Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Poetry; Year 10

Selected Poems
of

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772-1834

1
Forbearance

(Beareth all things.–1 Cor. xiii. 7.)

Gently I took that which ungently came,

And without scorn forgave:—Do thou the same.

A wrong done to thee think a cat’s-eye spark

Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark.

Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,

Fear that—the spark self-kindled from within,

Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,

Or smother’d stifle thee with noisome air.

Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,

And soon the ventilated spirit finds

Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn’d,

Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,

A rib of dry rot in thy ship’s stout side,

Think it God’s message, and in humble pride

With heart of oak replace it;—thine the gains—

Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

2
Desire

Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame;

It is the reflex of our earthly frame,

That takes its meaning from the nobler part,

And but translates the language of the heart.

3
Duty Surviving Self-Love

The Only Sure Friend of Declining Life
A Soliloquy

Unchanged within, to see all changed without,

Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.

Yet why at others’ Wanings should’st thou fret?

Then only might’st thou feel a just regret,

Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light

In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.

O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,

While, and on whom, thou may’st—shine on! nor heed

Whether the object by reflected light

Return thy radiance or absorb it quite:

And tho’ thou notest from thy safe recess

Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,

Love them for what they are; nor love them less,

Because to thee they are not what they were.

4
Song

Tho’ veiled in spires of myrtle-wreath,

Love is a sword that cuts its sheath,

And thro’ the clefts, itself has made,

We spy the flashes of the Blade!

But thro’ the clefts, itself has made,

We likewise see Love’s flashing blade,

By rust consumed or snapt in twain:

And only Hilt and Stump remain.

5
The Suicide’s Argument

Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no

No question was asked me—it could not be so!

If the life was the question, a thing sent to try

And to live on be yes; what can no be? to die.

NATURE’S ANSWER

Is’t returned, as ’twas sent? Is’t no worse for the wear?

Think first, what you are! Call to mind what you were!

I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,

Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope,

Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?

Make out the invent’ry; inspect, compare!

Then die—if die you dare!

6
The Presence of Love

And in Life’s noisiest hour,

There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,

The heart’s Self-solace and soliloquy.

You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;

And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart

Thro’ all my Being, thro’ my pulses beat;

You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,

Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve

On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.

And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,

How oft! I bless the Lot, that made me love you.

7
Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath

This Sycamore, oft musical with bees,—

Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed

May all its aged boughs o’er-canopy

The small round basin, which this jutting stone

Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring,

Quietly as a sleeping infant’s breath,

Send up cold waters to the traveller

With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease

Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,

Which at the bottom, like a Fairy’s Page,

As merry and no taller, dances still,

Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount.

Here Twilight is and Coolness: here is moss,

A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.

Thou may’st toil far and find no second tree.

Drink, Pilgrim, here; Here rest! and if thy heart

Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh

Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound,

Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!

8
Apologia pro Vita Sua

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,

Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe’s trim bole,

His gifted ken can see

Phantoms of sublimity.

9
A Soliloquy of the Full Moon, She Being in a Mad Passion

Now as Heaven is my Lot, they’re the Pests of the Nation!

Wherever they can come

With clankum and blankum

’Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation,

With fun, jeering

Conjuring

Sky-staring,

Loungering,

And still to the tune of Transmogrification—

Those muttering

Spluttering

Ventriloquogusty

Poets

With no Hats

Or Hats that are rusty.

They’re my Torment and Curse

And harass me worse

And bait me and bay me, far sorer I vow

Than the Screech of the Owl

Or the witch-wolf’s long howl,

Or sheep-killing Butcher-dog’s inward Bow wow

For me they all spite—an unfortunate Wight.

And the very first moment that I came to Light

A Rascal call’d Voss the more to his scandal,

Turn’d me into a sickle with never a handle.

A Night or two after a worse Rogue there came,

The head of the Gang, one Wordsworth by name—

‘Ho! What’s in the wind?’ ’Tis the voice of a Wizzard!

I saw him look at me most terribly blue!

He was hunting for witch-rhymes from great A to Izzard,

And soon as he’d found them made no more ado

But chang’d me at once to a little Canoe.

From this strange Enchantment uncharm’d by degrees

I began to take courage & hop’d for some Ease,

When one Coleridge, a Raff of the self-same Banditti

Past by—& intending no doubt to be witty,

Because I’d th’ ill-fortune his taste to displease,

He turn’d up his nose,

And in pitiful Prose

Made me into the half of a small Cheshire Cheese.

Well, a night or two past—it was wind, rain & hail—

And I ventur’d abroad in a thick Cloak & veil—

But the very first Evening he saw me again

The last mentioned Ruffian popp’d out of his Den—

I was resting a moment on the bare edge of Naddle

I fancy the sight of me turn’d his Brains addle—

For what was I now?

A complete Barley-mow

And when I climb’d higher he made a long leg,

And chang’d me at once to an Ostrich’s Egg—

But now Heaven be praised in contempt of the Loon,

I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.

Yet my heart is still fluttering—

For I heard the Rogue muttering—

He was hulking and skulking at the skirt of a Wood

When lightly & brightly on tip-toe I stood

On the long level Line of a motionless Cloud

And ho! what a Skittle-ground! quoth he aloud

And wish’d from his heart nine Nine-pins to see

In brightness & size just proportion’d to me.

So I fear’d from my soul,

That he’d make me a Bowl,

But in spite of his spite

This was more than his might

And still Heaven be prais’d! in contempt of the Loon

I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.

10
Brockley Coomb

With many a pause and oft reverted eye

I climb the Coomb’s ascent: sweet songsters near

Warble in shade their wild-wood melody:

Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear.

Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock

That on green plots o’er precipices browse:

From the deep fissures of the naked rock

The Yew-tree bursts! Beneath its dark green boughs

(’Mid which the May-thorn blends its blossoms white)

Where broad smooth stones jut out in mossy seats,

I rest:—and now have gained the topmost site.

Ah! what a luxury of landscape meets

My gaze! Proud towers, and Cots more dear to me,

Elm-shadowed Fields, and prospect-bounding Sea.

Deep sighs my lonely heart: I drop the tear:

Enchanting spot! O were my Sara here.

11
The Dungeon

And this place our forefathers made for man!

This is the process of our love and wisdom,

To each poor brother who offends against us—

Most innocent, perhaps—and what if guilty?

Is this the only cure? Merciful God!

Each pore and natural outlet shrivelled up

By Ignorance and parching Poverty,

His energies roll back upon his heart,

And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,

They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot;

Then we call in our pampered mountebanks—

And this is their best cure! uncomforted

And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,

And savage faces, at the clanking hour,

Seen through the steam and vapours of his dungeon,

By the lamp’s dismal twilgiht! So he lies

Circled with evil, till his very soul

Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed

By sights of ever more deformity!

With other ministrations thou, O Nature!

Healest thy wandering and distempered child:

Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,

Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,

Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,

Till he relent, and can no more endure

To be a jarring and a dissonant thing

Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;

But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,

His angry spirit healed and harmonized

By the benignant touch of Love and Beauty.

12
Frost at Midnight

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet’s cry

Came loud,—and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

’Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs

And vexes meditation with its strange

And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,

With all the numberless goings-on of life,

Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame

Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;

Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,

Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

Methinks its motion in this hush of nature

Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,

Making it a companionable form,

Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit

By its own moods interprets, every where

Echo or mirror seeking of itself,

And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,

To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft

With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt

Of my sweet birthplace, and the old church-tower,

Whose bells, the poor man’s only music, rang

From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me

With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear

Most like articulate sounds of things to come!

So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,

Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

And so I brooded all the following morn,

Awed by the stern preceptor’s face, mine eye

Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:

Save if the door half opened, and I snatched

A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,

For still I hoped to see the stranger’s face,

Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

My playmate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,

Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,

Fill up the interspersed vacancies

And momentary pauses of the thought!

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,

And in far other scenes! For I was reared

In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim,

And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

Of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach

Himself in all, and all things in himself.

Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

13
Kubla Khan

[One of Coleridge’s three most famous poems]

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight ’twould win me

That with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

14
Sonnet: To the River Otter

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!

How many various-fated years have passed,

What happy and what mournful hours, since last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,

Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed

Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,

And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,

Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled

Lone manhood’s cares, yet waking fondest sighs:

Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

15
Time, Real and Imaginary

An Allegory

On the wide level of a mountain’s head,

(I knew not where, but ’twas some faery place)

Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,

Two lovely children run an endless race,

A sister and a brother!

This far outstripped the other;

Yet ever runs she with reverted face,

And looks and listens for the boy behind:

For he, alas! is blind!

O’er rough and smooth with even step he passed,

And knows not whether he be first or last.

16
To Nature

It may indeed be fantasy when I

Essay to draw from all created things

Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;

And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie

Lessons of love and earnest piety.

So let it be; and if the wide world rings

In mock of this belief, it brings

Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.

So will I build my altar in the fields,

And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,

And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields

Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,

Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise

Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

17
Work Without Hope

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—

The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—

And Winter slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,

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!

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.

18
Youth and Age

Verse, a breeze ’mid blossoms straying,

Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—

Both were mine! Life went a-maying

With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,

When I was young!

When I was young?—Ah, woeful When!

Ah! for the change ’twixt Now and Then!

This breathing house not built with hands,

This body that does me grievous wrong,

O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands

How lightly then it flashed along,

Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,

On winding lakes and rivers wide,

That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather

When Youth and I lived in’t together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;

Friendship is a sheltering tree;

O the joys! that came down shower-like,

Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,

Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere,

Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here!

O Youth! for years so many and sweet

’Tis known that Thou and I were one,

I’ll think it but a fond conceit—

It cannot be that Thou art gone!

Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled—

And thou wert aye a masker bold!

What strange disguise hast now put on,

To make believe that thou art gone?

I see these locks in silvery slips,

This drooping gait, this altered size:

But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,

And tears take sunshine from thine eyes:

Life is but Thought: so think I will

That Youth and I are housemates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,

But the tears of mournful eve!

Where no hope is, life’s a warning

That only serves to make us grieve

When we are old:

That only serves to make us grieve

With oft and tedious taking-leave,

Like some poor nigh-related guest

That may not rudely be dismist;

Yet hath out-stayed his welcome while,

And tells the jest without the smile.

19
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Part I

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

Mayst hear the merry din.’

He holds him with his skinny hand,

“There was a ship,” quoth he.

‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’

Eftsoons his hand dropped he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—

The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years’ child:

The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

“The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right

Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon—”

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes

The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,

Yet he cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

“And now the storm-blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o’ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe,

And foward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—

The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came;

As it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God’s name.

It ate the food it ne’er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariner’s hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white moonshine.”

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner,

From the fiends that plague thee thus!—

Why look’st thou so?’—“With my crossbow

I shot the Albatross.”

Part II

“The sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left

Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,

But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day for food or play

Came to the mariners’ hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,

And it would work ’em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,

The glorious sun uprist:

Then all averred, I had killed the bird

That brought the fog and mist.

’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,

That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down,

’Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night;

The water, like a witch’s oils,

Burnt green, and blue, and white.

And some in dreams assured were

Of the Spirit that plagued us so;

Nine fathom deep he had followed us

From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.”

Part III

“There passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parched, and glazed each eye.

A weary time! a weary time!

How glazed each weary eye—

When looking westward, I beheld

A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,

And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last

A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!

