Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Born 1772
Died 1834

THIS gifted thinker and poet was the son of the Rev. John Coleridge, Vicar of St Mary's Ottery, Devonshire, and was born on 20th October 1772. He received his education at Christ's Hospital, where, without desire or ambition, his talents and superiority placed him ever at the head of his class. In 1791 Coleridge entered Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained till 1793. But having contracted some debts, in a fit of despondency he enlisted as a soldier in the 15th Light Dragoons. Here his education soon made his position in society known, and his friends, to his great satisfaction, as he made but a sorry dragoon, bought him off. In 1794 Coleridge became acquainted with Southey, and formed a friendship which affected his future history. In conjunction with him he wrote and published "The Fall of Robespierre," a poem, and spent the remainder of the year in lecturing on revealed religion, he having become a Unitarian. Southey and he afterwards married two sisters of the name of Fricker. Coleridge also established a periodical called "The Watchman," which however soon became defunct, from his incurable unpunctuality. He was at this time put to many shifts to obtain a living, though his family and friends were most anxious to help him.

In 1798 appeared his fascinating tale of "The Ancient Mariner," "The Foster-Mother's Tale," &c.; and about the same time he was by the liberality of the Messrs Wedgewood, who settled £150 a-year on him, enabled to proceed to Germany to complete his education. On his return in 1800 he went to reside with Southey at Keswick; at this time his Unitarian views underwent a change, and he became a firm believer in the doctrine of the Trinity. The same year Coleridge issued his translation, or rather transfusion, of Schiller's "Wallenstein," in which he has thrown some of the choicest graces of his own fancy. He obtained also employment as an occasional contributor to the "Morning Post," his unbusinesslike habits making regular contributions impossible. In 1804 he went to Malta to recruit his health, which was suffering greatly from his addiction to opium; he obtained there the post of secretary to the Governor, but he only held the situation nine months. On his return he took up his abode at Grasmere; and in 1816, at the recommendation of Byron, he published Christabel, "a wild and wondrous tale." This was written many years before, but it appears to have been Coleridge's custom to retain his poems for years before publishing them. Coleridge now began to reap the fruits of his genius; he obtained considerable sums from his poetical and prose works, which had a very wide circulation. Fortunately for his after life he was able to give up the use of opium, which was proving so pernicious to his health. In 1816 he took up his residence with Mr Gilman, a surgeon, of Highgate Grove, to whose care and skill Coleridge was indebted for the comparative ease and comfort of his later days. He died at Highgate, 25th July 1834.

FROM "THE ANCIENT MARINER.'

"O WEDDING-GUEST! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea;

So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company!

"To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

"Farewell, farewell; but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest:
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

FROM "ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR [1795].'

SPIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of time!
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear,
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!

Yet, mine eye fixed on heaven's unchanging clime,
Long when I listened, free from mortal fear,
With inward stillness, and submitted mind;
When lo! its folds far waving on the wind.
I saw the train of the departing year!

Starting from my silent sadness,

Then with no unholy madness,

Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight,

I raised the impetuous song, and solemnised his might.

Hither, from the recent tomb,
From the prison's direr gloom,

From Distemper's midnight anguish ;

And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish ;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines manhood's maze;

Or where, o'er cradled infants bending,
Hope has fixed her wistful gaze,

Hither, in perplexed dance,

Ye Woes! ye young-eyed joys! advance!
By Time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep

Raises its fateful strings from sleep.
I bid you haste, a mixed, tumultuous band!
From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth,

Haste for one solemn hour;

And with a loud and yet a louder voice,
O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth,
Weep and rejoice!

Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of hell:
And now advance, in saintly jubilee,

Justice and Truth! They, too, have heard thy spell,
They, too, obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

Departing year! 'twas on no earthly shore
My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore,
With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone
Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,

From the choirèd gods advancing,

The Spirit of the earth made reverence meet,
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE

IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
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.

Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it.
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy. Awake,
Voice of sweet song! awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

FROM "CHRISTABEL."

ALAS! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.

Each spake words of high disdain

And insult to his heart's best brother
They parted--ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining -
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between ;-

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

Mrs Mary Tighe.

Born 1773

Died 1810

AN Irish poetess, daughter of Rev. M. Blackford, County Wicklow, her chief poem is "Psyche."

FROM "PSYCHE."

GENTLY ascending from a silvery flood,
Above the palace rose the shaded hill,
The lofty eminence was crowned with wood,
And the rich lawns, adorned by nature's skill,
The passing breezes with their odours fill;
Here ever blooming groves of orange glow,
And here all flowers, which from their leaves distil
Ambrosial dew, in sweet succession blow,
And trees of matchless size a fragrant shade bestow.
The sun looks glorious 'mid a sky serene,
And bids bright lustre sparkle o'er the tide;
The clear blue ocean at a distance seen,
Bounds the gay landscape on the western side,
While closing round it with majestic pride,
The lofty rocks 'mid citron groves arise;
"Sure some divinity must here reside,"

As tranced in some bright vision, Psyche cries,
And scarce believes the bliss, or trusts her charmèd eyes.
When lo! a voice divinely sweet she hears,
From unseen lips proceeds the heavenly sound;
"Psyche approach, dismiss thy timid fears,
At length his bride thy longing spouse has found,
And bids for thee immortal joys abound;
For thee the palace rose at his command,
For thee his love a bridal banquet crowned;
He bids attendant nymphs around thee stand,
Prompt every wish to serve a fond obedient band."
Increasing wonder filled her ravished soul,
For now the pompous portals opened wide,
There, pausing oft, with timid foot she stole
Through halls high-domed, enriched with sculptured pride,
While gay saloons appeared on either side,
In splendid vista opening to her sight;
And all with precious gems so beautified,
And furnished with such exquisite delight,

That scarce the beams of heaven emit such lustre bright.