Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems

THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE SECOND

  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 660  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. 665  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 670  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 675  Comes seldom save from rage and pain,  So talks as it's most used to do.

KUBLA KHAN

  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. 5  So twice five miles of fertile ground  With walls and towers were girdled round:  And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;  And here were forests ancient as the hills, 10  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 15  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 20  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 25  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! 30      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, 35  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, 40      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, 45  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! 50  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.

LOVE

  All thoughts, all passions, all delights,  Whatever stirs this mortal frame,  All are but ministers of Love,    And feed his sacred flame.  Oft in my waking dreams do I 5  Live o'er again that happy hour,  When midway on the mount I lay,    Beside the ruined tower.  The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,  Had blended with the lights of eve; 10  And she was there, my hope, my joy,    My own dear Genevieve!  She leant against the armed man,  The statue of the armed knight;  She stood and listened to my lay, 15    Amid the lingering light.  Few sorrows hath she of her own.  My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!  She loves me best, whene'er I sing    The songs that make her grieve. 20  I played a soft and doleful air,  I sang an old and moving story—  An old rude song, that suited well    That ruin wild and hoary.  She listened with a flitting blush, 25  With downcast eyes and modest grace;  For well she knew, I could not choose    But gaze upon her face.  I told her of the Knight that wore  Upon his shield a burning brand; 30  And that for ten long years he wooed    The Lady of the Land.  I told her how he pined: and ah!  The deep, the low, the pleading tone  With which I sang another's love, 35    Interpreted my own.  She listened with a flitting blush,  With downcast eyes, and modest grace  And she forgave me, that I gazed    Too fondly on her face! 40  But when I told the cruel scorn  That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,  And that he crossed the mountain-woods,    Nor rested day nor night;  That sometimes from the savage den, 45  And sometimes from the darksome shade,  And sometimes starting up at once    In green and sunny glade,—  There came and looked him in the face  An angel beautiful and bright; 50  And that he knew it was a Fiend,    This miserable Knight!  And that unknowing what he did,  He leaped amid a murderous band,  And saved from outrage worse than death 55    The Lady of the Land!  And how she wept, and clasped his knees;  And how she tended him in vain—  And ever strove to expiate    The scorn that crazed his brain;– 60  And that she nursed him in a cave;  And how his madness went away,  When on the yellow forest-leaves    A dying man he lay;—  His dying words—but when I reached 65  That tenderest strain of all the ditty,  My faltering voice and pausing harp    Disturbed her soul with pity!  All impulses of soul and sense  Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve; 70  The music and the doleful tale,    The rich and balmy eve;  And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,  An undistinguishable throng,  And gentle wishes long subdued, 75    Subdued and cherished long!  She wept with pity and delight,  She blushed with love, and virgin-shame;  And like the murmur of a dream,    I heard her breathe my name. 80  Her bosom heaved—she stepped aside,  As conscious of my look she stepped—  Then suddenly, with timorous eye    She fled to me and wept.  She half enclosed me with her arms, 85  She pressed me with a meek embrace;  And bending back her head, looked up,    And gazed upon my face.  'Twas partly love, and partly fear,  And partly 'twas a bashful art, 90  That I might rather feel, than see,    The swelling of her heart.  I calmed her fears, and she was calm,  And told her love with virgin pride;  And so I won my Genevieve, 95    My bright and beauteous Bride.

FRANCE: AN ODE

I

  Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause,    Whose pathless march no mortal may control!    Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll,  Yield homage only to eternal laws!  Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds' singing, 5    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 woodman trod, 10      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! 15    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, wheresoe'er ye be,    With what deep worship I have still adored 20    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! 25  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, 30  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 her hills and groves; 35  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 partial aim  I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame; 40    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 45  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 seemed calm and bright; 50    When France her front deep-scarred and gory    Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory;      When, insupportably advancing,    Her arm made mockery of the warrior's ramp;      While timid looks of fury glancing, 55    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! 60  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."

IV

  Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams!    I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, 65    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 70  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; 75      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? 80    To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,  Tell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey;  To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils  From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray?

V

      The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, 85    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; 90    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, 95    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, 100  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. 105

DEJECTION: AN ODE

WRITTEN APRIL 4, 1802

  Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,  With the old Moon in her arms;  And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!  We shall have a deadly storm.

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.

I

  Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made    The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,    This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence  Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade  Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, 5  Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes      Upon the strings of this Aeolian lute,      Which better far were mute.    For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!    And overspread with phantom light, 10    (With swimming phantom light o'erspread    But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)  I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling    The coming-on of rain and squally blast.  And oh! that even now the gust were swelling, 15    And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!  Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,      And sent my soul abroad,  Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,  Might startle this dull pain, and make it move so and live! 20

II

  A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,    A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,    Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,        In word, or sigh, or tear—  O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, 25  To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed,    All this long eve, so balmy and serene,  Have I been gazing on the western sky,    And its peculiar tint of yellow green:  And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye! 30  And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,  That give away their motion to the stars;  Those stars, that glide behind them or between,  Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:  Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew 35  In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;  I see them all so excellently fair,  I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

III

      My genial spirits fail;      And what can these avail 40  To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?      It were a vain endeavour,      Though I should gaze for ever  On that green light that lingers in the west:  I may not hope from outward forms to win 45  The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

