Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And you must love him, ere to you

He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shews of sky and earth.

Of hill and valley he has view’d;

And impulses of deeper birth

Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie

Some random truths he can impart

The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak, both man and boy,

Hath been an idler in the land;

Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

— Come hither in thy hour of strength,

Come, weak as is a breaking wave!

Here stretch thy body at full length

Or build thy house upon this grave. —

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I marvel how Nature could ever find space

For the weight and the levity seen in his face:

There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom,

And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.

There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;

Such strength, as if ever affliction and pain

Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease,

Would be rational peace — a philosopher’s ease.

There’s indifference, alike when he fails and succeeds,

And attention full ten times as much as there needs,

Pride where there’s no envy, there’s so much of joy;

And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

There’s freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare

Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she’s there.

There’s virtue, the title it surely may claim,

Yet wants, heaven knows what, to be worthy the name.

What a picture! ‘tis drawn without nature or art,

— Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart,

And I for five centuries right gladly would be

Such an odd, such a kind happy creature as he.

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Between two sister moorland rills

There is a spot that seems to lie

Sacred to flowrets of the hills,

And sacred to the sky.

And in this smooth and open dell

There is a tempest-stricken tree;

A corner stone by lightning cut,

The last stone of a cottage hut;

And in this dell you see

A thing no storm can e’er destroy,

The shadow of a Danish Boy.

In clouds above, the lark is heard,

He sings his blithest and his beet;

But in this lonesome nook the bird

Did never build his nest.

No beast, no bird hath here his home;

The bees borne on the breezy air

Pass high above those fragrant bells

To other flowers, to other dells.

Nor ever linger there.

The Danish Boy walks here alone:

The lovely dell is all his own.

A spirit of noon day is he,

He seems a Form of flesh and blood;

A piping Shepherd he might be,

A Herd-boy of the wood.

A regal vest of fur he wears,

In colour like a raven’s wing;

It fears nor rain, nor wind, nor dew,

But in the storm ‘tis fresh and blue

As budding pines in Spring;

His helmet has a vernal grace,

Fresh as the bloom upon his face.

A harp is from his shoulder slung;

He rests the harp upon his knee,

And there in a forgotten tongue

He warbles melody.

Of flocks and herds both far and near

He is the darling and the joy,

And often, when no cause appears,

The mountain ponies prick their ears,

They hear the Danish Boy,

While in the dell he sits alone

Beside the tree and cornerstone.

When near this blasted tree you pass,

Two sods are plainly to be seen

Close at its root, and each with grass

Is cover’d fresh and green.

Like turf upon a new-made grave

These two green sods together lie,

Nor heat, nor cold, nor rain, nor wind

Can these two sods together bind,

Nor sun, nor earth, nor sky,

But side by side the two are laid,

As if just sever’d by the spade.

There sits he: in his face you spy

No trace of a ferocious air,

Nor ever was a cloudless sky

So steady or so fair.

The lovely Danish Boy is blest

And happy in his flowery cove;

From bloody deeds his thoughts are far;

And yet he warbles songs of war;

They seem like songs of love,

For calm and gentle is his mien;

Like a dead Boy he is serene.

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I.

It was an April Morning: fresh and clear

The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,

Ran with a young man’s speed, and yet the voice

Of waters which the winter had supplied

Was soften’d down into a vernal tone.

The spirit of enjoyment and desire,

And hopes and wishes, from all living things

Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.

The budding groves appear’d as if in haste

To spur the steps of June; as if their shades

Of various green were hindrances that stood

Between them and their object: yet, meanwhile,

There was such deep contentment in the air

That every naked ash, and tardy tree

Yet leafless, seem’d as though the countenance

With which it look’d on this delightful day

Were native to the summer. — Up the brook

I roam’d in the confusion of my heart,

Alive to all things and forgetting all.

At length I to a sudden turning came

In this continuous glen, where down a rock

The stream, so ardent in its course before,

Sent forth such sallies of glad sound, that all

Which I till then had heard, appear’d the voice

Of common pleasure: beast and bird, the lamb,

The Shepherd’s dog, the linnet and the thrush

Vied with this waterfall, and made a song

Which, while I listen’d, seem’d like the wild growth

Or like some natural produce of the air

That could not cease to be. Green leaves were here,

But ‘twas the foliage of the rocks, the birch,

The yew, the holly, and the bright green thorn,

With hanging islands of resplendent furze:

And on a summit, distant a short space,

By any who should look beyond the dell,

A single mountain Cottage might be seen.

I gaz’d and gaz’d, and to myself I said,

”Our thoughts at least are ours; and this wild nook,

My EMMA, I will dedicate to thee.”

— Soon did the spot become my other home,

My dwelling, and my out-of-doors abode.

And, of the Shepherds who have seen me there,

To whom I sometimes in our idle talk

Have told this fancy, two or three, perhaps,

Years after we are gone and in our graves,

When they have cause to speak of this wild place,

May call it by the name of EMMA’S DELL.

II.

To JOANNA.

Amid the smoke of cities did you pass

Your time of early youth, and there you learn’d,

From years of quiet industry, to love

The living Beings by your own fireside,

With such a strong devotion, that your heart

Is slow towards the sympathies of them

Who look upon the hills with tenderness,

And make dear friendships with the streams and groves.

Yet we who are transgressors in this kind,

Dwelling retired in our simplicity

Among the woods and fields, we love you well,

Joanna! and I guess, since you have been

So distant from us now for two long years,

That you will gladly listen to discourse

However trivial, if you thence are taught

That they, with whom you once were happy, talk

Familiarly of you and of old times.

While I was seated, now some ten days past,

Beneath those lofty firs, that overtop

Their ancient neighbour, the old Steeple tower,