And still it neared and neared:

As if it dodged a water-sprite,

It plunged and tacked and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood!

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,

And cried, A sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

Agape they heard me call:

Gramercy! they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,

As they were drinking all.

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!

Hither to work us weal;

Without a breeze, without a tide,

She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame,

The day was well nigh done!

Almost upon the western wave

Rested the broad bright sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly

Betwixt us and the sun.

And straight the sun was flecked with bars,

(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!)

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered

With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)

How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the sun,

Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the sun

Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a Death? and are there two?

Is Death that Woman’s mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,

Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,

And the twain were casting dice;

‘The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out:

At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper o’er the sea,

Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night,

The steersman’s face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip—

Till clomb above the eastern bar

The horned moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged moon,

Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,

And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)

With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,

They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,—

They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul it passed me by,

Like the whizz of my crossbow!”

Part IV

‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!

I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,

As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,

And thy skinny hand, so brown.’—

“Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!

This body dropped not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie;

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,

And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,

And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came and made

My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,

Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,

Nor rot nor reek did they:

The look with which they looked on me

Had never passed away.

An orphan’s curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,

And yet I could not die.

The moving moon went up the sky,

And no where did abide:

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside—

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,

Like April hoar-frost spread;

But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,

The charmed water burnt alway

A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship

I watched the water-snakes:

They moved in tracks of shining white,

And when they reared, the elfish light

Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

They coiled and swam; and every track

Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.”

Part V

“Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!

She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,

That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,

That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;

And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,

My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:

I was so light—almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:

It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,

That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!

And a hundred fire-flags sheen,

To and fro they were hurried about!

And to and fro, and in and out,

The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,

And the sails did sigh like sedge;

And the rain poured down from one black cloud;

The moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still

The moon was at its side:

Like waters shot from some high crag,

The lightning fell with never a jag,

A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,

Yet now the ship moved on!

Beneath the lightning and the moon

The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,

Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;

It had been strange, even in a dream,

To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;

Yet never a breeze up blew;

The mariners all ’gan work the ropes,

Where they were wont to do;

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—

We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother’s son

Stood by me, knee to knee:

The body and I pulled at one rope,

But he said nought to me.”

‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’

“Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!

’Twas not those souls that fled in pain,

Which to their corses came again,

But a troop of spirits blest:

For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,

And clustered round the mast;

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,

And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,

Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky

I heard the skylark sing;

Sometimes all little birds that are,

How they seemed to fill the sea and air

With their sweet jargoning!

And now ’twas like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel’s song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night

Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,

Yet never a breeze did breathe;

Slowly and smoothly went the ship,

Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,

From the land of mist and snow,

The spirit slid: and it was he

That made the ship to go.

The sails at noon left off their tune,

And the ship stood still also.

The sun, right up above the mast,

Had fixed her to the ocean:

But in a minute she ’gan stir,

With a short uneasy motion—

Backwards and forwards half her length

With a short uneasy motion.

Then like a pawing horse let go,

She made a sudden bound:

It flung the blood into my head,

And I fell down in a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay,

I have not to declare;

But ere my living life returned,

I heard and in my soul discerned

Two voices in the air.

‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man?

By him who died on cross,

With his cruel bow he laid full low

The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself

In the land of mist and snow,

He loved the bird that loved the man

Who shot him with his bow.’

The other was a softer voice,

As soft as honey-dew:

Quoth he, ‘The man hath penance done,

And penance more will do.’

Part VI

First Voice

But tell me, tell me! speak again,

Thy soft response renewing—

What makes that ship drive on so fast?

What is the ocean doing?

Second Voice

Still as a slave before his lord,

The ocean hath no blast;

His great bright eye most silently

Up to the moon is cast—

If he may know which way to go;

For she guides him smooth or grim.

See, brother, see! how graciously

She looketh down on him.

First Voice

But why drives on that ship so fast,

Without or wave or wind?

Second Voice

The air is cut away before,

And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!

Or we shall be belated:

For slow and slow that ship will go,

When the Mariner’s trance is abated.

“I woke, and we were sailing on

As in a gentle weather:

’Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;

The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,

For a charnel-dungeon fitter:

All fixed on me their stony eyes,

That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,

Had never passed away:

I could not draw my eyes from theirs,

Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapped: once more

I viewed the ocean green,

And looked far forth, yet little saw

Of what had else been seen—

Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,

Nor sound nor motion made:

Its path was not upon the sea,

In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek

Like a meadow-gale of spring—

It mingled strangely with my fears,

Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sailed softly too:

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—

On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed

The lighthouse top I see?

Is this the hill? is this the kirk?

Is this mine own country?

We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,

And I with sobs did pray—

O let me be awake, my God!

Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,

So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

And the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,

That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steeped in silentness

The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,

Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,

In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow

Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck—

Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,

And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,

Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart—

No voice; but oh! the silence sank

Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,

I heard the Pilot’s cheer;

My head was turned perforce away,

And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,

I heard them coming fast:

Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy

The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third—I heard his voice:

It is the Hermit good!

He singeth loud his godly hymns

That he makes in the wood.

He’ll shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away

The Albatross’s blood.”

Part VII

“This Hermit good lives in that wood

Which slopes down to the sea.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!

He loves to talk with marineers

That come from a far country.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—

He hath a cushion plump:

It is the moss that wholly hides

The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,

‘Why, this is strange, I trow!

Where are those lights so many and fair,

That signal made but now?’

‘Strange, by my faith!’ the Hermit said—

‘And they answered not our cheer!

The planks looked warped! and see those sails,

How thin they are and sere!

I never saw aught like to them,

Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag

My forest-brook along;

When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,

That eats the she-wolf’s young.’

‘Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—

(The Pilot made reply)

I am afeared’—‘Push on, push on!’

Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,

But I nor spake nor stirred;

The boat came close beneath the ship,

And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread:

It reached the ship, it split the bay;

The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,

Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found

Within the Pilot’s boat.

Upon the whirl where sank the ship

The boat spun round and round;

And all was still, save that the hill

Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked

And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes,

And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,

Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.

‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he, ‘full plain I see,

The Devil knows how to row.’

And now, all in my own country,

I stood on the firm land!

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,

And scarcely he could stand.

O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!

The Hermit crossed his brow.

‘Say quick,’ quoth he ‘I bid thee say—

What manner of man art thou?’

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!

The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bride-maids singing are;

And hark the little vesper bell,

Which biddeth me to prayer!

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.”

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,

Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest

Turned from the bridegroom’s door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

20
This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison

Addressed to Charles Lamb, of the India House, London

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,

This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost

Beauties and feelings, such as would have been

Most sweet to my remembrance even when age

Had dimm’d mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,

Friends, whom I never more may meet again,

On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,

Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told;

The roaring dell, o’erwooded, narrow, deep,

And only specked by the mid-day sun;

Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock

Flings arching like a bridge; that branchless ash,

Unsunn’d and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves

Ne’er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,

Fann’d by the water-fall! 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

Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge

Beneath the wide wide Heaven and view again

The many-steepled tract magnificent

Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,

With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up

The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles

Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on

In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,

My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined

And hunger’d after Nature, many a year,

In the great City pent, winning thy way

With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain

And strange calamity! Ah! Slowly sink

Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!

Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,

Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!

And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend

Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round

On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem

Less gross than bodily; and of such hues

As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes

Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight

Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad

As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,

This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark’d

Much that has sooth’d me. Pale beneath the blaze

Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch’d

Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov’d to see

The shadow of the leaf and stem above

Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree

Was richly ting’d, and a deep radiance lay

Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps

Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass

Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue

Through the late twilight: and though now the bat

Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,

Yet still the solitary humble-bee

Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know

That Nature ne’er deserts the wise and pure;

No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,

No waste so vacant, but may well employ

Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart

Awake to love and Beauty! and sometimes

’Tis well to be bereft of promis’d good,

That we may lift the soul, and contemplate

With lively joy the joys we cannot share.

My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook

Beat its straight path along the dusky air

Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing

(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)

Had cross’d the mighty Orb’s dilated glory,

While thou stood’st gazing or, when all was still,

Flew creeking o’er thy head, and had a charm

For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom

No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

21
The Pains of Sleep

[One of Coleridge’s meditative ‘conversation poems;’ Coleridge initiated this style of poetry, and it’s become a common approach with modern poets.]

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,

It hath not been my use to pray

With moving lips or bended knees;

But silently, by slow degrees,

My spirit I to Love compose,

In humble trust mine eyelids close,

With reverential resignation,

No wish conceived, no thought expressed,

Only a sense of supplication;

A sense o’er all my soul impressed

That I am weak, yet not unblessed,

Since in me, round me, every where

Eternal strength and wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud

In anguish and in agony,

Up-starting from the fiendish crowd

Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:

A lurid light, a trampling throng,

Sense of intolerable wrong,

And whom I scorned, those only strong!

Thirst of revenge, the powerless will

Still baffled, and yet burning still!

Desire with loathing strangely mixed

On wild or hateful objects fixed.

Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!

And shame and terror over all!

Deeds to be hid which were not hid,

Which all confused I could not know

Whether I suffered, or I did:

For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,

My own or others still the same

Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

So two nights passed: the night’s dismay

Saddened and stunned the coming day.

Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me

Distemper’s worst calamity.

The third night, when my own loud scream

Had waked me from the fiendish dream,

O’ercome with sufferings strange and wild,

I wept as I had been a child;

And having thus by tears subdued

My anguish to a milder mood,

Such punishments, I said, were due

To natures deepliest stained with sin,—

For aye entempesting anew

The unfathomable hell within

The horror of their deeds to view,

To know and loathe, yet wish and do!

Such griefs with such men well agree,

But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?

To be beloved is all I need,

And whom I love, I love indeed.

22
France: an Ode

I

Ye clouds! that far above me float and pause,

Whose pathless march no mortal may control!

Ye Ocean-Waves! that, whereso’er ye roll,

Yield homage only to eternal laws!

Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing,

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,

Save when your own imperious branches swinging,

Have made a solemn music of the wind!

Where, like a man beloved of God,

Through glooms, which never woodmand trod,

How oft, pursuing fancies holy,

My moonlight way o’er flowering weeds I wound,

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,

By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound!

O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high!

And O ye Clouds that far above me soared!

Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky!

Yea! every thing that is and will be free!

Bear witness for me, whereso’er ye be,

With what deep worship I have still adored

The spirit of divinest Liberty.

II

When France in wrath her giant-limbs upreared,

And with that oath, which smote air, earth, and sea,

Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free,

Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared!

With what a joy my lofty gratulation

Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band:

And when to whelm the disenchanted nation,

Like fiends embattled by a wizard’s wand,

The Monarchs marched in evil day,

And Britain joined the dire array;

Though dear her shores and circling ocean,

Though many friendships, many youthful loves

Had swoln the patriot emotion

And flung a magic light o’er all the hills and groves;

Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat

To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance,

And shame too long delayed and vain retreat!

For ne’er, O Liberty! with parial aim

I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame;

But blessed the paeans of delivered France,

And hung my head and wept at Britain’s name.

III

‘And what,’ I said, ‘though Blasphemy’s loud scream

With that sweet music of deliverance strove!

Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove

A dance more wild than e’er was maniac’s dream!

Ye storms, that round the dawning East assembled,

The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light!’

