I dragg'd through fir-groves evermore, And mock my boding! Dim similitudes Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms From anxious SELF, Life's cruel Task-Master! Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard, The sweet bird's song became a hollow sound; And the warm wooings of this sunny day Tremble along my frame, and harmonize The attemper'd organ, that even saddest thoughts Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes Play'd defily on a soft-toned instrument. THE EOLIAN HARP. COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE Their finer influence from the Life within : My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Fair ciphers else : fair, but of import vague Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is Or unconcerning, where the Heart not finds To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown History or prophecy of Friend, or Child, With white-lower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Or gentle Maid, our first and early love, Myrtle, Or Father, or the venerable name (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) Of our adored Country! O thou Queen, And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Thou delegated Deity of Earth, Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve O dear, dear England! how my longing eye Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) Turn'd westward, shaping in the steady clouds Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents Thy sands and high white cliffs ! Snatch'd from you bean-field! and the world so hush'd! The stilly murmur of the distant Sea * The highest mountain in the Hartz, and indeed in North Tells us of Silence. Germany. t -When I have gazed And that simplest Lute, From Britt high rmincnce on goodly vales, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark And e 18 and villages embower'd below, How by the desultory breeze caress'd, Like some coy maid half yielding to her loof, • Charterton. It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye. The Valley of Seclusion once I saw (Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) Such a soft floating witchery of sound A wealthy son of commerce saunter by, As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Bristowa’s citizen: methought, it calm'd Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse Where Melodies mund honey-dropping flowers, With wiser feelings; for he paused, and look'd Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round again, O the one life within us and abroad, And sigh'd, and said, it was a blessed place. Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere- |(Viewless or haply for a moment seen Methinks, it should have been impossible Gleaming on sunny wings), in whisper'd tones Not to love all things in a world so fillid; I've said to my beloved, “ Such, sweet girl! Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard When the soul seeks to hear; when all is bush'd, And thus, my love! as on the midway slope And the Heart listens !" But the time, when first The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, From that low dell, steep up the stony Mount And tranquil muse upon tranquillity; I climbid with perilous toil, and reach'd the top, Full many a thought uncall’d and undetain'd, Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak Mount, And many idle sitting phantasies, The bare bleak Mountain speckled thin with sheep Traverse my indolent and passive brain, Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ; As wild and various as the random gales And River, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd, That swell and flutter on this subject lute! Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ; And Seats, and Lawns, the Abbey and the Wood, And what if all of animated nature And Cots, and Hamlets, and faint City-spire ; Be but organic harps diversely framed, The Channel there, the Islands and white Sails, That trembde into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Dim Coasts, and cloud-like Hills, and shoreless Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, Ocean At once the Soul of each, and God of All? It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought, Had built him there a Temple: the whole World But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Seem'd imaged in iis vast circumference, Blest hour! It was a luxury,—10 be! Ah! quiet dell; dear cot, and Mount sublime! These shapings of the unregenerate mind; I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumber'd brethren toild and bled, Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break That I should dream away the intrusted hours On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring. On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart For never guiltless may I speak of him, The Incomprehensible! save when with awe With feelings all too delicate for use? Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels ; Who with his saving mercies healed me, Drops on the check of One he lifts from Earth: And He that works me good with unmoved face, A sinful and most miserable Man, Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess Does it but half: he chills me while he aids, Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honor'd Maid ! My Benefactor, not my Brother Man! Yet even this, this cold beneficence, Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE Nursing in some delicious solitude Their slothful loves and dainty Sympathies ! I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand, Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ. Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest rose Yet oft, when after honorable toil And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air. Ah-had none greater! And that all had such! Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee! Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl ; TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON. WITH SOME POEMS. Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours, Notus in fratres animi paterni. When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear Hor. Carm. lib. i. 2. To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times, Cope with the tempest's swell! These various strains And haply views his totterin little ones Which I have framed in many a various mood, Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap, Accept, my Brother! and (for some perchance On which first kneeling his own infancy Will strike discordant on thy milder mind) Lisp'd its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend! If aught of Error or intemperate Truth Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy. Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age At distance did ye climb Life's upland road, Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it! Yet cheer'd and cheering: now fraternal love Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live! INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH. To me th’Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed A different fortune and more ditterent mind- This Sycamore, ost musical with bees, Me from the spot where first I sprang to light Such tents the Patriarchs loved ! O long unharmd Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy Its first domestic loves ; and hence through life The small round basin, which this jutting stone Chasing chance-started Friendships. A brief while Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring, Some have preserved me from Life's pelting ills; Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath, But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem, Send up cold waters to the traveller If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance, Dropp'd the collected shower; and some most false, Which at the bottom, like a fairy's page, Faise and fair foliaged as the Manchineel, As merry and no taller, dances still, Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh A TOMBLESS EPITAPH. |"T is true, Idoloclastes Satyrane! Yet at times (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise, My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Sull mosi a stranger, most with naked heart Masking his birth-name, wont to character At mine own home and birth-place : chiefly then, His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal) When I remember thee, my earliest Friend! "T is true that, passionate for ancient truths, Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth ; And honoring with religious love the Great Didst trace my wanderings with a Father's eye; Of elder times, he hated to excess, And bwding evil, yet still hoping good, With an unquiet and intolerant scorn. Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes The hollow puppets of a hollow age, Sorrow'd in silence! He who counts alone Ever idolatrous, and changing ever The beatings of the solitary heart, Its worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and Time That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever, (Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 't is true, The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles In gladness all ; but thou, methinks, most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles ! fur thou hast pined In the great city pent, winning thy way With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pair For not a hidden Path, that to the Shades And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads, Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun ! Lurk'd undiscover'd by him ; not a rill Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! But he had traced it upward to its source, Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves ! Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell. And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my Friend, Knew the gay wild-flowers on its banks, and culla Siruck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood, Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily ; and of such hues A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, Yet docile, childlike, full of life and love! This liule lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd Here, rather than on monumental stone, Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the bla za This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, Hung the transparent foliage ; and I watch'd Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek. Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass, In the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a visit Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue to the Author's Cottage; and on the morning of their ar- Through the late twilight: and though now the Bar rival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from Wheels silent by, and not a Swallow twitters, walking during the whole time of their stay. One Evening. Yet still the solitary Humble-Bee when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know following lines in the Garden Bower. That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure : No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, No waste so vacant, but may well employ This Lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Beanties and feelings, such as would have been Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes Most sweet to my remembrance, even when age "T is well to be bereft of promised good, Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, mean- That we may lift the soul, ad contemplate while, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles ! when the last Rook On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, Beat its straight path along the dusky air Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing To that still roaring dell, of which I told : (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, Had cross'd the mighty Orbis dilated glory, And only speckled by the mid-day sun ; While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still, Where its slim trunk the Ash from rock to rock Flew creakingt o'er thy head, and had a charm Flings arching like a bridge ;-that branchless Ash, For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fann'd by the waterfall! and there my friends Behold the dark-green file of long lank weeds,* That all at once a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge TO A FRIEND Of the blue clay-stone. Now, my Friends emerge WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING Beneath the wide wide Heaven-and view again NO MORE POETRY. The many-steepled tract magnificent Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount The Asplenium Scolopendrium, called in some countries Some months after I had written this line, it gave me pleathe Adder's Tongue, in others the Hart's Tongue ; but With sure to observe that Bartram had observed the same circumering gives the Adder's Tongue as the trivial name of the stanco of the Savanna Crane. * When theso Birds move Ophioglossum only. their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, moderate and |