Poems of Coleridge

WESTPHALIAN SONG

[The following is an almost literal translation of a very old and very favourite song among the Westphalian Boors. The turn at the end is the same with one of Mr. Dibdin's excellent songs, and the air to which it is sung by the Boors is remarkably sweet and lively.]

 
  When thou to my true-love com'st
    Greet her from me kindly;
  When she asks thee how I fare?
    Say, folks in Heaven fare finely.
 
 
  When she asks, "What! Is he sick?"
    Say, dead!—and when for sorrow
  She begins to sob and cry,
    Say, I come to-morrow.
 

?1799.

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 toll'd:-
  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 Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
  And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
  Life is but thought: so think I will
  That Youth and I are house-mates 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 outstay'd his welcome while,
  And tells the jest without the smile.
 

1823-1832.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE

LINES COMPOSED 2IST FEBRUARY 1827

 
  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.
 

1827.

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 outstript 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.
 

1815.

LOVE'S APPARITION AND EVANISHMENT

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE

 
      Like a lone Arab, old and blind,
      Some caravan had left behind,
      Who sits beside a ruin'd well,
      Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
  And now he hangs his aged head aslant,
  And listens for a human sound—in vain!
  And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
  Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;—
  Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
  Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
  With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
  I sate upon the couch of camomile;
  And—whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
  Flitted across the idle brain, the while
  I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,
  In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
  Turn'd my eye inward—thee, O genial Hope,
  Love's elder sister! thee did I behold,
  Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
  With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
    Lie lifeless at my feet!
  And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
    And stood beside my seat;
  She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,
    As she was wont to do;—
  Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath
  Woke just enough of life in death
    To make Hope die anew.
 

L'ENVOY

 
  In vain we supplicate the Powers above;
  There is no resurrection for the Love
  That, nursed in tenderest care, yet fades away
  In the chill'd heart by gradual self-decay.
 

1833.

LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION

 
  O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule,
  And sun thee in the light of happy faces;
  Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
  And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
  For as old Atlas on his broad neck places
  Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it;—so
  Do these upbear the little world below
  Of Education,—Patience, Love, and Hope.
  Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show,
  The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope,
  And robes that touching as adown they flow,
  Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow.
  O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
              Love too will sink and die.
  But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
  From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
  And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes,
  And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,
  Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies;—
  Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love.
  Yet haply there will come a weary day,
              When overtask'd at length
  Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
  Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
  Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth,
  And both supporting does the work of both.
 

1829.

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 though 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.
 

1826.

LOVE'S FIRST HOPE

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

?1824.

PHANTOM

 
  All look and likeness caught from earth,
  All accident of kin and birth,
  Had pass'd away. There was no trace
  Of aught on that illumined face,
  Upraised beneath the rifted stone,
  But of one spirit all her own;—
  She, she herself, and only she,
  Shone through her body visibly.
 

1804.

TO NATURE

 
  It may indeed be phantasy: 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.
 

?182O.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS

 
  O! It is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
    Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
  To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
    Or let the easily persuaded eyes
  Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
    Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low
  And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold
    'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go
  From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!
    Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight,
  Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand
    By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,
  Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee
  Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.
 

1819.

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT

 
  Since all that beat about in Nature's range,
  Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain
  The only constant in a world of change,
  O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain?
  Call to the Hours, that in the distance play,
  The faery people of the future day—
  Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarm
  Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
  Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,
  Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
  Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,
  She is not thou, and only thou art she,
  Still, still as though some dear embodied Good,
  Some living Love before my eyes there stood
  With answering look a ready ear to lend,
  I mourn to thee and say—"Ah! loveliest friend!
  That this the meed of all my toils might be,
  To have a home, an English home, and thee!"
  Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one.
  The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon,
  Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark,
  Without thee were but a becalmed bark,
  Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide
  Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.
 
 
  And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when
  The woodman winding westward up the glen
  At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze
  The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze,
  Sees full before him, gliding without tread,
  An image with a glory round its head;
  The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues,
  Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues!
 

?1805.