And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled,

The dissonance ceased, and all that seemed calm and bright;

When France her front deep-scarr’d and gory

Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory;

When, unsupportably advancing,

Her arm made mockery of the warrior’s ramp;

While timid looks of fury glancing,

Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp,

Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore;

Then I reproached my fears that would not flee;

‘And soon,’ I said, ‘shall Wisdom teach her lore

In the low huts of them that toil and groan!

And, conquering by her happiness alone,

Shall France compel the nations to be free,

Till love and Joy look round, and call the Earth their own.’

Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams!

I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,

From bleak Helvetia’s icy caverns sent-

I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams!

Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished,

And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows

With bleeding wounds; forgive me, that I cherished

One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes!

To scatter rage, and traitorous guilt,

Where Peace her jealous home had built;

A patriot-race to disinherit

Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear;

And with inexpiable spirit

To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer-

O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,

And patriot only in pernicious toils!

Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind?

To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,

Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey;

To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils

From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray?

The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain,

Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game

They burst their manacles and wear the name

Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain!

O Liberty! with profitless endeavour

Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour;

But thou nor swell’st the victor’s strain, nor ever

Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power.

Alike from all, howe’er they praise thee,

(Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee)

Alike from Priestcraft’s harpy minions,

And factious Blasphemy’s obscener slaves,

Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,

The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves!

And there I felt thee!—on that sea-cliff’s verge,

Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above,

Had made one murmur with the distant surge!

Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,

And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,

Possessing all things with intensest love,

O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.

23
Epitaph

Stop, Christian passer-by: Stop, child of God,

And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod

A poet lies, or that which once seem’d he—

O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.—

That he who many a year with toil of breath

Found death in life, may here find life in death:

Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame—

He ask’d, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.

24
Christabel

PART I

’Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,

And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;

Tu—whit! Tu—whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,

How drowsily it crew.

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,

Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;

From her kennel beneath the rock

She maketh answer to the clock,

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;

Ever and aye, by shine and shower,

Sixteen short howls, not over loud;

Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?

The night is chilly, but not dark.

The thin gray cloud is spread on high,

It covers but not hides the sky.

The moon is behind, and at the full;

And yet she looks both small and dull.

The night is chill, the cloud is gray:

’Tis a month before the month of May,

And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,

Whom her father loves so well,

What makes her in the wood so late,

A furlong from the castle gate?

She had dreams all yesternight

Of her own betrothèd knight;

And she in the midnight wood will pray

For the weal of her lover that’s far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke,

The sighs she heaved were soft and low,

And naught was green upon the oak

But moss and rarest misletoe:

She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,

And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly,

The lovely lady Christabel!

It moaned as near, as near can be,

But what it is she cannot tell.—

On the other side it seems to be,

Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

The night is chill; the forest bare;

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?

There is not wind enough in the air

To move away the ringlet curl

From the lovely lady’s cheek—

There is not wind enough to twirl

The one red leaf, the last of its clan,

That dances as often as dance it can,

Hanging so light, and hanging so high,

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!

Jesu, Maria, shield her well!

She folded her arms beneath her cloak,

And stole to the other side of the oak.

What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,

Drest in a silken robe of white,

That shadowy in the moonlight shone:

The neck that made that white robe wan,

Her stately neck, and arms were bare;

Her blue-veined feet unsandl’d were,

And wildly glittered here and there

The gems entangled in her hair.

I guess, ’twas frightful there to see

A lady so richly clad as she—

Beautiful exceedingly!

Mary mother, save me now!

(Said Christabel) And who art thou?

The lady strange made answer meet,

And her voice was faint and sweet:—

Have pity on my sore distress,

I scarce can speak for weariness:

Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!

Said Christabel, How camest thou here?

And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,

Did thus pursue her answer meet:—

My sire is of a noble line,

And my name is Geraldine:

Five warriors seized me yestermorn,

Me, even me, a maid forlorn:

They choked my cries with force and fright,

And tied me on a palfrey white.

The palfrey was as fleet as wind,

And they rode furiously behind.

They spurred amain, their steeds were white:

And once we crossed the shade of night.

As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,

I have no thought what men they be;

Nor do I know how long it is

(For I have lain entranced I wis)

Since one, the tallest of the five,

Took me from the palfrey’s back,

A weary woman, scarce alive.

Some muttered words his comrades spoke:

He placed me underneath this oak;

He swore they would return with haste;

Whither they went I cannot tell—

I thought I heard, some minutes past,

Sounds as of a castle bell.

Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she).

And help a wretched maid to flee.

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand,

And comforted fair Geraldine:

O well, bright dame! may you command

The service of Sir Leoline;

And gladly our stout chivalry

Will he send forth and friends withal

To guide and guard you safe and free

Home to your noble father’s hall.

She rose: and forth with steps they passed

That strove to be, and were not, fast.

Her gracious stars the lady blest,

And thus spake on sweet Christabel:

All our household are at rest,

The hall as silent as the cell;

Sir Leoline is weak in health,

And may not well awakened be,

But we will move as if in stealth,

And I beseech your courtesy,

This night, to share your couch with me.

They crossed the moat, and Christabel

Took the key that fitted well;

A little door she opened straight,

All in the middle of the gate;

The gate that was ironed within and without,

Where an army in battle array had marched out.

The lady sank, belike through pain,

And Christabel with might and main

Lifted her up, a weary weight,

Over the threshold of the gate:

Then the lady rose again,

And moved, as she were not in pain.

So free from danger, free from fear,

They crossed the court: right glad they were.

And Christabel devoutly cried

To the lady by her side,

Praise we the Virgin all divine

Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!

Alas, alas! said Geraldine,

I cannot speak for weariness.

So free from danger, free from fear,

They crossed the court: right glad they were.