IV

  O Lady! we receive but what we give,  And in our life alone does Nature live:  Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!    And would we aught behold, of higher worth. 50  Than that inanimate cold world allowed  To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,    Ah, from the soul itself must issue forth  A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud      Enveloping the Earth— 55  And from the soul itself must there be sent    A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,  Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

V

  O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me  What this strong music in the soul may be! 60  What, and wherein it doth exist,  This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,  This beautiful and beauty-making power.    Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,  Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, 65  Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,  Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,  Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,    A new Earth and new Heaven,  Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud— 70  Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—      We in ourselves rejoice!  And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,    All melodies the echoes of that voice,  All colours a suffusion from that light. 75

VI

  There was a time when, though my path was rough,    This joy within me dallied with distress,  And all misfortunes were but as the stuff    Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:  For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, 80  And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.  But now afflictions bow me down to earth:  Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;      But oh! each visitation  Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, 85    My shaping spirit of Imagination.  For not to think of what I needs must feel,    But to be still and patient, all I can;  And haply by abstruse research to steal    From my own nature all the natural man— 90    This was my sole resource, my only plan:  Till that which suits a part infects the whole,  And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

VII

  Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,      Reality's dark dream! 95  I turn from you, and listen to the wind,    Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream  Of agony by torture lengthened out  That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without,    Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree, 100  Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,  Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,    Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,  Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,  Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, 105  Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,  The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.    Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!  Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold!      What tell'st thou now about? 110      'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout,    With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds—  At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!  But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!    And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, 115  With groans, and tremulous shudderings—all is over—    It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!      A tale of less affright,      And tempered with delight,  As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 120      'Tis of a little child      Upon a lonesome wild,  Not far from home, but she hath lost her way:  And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,  And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear. 125

VIII

  'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:  Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!  Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,    And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,  May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, 130    Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!      With light heart may she rise,      Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,    Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;  To her may all things live, from pole to pole, 135  Their life the eddying of her living soul!    O simple spirit, guided from above,  Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,  Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

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! 5  When I was young?—Ah, woful 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, 10  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! 15  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, 20  Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,    Ere I was old!  Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,  Which tells me Youth 's no longer here!  O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 25  '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! 30  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, 35  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! 40  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, 45  Like some poor nigh-related guest,  That may not rudely be dismist;  Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,  And tells the jest without the smile.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE

LINES COMPOSED 21ST 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, 5  Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.  Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,  Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.  Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,  For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! 10  With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:  And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?  Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,  And Hope without an object cannot live.

EPITAPH

  Stop, Christian passer-by!—Stop, child of God,  And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod  A poet lies, or that which once seemed he.—  O, lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.;  That he who many a year with toil of breath 5  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!

NOTES

THE ANCIENT MARINER

The Latin motto is condensed, by omission, from about a page of Thomas Burnet's Archaeologiae Philosophicae: sive Doctrina Antiqua de Rerum Originibus, published in London in 1692. Burnet was Master of Charterhouse from 1685 till his death in 1715, and enjoyed considerable reputation as a man of curious learning. In the Archaeologiae he professed to reconcile a former work of his on the origins of the world with the account given in Genesis. The quotation is from chapter VII. of book I., "De Hebraeis, eorumque Cabalâ," and may be translated thus: "I easily believe that the invisible natures in the universe are more in number than the visible. But who shall tell us all the kinds of them? the ranks and relationships, the peculiar qualities and gifts of each? what they do? where they dwell? Man's wit has ever been circling about the knowledge of these things, but has never attained to it. Yet in the meanwhile I will not deny that it is profitable to contemplate from time to time in the mind, as in a picture, the idea of a larger and better world; lest the mind, becoming wonted to the little things of everyday life, grow narrow and settle down altogether to mean businesses. At the same time, however, we must watch for the truth, and observe method, so as to distinguish the certain from the uncertain, day from night."

Instead of this motto the first edition had an Argument prefixed, as follows:

"How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country."

This was somewhat enlarged in the second edition (1800), and dropped thereafter.

*Page 3*, LINE 12—*eftsoons*. Anglo-Saxon eftsona (eft afterwards, again, + sona soon), reënforced by the adverbial genitive ending -s. Coleridge found the word in Spenser and the old ballads.

4, 23—*kirk*. The Scotch and Northern English form of "church." The old ballads had been preserved chiefly in the North; hence this Northern form came to be looked on as the proper word for church in the ballad style.

41, marginal gloss—*driven*. All editions down to Campbell's had "drawn;" but this he believes to have been a misprint, since the narrative seems to require "driven."

5, 55—*clifts*. This word arose from a confusion of "cliff," a precipice, and "cleft," a fissure. It was "exceedingly common in the 16th-18th cent.," according to the New English Dict., which gives examples from Captain John Smith, Marlowe, and Defoe.

62—*swound*. An archaic form of "swoon," found in Elizabethan English.

64—*thorough*. "Through" and "thorough" are originally the same word, and in Shakespeare's time both forms were used for the preposition. Cf. Puck's song in "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Thorough bush, thorough briar."

67—*eat*. This form (pronounced et) is still in use in England and New England for the past tense of the verb, though in America the form "ate" is now preferred. "Eat" as past participle, however, was archaic or rude even in Coleridge's time.

76—*vespers*. Properly a liturgical term, meaning the daily evening service in church; then in a more general way "evening." The Century Dict. gives no examples of its use as a nautical term. Probably Coleridge used it to give a suggestion of ante-Reformation times. The more familiar word for the evening service in the English Church is "even-song," but Coleridge in line 595 prefers "the little vesper bell" for its suggestion of medievalism.