PHANTOM OR FACT

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE

AUTHOR

 
  A Lovely form there sate beside my bed,
  And such a feeding calm its presence shed,
  A tender love so pure from earthly leaven,
  That I unnethe the fancy might control,
  'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven,
  Wooing its gentle way into my soul!
  But ah! the change—It had not stirr'd, and yet—
  Alas! that change how fain would I forget!
  That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!
  That weary, wandering, disavowing look!
  'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame,
  And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!
 

FRIEND

 
  This riddling tale, to what does it belong?
  Is't history? vision? or an idle song?
  Or rather say at once, within what space
  Of time this wild disastrous change took place?
 

AUTHOR

 
  Call it a moment's work (and such it seems)
  This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams;
  But say, that years matur'd the silent strife,
  And 'tis a record from the dream of life.
 

?183O.

LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS OB. ANNO DOM. 1O88

 
  No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope
  Soon shall I now before my God appear,
  By him to be acquitted, as I hope;
  By him to be condemned, as I fear.—
 

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE

 
  Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed,
  Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said:
  I see a hope spring from that humble fear.
  All are not strong alike through storms to steer
  Right onward. What though dread of threatened death
  And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath
  Inconstant to the truth within thy heart?
  That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,
  Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,
  Or not so vital as to claim thy life:
  And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew
  Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!
 
 
  Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own,
  Judge him who won them when he stood alone,
  And proudly talk of recreant Berengare—
  O first the age, and then the man compare!
  That age how dark! congenial minds how rare!
  No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn!
  No throbbing hearts awaited his return!
  Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell,
  He only disenchanted from the spell,
  Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
  Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:
  And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
  That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?
 
 
  The ascending day-star with a bolder eye
  Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn!
  Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry
  The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn;
  Lest so we tempt the approaching Noon to scorn
  The mists and painted vapours of our Morn.
 

?1826.

FORBEARANCE

Beareth all things.—2 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!
 

1832.

SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND

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

POET

 
  I note the moods and feelings men betray,
  And heed them more than aught they do or say;
  The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed
  Still-born or haply strangled in its birth;
  These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed!
  These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth!
 
 
  Butler made up of impudence and trick,
  With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick,
  Rome's brazen serpent—boldly dares discuss
  The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss!
  And with grim triumph and a truculent glee
  Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy,
  That made an empire's plighted faith a lie,
  And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye—
  (Pleased with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart
  To stand outmaster'd in his own black art!)
  Yet Butler-
 

FRIEND

 
    Enough of Butler! we're agreed,
  Who now defends would then have done the deed.
  But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway,
  Who but must meet the proffer'd hand half way
  When courteous Butler—
 
 
POET (aside)
 
 
(Rome's smooth go-between!)
 

FRIEND

 
    Laments the advice that sour'd a milky queen—
  (For "bloody" all enlighten'd men confess
  An antiquated error of the press:)
  Who, rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds,
  With actual cautery staunch'd the Church's wounds!
  And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur
  We damn the French and Irish massacre,
  Yet blames them both—and thinks the Pope might err!
  What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield
  Against such gentle foes to take the field
  Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?
 

POET

 
    What think I now? Even what I thought before;—
  What Butler boasts though Butler may deplore,
  Still I repeat, words lead me not astray
  When the shown feeling points a different way.
  Smooth Butler can say grace at slander's feast,
  And bless each haut-gout cook'd by monk or priest;
  Leaves the full lie on Butler's gong to swell,
  Content with half-truths that do just as well;
  But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks,
  And with him shares the Irish nation's thanks!
 
 
    So much for you, my friend! who own a Church,
  And would not leave your mother in the lurch!
  But when a Liberal asks me what I think—
  Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink,
  And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam,
  In search of some safe parable I roam—
  An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!
 
 
    Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood,
  I see a tiger lapping kitten's food:
  And who shall blame him that he purs applause,
  When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause;
  And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws!
  Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt,
  I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws
  More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt,
  Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws!
 

1825, or 1826.

ON DONNE'S POETRY

 
  With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
  Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots;
  Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
  Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.
 

?1818.

ON A BAD SINGER

 
  Swans sing before they die—'twere no bad thing
  Should certain persons die before they sing.
 