Outside her kennel, the mastiff old

Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.

The mastiff old did not awake,

Yet she an angry moan did make!

And what can ail the mastiff bitch?

Never till now she uttered yell

Beneath the eye of Christabel.

Perhaps it is the owlet’s scritch:

For what can ail the mastiff bitch?

They passed the hall, that echoes still,

Pass as lightly as you will!

The brands were flat, the brands were dying,

Amid their own white ashes lying;

But when the lady passed, there came

A tongue of light, a fit of flame;

And Christabel saw the lady’s eye,

And nothing else saw she thereby,

Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,

Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.

O softly tread, said Christabel,

My father seldom sleepeth well.

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,

And jealous of the listening air

They steal their way from stair to stair,

Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,

And now they pass the Baron’s room,

As still as death, with stifled breath!

And now have reached her chamber door;

And now doth Geraldine press down

The rushes of the chamber floor.

The moon shines dim in the open air,

And not a moonbeam enters here.

But they without its light can see

The chamber carved so curiously,

Carved with figures strange and sweet,

All made out of the carver’s brain,

For a lady’s chamber meet:

The lamp with twofold silver chain

Is fastened to an angel’s feet.

The silver lamp burns dead and dim;

But Christabel the lamp will trim.

She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,

And left it swinging to and fro,

While Geraldine, in wretched plight,

Sank down upon the floor below.

O weary lady, Geraldine,

I pray you, drink this cordial wine!

It is a wine of virtuous powers;

My mother made it of wild flowers.

And will your mother pity me,

Who am a maiden most forlorn?

Christabel answered—Woe is me!

She died the hour that I was born.

I have heard the grey-haired friar tell

How on her death-bed she did say,

That she should hear the castle-bell

Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.

O mother dear! that thou wert here!

I would, said Geraldine, she were!

But soon with altered voice, said she—

‘Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!

I have power to bid thee flee.’

Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?

Why stares she with unsettled eye?

Can she the bodiless dead espy?

And why with hollow voice cries she,

‘Off, woman, off! this hour is mine—

Though thou her guardian spirit be,

Off, woman, off! ’tis given to me.’

Then Christabel knelt by the lady’s side,

And raised to heaven her eyes so blue—

Alas! said she, this ghastly ride—

Dear lady! it hath wildered you!

The lady wiped her moist cold brow,

And faintly said, ‘’tis over now!’

Again the wild-flower wine she drank:

Her fair large eyes ’gan glitter bright,

And from the floor whereon she sank,

The lofty lady stood upright:

She was most beautiful to see,

Like a lady of a far countrèe.

And thus the lofty lady spake—

‘All they who live in the upper sky,

Do love you, holy Christabel!

And you love them, and for their sake

And for the good which me befel,

Even I in my degree will try,

Fair maiden, to requite you well.

But now unrobe yourself; for I

Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.’

Quoth Christabel, So let it be!

And as the lady bade, did she.

Her gentle limbs did she undress,

And lay down in her loveliness.

But through her brain of weal and woe

So many thoughts moved to and fro,

That vain it were her lids to close;

So half-way from the bed she rose,

And on her elbow did recline

To look at the lady Geraldine.

Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,

And slowly rolled her eyes around;

Then drawing in her breath aloud,

Like one that shuddered, she unbound

The cincture from beneath her breast:

Her silken robe, and inner vest,

Dropt to her feet, and full in view,

Behold! her bosom and half her side—

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs;

Ah! what a stricken look was hers!

Deep from within she seems half-way

To lift some weight with sick assay,

And eyes the maid and seeks delay;

Then suddenly, as one defied,

Collects herself in scorn and pride,

And lay down by the Maiden’s side!—

And in her arms the maid she took,

Ah wel-a-day!

And with low voice and doleful look

These words did say:

‘In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,

Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!

Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,

This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;

But vainly thou warrest,

For this is alone in

Thy power to declare,

That in the dim forest

Thou heard’st a low moaning,

And found’st a bright lady, surpassingly fair;

And didst bring her home with thee in love and in charity,

To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.’

THE CONCLUSION TO PART I

It was a lovely sight to see

The lady Christabel, when she

Was praying at the old oak tree.

Amid the jaggèd shadows

Of mossy leafless boughs,

Kneeling in the moonlight,

To make her gentle vows;

Her slender palms together prest,

Heaving sometimes on her breast;

Her face resigned to bliss or bale—

Her face, oh call it fair not pale,

And both blue eyes more bright than clear,

Each about to have a tear.

With open eyes (ah woe is me!)

Asleep, and dreaming fearfully,

Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis,

Dreaming that alone, which is—

O sorrow and shame! Can this be she,

The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree?

And lo! the worker of these harms,

That holds the maiden in her arms,

Seems to slumber still and mild,

As a mother with her child.

A star hath set, a star hath risen,

O Geraldine! since arms of thine

Have been the lovely lady’s prison.

O Geraldine! one hour was thine—

Thou’st had thy will! By tairn and rill,

The night-birds all that hour were still.

But now they are jubilant anew,

From cliffand tower, tu—whoo! tu—whoo!

Tu—whoo! tu—whoo! from wood and fell!

And see! the lady Christabel

Gathers herself from out her trance;

Her limbs relax, her countenance

Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids

Close o’er her eyes; and tears she sheds—

Large tears that leave the lashes bright!

And oft the while she seems to smile

As infants at a sudden light!

Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,

Like a youthful hermitess,

Beauteous in a wilderness,

Who, praying always, prays in sleep.

And, if she move unquietly,

Perchance, ’tis but the blood so free

Comes back and tingles in her feet.

No doubt, she hath a vision sweet.

What if her guardian spirit ’twere,

What if she knew her mother near?

But this she knows, in joys and woes,

That saints will aid if men will call:

For the blue sky bends over all!

PART II

Each matin bell, the Baron saith,

Knells us back to a world of death.

These words Sir Leoline first said,

When he rose and found his lady dead:

These words Sir Leoline will say

Many a morn to his dying day!

And hence the custom and law began

That still at dawn the sacristan,

Who duly pulls the heavy bell,

Five and forty beads must tell

Between each stroke—a warning knell,

Which not a soul can choose but hear

From Bratha Head to Wyndermere.

Saith Bracy the bard, So let it knell!

And let the drowsy sacristan

Still count as slowly as he can!

There is no lack of such, I ween,

As well fill up the space between.

In Langdale Pike and Witch’s Lair,

And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent,

With ropes of rock and bells of air

Three sinful sextons’ ghosts are pent,

Who all give back, one after t’other,

The death-note to their living brother;

And oft too, by the knell offended,

Just as their one! two! three! is ended,

The devil mocks the doleful tale

With a merry peal from Borodale.

The air is still! through mist and cloud

That merry peal comes ringing loud;

And Geraldine shakes off her dread,

And rises lightly from the bed;

Puts on her silken vestments white,

And tricks her hair in lovely plight,

And nothing doubting of her spell

Awakens the lady Christabel.

‘Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel?

I trust that you have rested well.’

And Christabel awoke and spied

The same who lay down by her side—

O rather say, the same whom she

Raised up beneath the old oak tree!

Nay, fairer yet! and yet more fair!

For she belike hath drunken deep

Of all the blessedness of sleep!

And while she spake, her looks, her air

Such gentle thankfulness declare,

That (so it seemed) her girded vests

Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts.

‘Sure I have sinn’d!’ said Christabel,

‘Now heaven be praised if all be well!’

And in low faltering tones, yet sweet,

Did she the lofty lady greet

With such perplexity of mind

As dreams too lively leave behind.

So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed

Her maiden limbs, and having prayed

That He, who on the cross did groan,

Might wash away her sins unknown,

She forthwith led fair Geraldine

To meet her sire, Sir Leoline.

The lovely maid and the lady tall

Are pacing both into the hall,

And pacing on through page and groom,

Enter the Baron’s presence-room.

The Baron rose, and while he prest

His gentle daughter to his breast,

With cheerful wonder in his eyes

The lady Geraldine espies,

And gave such welcome to the same,

As might beseem so bright a dame!

But when he heard the lady’s tale,

And when she told her father’s name,

Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale,

Murmuring o’er the name again,

Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine?

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, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

Sir Leoline, a moment’s space,

Stood gazing on the damsel’s face:

And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine

Came back upon his heart again.

O then the Baron forgot his age,

His noble heart swelled high with rage;

He swore by the wounds in Jesu’s side

He would proclaim it far and wide,

With trump and solemn heraldry,

That they, who thus had wronged the dame,

Were base as spotted infamy!

‘And if they dare deny the same,

My herald shall appoint a week,

And let the recreant traitors seek

My tourney court—that there and then

I may dislodge their reptile souls

From the bodies and forms of men!’

He spake: his eye in lightning rolls!

For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned

In the beautiful lady the child of his friend!

And now the tears were on his face,

And fondly in his arms he took

Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace,

Prolonging it with joyous look.

Which when she viewed, a vision fell

Upon the soul of Christabel,

The vision of fear, the touch and pain!

She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again—

(Ah, woe is me! Was it for thee,

Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?)

Again she saw that bosom old,

Again she felt that bosom cold,

And drew in her breath with a hissing sound:

Whereat the Knight turned wildly round,

And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid

With eyes upraised, as one that prayed.

The touch, the sight, had passed away,

And in its stead that vision blest,

Which comforted her after-rest

While in the lady’s arms she lay,

Had put a rapture in her breast,

And on her lips and o’er her eyes

Spread smiles like light!

With new surprise,

‘What ails then my belovèd child?

The Baron said—His daughter mild

Made answer, ‘All will yet be well!’

I ween, she had no power to tell

Aught else: so mighty was the spell.

Yet he, who saw this Geraldine,

Had deemed her sure a thing divine:

Such sorrow with such grace she blended,

As if she feared she had offended

Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid!

And with such lowly tones she prayed

She might be sent without delay

Home to her father’s mansion.

‘Nay!

Nay, by my soul!’ said Leoline.

‘Ho! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine!

Go thou, with sweet music and loud,

And take two steeds with trappings proud,

And take the youth whom thou lov’st best

To bear thy harp, and learn thy song,

And clothe you both in solemn vest,

And over the mountains haste along,

Lest wandering folk, that are abroad,

Detain you on the valley road.

‘And when he has crossed the Irthing flood,

My merry bard! he hastes, he hastes

Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood,

And reaches soon that castle good

Which stands and threatens Scotland’s wastes.

‘Bard Bracy! bard Bracy! your horses are fleet,

Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet,

More loud than your horses’ echoing feet!

And loud and loud to Lord Roland call,

Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall!

Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free—

Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me!

He bids thee come without delay

With all thy numerous array

And take thy lovely daughter home:

And he will meet thee on the way

With all his numerous array

White with their panting palfreys’ foam:

And, by mine honour! I will say,

That I repent me of the day

When I spake words of fierce disdain

To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine!—

—For since that evil hour hath flown,

Many a summer’s sun hath shone;

Yet ne’er found I a friend again

Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine.

The lady fell, and clasped his knees,

Her face upraised, her eyes o’erflowing;

And Bracy replied, with faltering voice,

His gracious Hail on all bestowing!—

‘Thy words, thou sire of Christabel,

Are sweeter than my harp can tell;

Yet might I gain a boon of thee,

This day my journey should not be,

So strange a dream hath come to me,

That I had vowed with music loud

To clear yon wood from thing unblest.