NE PLUS ULTRA

 
            Sole Positive of Night!
            Antipathist of Light!
  Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod—
  The one permitted opposite of God!—
  Condensed blackness and abysmal storm
        Compacted to one sceptre
          Arms the Grasp enorm—
            The Interceptor—
  The Substance that still casts the shadow
          Death!—
        The Dragon foul and fell—
          The unrevealable,
  And hidden one, whose breath
  Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell!—
        Ah! sole despair
      Of both the eternities in Heaven!
  Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer,
        The all-compassionate!
      Save to the Lampads Seven
  Reveal'd to none of all the Angelic State,
      Save to the Lampads Seven,
      That watch the throne of Heaven!
 

?1826.

HUMAN LIFE

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY

 
  If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
    Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
  As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
    Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
  But are their whole of being! If the breath
    Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
  If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
    O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
  Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
    Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
  Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
  Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
    She formed with restless hands unconsciously.
  Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
    If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
  Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,
  The counter-weights!—Thy laughter and thy tears
    Mean but themselves, each fittest to create
  And to repay each other! Why rejoices
    Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?
    Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood,
  Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,
    Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,
  That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?
  Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
    These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?
  Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
  Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none;
  Thy being's being is contradiction.
 

?1815.

THE BUTTERFLY

 
  The Butterfly the ancient Grecians made
  The soul's fair emblem, and its only name—
  But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
  Of earthly life!—For in this mortal frame
  Our's is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
  Manifold motions making little speed,
  And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.
 

?1815.

THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL

AN ALLEGORY

I

 
  He too has flitted from his secret nest,
  Hope's last and dearest child without a name!—
  Has flitted from me, like the warmthless flame,
  That makes false promise of a place of rest
  To the tired Pilgrim's still believing mind;—
  Or like some Elfin Knight in kingly court,
  Who having won all guerdons in his sport,
  Glides out of view, and whither none can find!
 

II

 
  Yes! he hath flitted from me—with what aim,
  Or why, I know not! 'Twas a home of bliss,
  And he was innocent, as the pretty shame
  Of babe, that tempts and shuns the menaced kiss,
  From its twy-cluster'd hiding place of snow!
  Pure as the babe, I ween, and all aglow
  As the dear hopes, that swell the mother's breast—
  Her eyes down gazing o'er her clasped charge;—
  Yet gay as that twice happy father's kiss,
  That well might glance aside, yet never miss,
  Where the sweet mark emboss'd so sweet a targe—
  Twice wretched he who hath been doubly blest!
 

III

 
  Like a loose blossom on a gusty night
  He flitted from me—and has left behind
  (As if to them his faith he ne'er did plight)
  Of either sex and answerable mind
  Two playmates, twin-births of his foster-dame:—
  The one a steady lad (Esteem he hight)
  And Kindness is the gentler sister's name.
  Dim likeness now, though fair she be and good,
  Of that bright boy who hath us all forsook;—
  But in his full-eyed aspect when she stood,
  And while her face reflected every look,
  And in reflection kindled—she became
  So like him, that almost she seem'd the same!
 

IV

 
  Ah! he is gone, and yet will not depart!—
  Is with me still, yet I from him exiled!
  For still there lives within my secret heart
  The magic image of the magic Child,
  Which there he made up-grow by his strong art,
  As in that crystal orb—wise Merlin's feat,—
  The wondrous "World of Glass," wherein inisled
  All long'd for things their beings did repeat;—
  And there he left it, like a Sylph beguiled,
  To live and yearn and languish incomplete!
 

V

 
  Can wit of man a heavier grief reveal?
  Can sharper pang from hate or scorn arise?—
  Yes! one more sharp there is that deeper lies,
  Which fond Esteem but mocks when he would heal.
  Yet neither scorn nor hate did it devise,
  But sad compassion and atoning zeal!
  One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray'd!
  And this it is my woeful hap to feel,
  When, at her Brother's hest, the twin-born Maid
  With face averted and unsteady eyes,
  Her truant playmate's faded robe puts on;
  And inly shrinking from her own disguise
  Enacts the faery Boy that's lost and gone.
  O worse than all! O pang all pangs above
  Is Kindness counterfeiting absent Love!
 

?1811