Warned by a vision in my rest!

For in my sleep I saw that dove,

That gentle bird, whom thou dost love,

And call’st by thy own daughter’s name—

Sir Leoline! I saw the same

Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan,

Among the green herbs in the forest alone.

Which when I saw and when I heard,

I wonder’d what might ail the bird;

For nothing near it could I see

Save the grass and green herbs underneath the old tree.

‘And in my dream methought I went

To search out what might there be found;

And what the sweet bird’s trouble meant,

That thus lay fluttering on the ground.

I went and peered, and could descry

No cause for her distressful cry;

But yet for her dear lady’s sake

I stooped, methought, the dove to take,

When lo! I saw a bright green snake

Coiled around its wings and neck.

Green as the herbs on which it couched,

Close by the dove’s its head it crouched;

And with the dove it heaves and stirs,

Swelling its neck as she swelled hers!

I woke; it was the midnight hour,

The clock was echoing in the tower;

But though my slumber was gone by,

This dream it would not pass away—

It seems to live upon my eye!

And thence I vowed this self-same day

With music strong and saintly song

To wander through the forest bare,

Lest aught unholy loiter there.’

Thus Bracy said: the Baron, the while,

Half-listening heard him with a smile;

Then turned to Lady Geraldine,

His eyes made up of wonder and love;

And said in courtly accents fine,

‘Sweet maid, Lord Roland’s beauteous dove,

With arms more strong than harp or song,

Thy sire and I will crush the snake!’

He kissed her forehead as he spake,

And Geraldine in maiden wise

Casting down her large bright eyes,

With blushing cheek and courtesy fine

She turned her from Sir Leoline;

Softly gathering up her train,

That o’er her right arm fell again;

And folded her arms across her chest,

And couched her head upon her breast,

And looked askance at Christabel

Jesu, Maria, shield her well!

A snake’s small eye blinks dull and shy;

And the lady’s eyes they shrunk in her head,

Each shrunk up to a serpent’s eye

And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread,

At Christabel she looked askance!—

One moment—and the sight was fled!

But Christabel in dizzy trance

Stumbling on the unsteady ground

Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound;

And Geraldine again turned round,

And like a thing, that sought relief,

Full of wonder and full of grief,

She rolled her large bright eyes divine

Wildly on Sir Leoline.

The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone,

She nothing sees—no sight but one!

The maid, devoid of guile and sin,

I know not how, in fearful wise,

So deeply she had drunken in

That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,

That all her features were resigned

To this sole image in her mind:

And passively did imitate

That look of dull and treacherous hate!

And thus she stood, in dizzy trance;

Still picturing that look askance

With forced unconscious sympathy

Full before her father’s view—

As far as such a look could be

In eyes so innocent and blue!

And when the trance was o’er, the maid

Paused awhile, and inly prayed:

Then falling at the Baron’s feet,

‘By my mother’s soul do I entreat

That thou this woman send away!’

She said: and more she could not say:

For what she knew she could not tell,

O’er-mastered by the mighty spell.

Why is thy cheek so wan and wild,

Sir Leoline? Thy only child

Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride,

So fair, so innocent, so mild;

The same, for whom thy lady died!

O by the pangs of her dear mother

Think thou no evil of thy child!

For her, and thee, and for no other,

She prayed the moment ere she died:

Prayed that the babe for whom she died,

Might prove her dear lord’s joy and pride!

That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,

Sir Leoline!

And wouldst thou wrong thy only child,

Her child and thine?

Within the Baron’s heart and brain

If thoughts, like these, had any share,

They only swelled his rage and pain,

And did but work confusion there.

His heart was cleft with pain and rage,

His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild,

Dishonoured thus in his old age;

Dishonoured by his only child,

And all his hospitality

To the wronged daughter of his friend

By more than woman’s jealousy

Brought thus to a disgraceful end—

He rolled his eye with stern regard

Upon the gentle minstrel bard,

And said in tones abrupt, austere—

‘Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here?

I bade thee hence!’ The bard obeyed;

And turning from his own sweet maid,

The agèd knight, Sir Leoline,

Led forth the lady Geraldine!

THE CONCLUSION TO PART II

A little child, a limber elf,

Singing, dancing to itself,

A fairy thing with red round cheeks,

That always finds, and never seeks,

Makes such a vision to the sight

As fills a father’s eyes with light;

And pleasures flow in so thick and fast

Upon his heart, that he at last

Must needs express his love’s excess

With words of unmeant bitterness.

Perhaps ’tis pretty to force together

Thoughts so all unlike each other;

To mutter and mock a broken charm,

To dally with wrong that does no harm.

Perhaps ’tis tender too and pretty

At each wild word to feel within

A sweet recoil of love and pity.

And what, if in a world of sin

(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)

Such giddiness of heart and brain

Comes seldom save from rage and pain,

So talks as it ’s most used to do.

Poems selected by Leslie Laurio

Table of Contents

- 1 Forbearance
- 2 Desire
- 3 Duty Surviving Self-Love
- 4 Song
- 5 The Suicide’s Argument
- 6 The Presence of Love
- 7 Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath
- 8 Apologia pro Vita Sua

- 9 A Soliloquy of the Full Moon, She Being in a Mad Passion

- 10 Brockley Coomb
- 11 The Dungeon
- 12 Frost at Midnight
- 13 Kubla Khan
- 14 Sonnet: To the River Otter
- 15 Time, Real and Imaginary
- 16 To Nature
- 17 Work Without Hope
- 18 Youth and Age
- 19 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- 20 This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison
- 21 The Pains of Sleep
- 22 France: an Ode
- 23 Epitaph
- 24 Christabel