Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Like thee with fire divine to glow; — 110

But ah! when rage the waves of woe,

Grant me with firmer breast to meet their hate,

And soar beyond the storm with upright eye elate!

Ye woods! that wave o’er Avon’s rocky steep,

To Fancy’s ear sweet is your murmuring deep! 115

For here she loves the cypress wreath to weave;

Watching with wistful eye, the saddening tints of eve.

Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove,

In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove,

Like star-beam on the slow sequester’d tide 120

Lone-glittering, through the high tree branching wide.

And here, in Inspiration’s eager hour,

When most the big soul feels the mastering power,

These wilds, these caverns roaming o’er,

Round which the screaming sea-gulls soar, 125

With wild unequal steps he pass’d along,

Oft pouring on the winds a broken song:

Anon, upon some rough rock’s fearful brow

Would pause abrupt — and gaze upon the waves below.

Poor Chatterton! he sorrows for thy fate 130

Who would have prais’d and lov’d thee, ere too late.

Poor Chatterton! farewell! of darkest hues

This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb;

But dare no longer on the sad theme muse,

Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred doom: 135

For oh! big gall-drops, shook from Folly’s wing,

Have blacken’d the fair promise of my spring;

And the stern Fate transpierc’d with viewless dart

The last pale Hope that shiver’d at my heart!

Hence, gloomy thoughts! no more my soul shall dwell 140

On joys that were! no more endure to weigh

The shame and anguish of the evil day,

Wisely forgetful! O’er the ocean swell

Sublime of Hope I seek the cottag’d dell

Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray; 145

And, dancing to the moonlight roundelay,

The wizard Passions weave an holy spell!

O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive!

Sure thou would’st spread the canvass to the gale,

And love with us the tinkling team to drive 150

O’er peaceful Freedom’s undivided dale;

And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,

Would hang, enraptur’d, on thy stately song,

And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy

All deftly mask’d as hoar Antiquity. 155

Alas, vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood

Of Woe self-solac’d in her dreamy mood!

Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream,

Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream;

And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side 160

Waves o’er the murmurs of his calmer tide,

Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee,

Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy!

And there, sooth’d sadly by the dirgeful wind,

Muse on the sore ills I had left behind. 165

Table of Contents

Auspicious Reverence! Hush all meaner song,

Ere we the deep preluding strain have poured

To the Great Father, only Rightful King,

Eternal Father! King Omnipotent!

To the Will Absolute, the One, the Good! 5

The I AM, the Word, the Life, the Living God!

Such symphony requires best instrument.

Seize, then, my soul! from Freedom’s trophied dome

The Harp which hangeth high between the Shields

Of Brutus and Leonidas! With that 10

Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back

Man’s free and stirring spirit that lies entranced.

For what is Freedom, but the unfettered use

Of all the powers which God for use had given?

But chiefly this, him First, him Last to view 15

Through meaner powers and secondary things

Effulgent, as through clouds that veil his blaze.

For all that meets the bodily sense I deem

Symbolical, one mighty alphabet

For infant minds; and we in this low world 20

Placed with our backs to bright Reality,

That we may learn with young unwounded ken

The substance from its shadow. Infinite Love,

Whose latence is the plenitude of All,

Thou with retracted beams, and self-eclipse 25

Veiling, revealest thine eternal Sun.

But some there are who deem themselves most free

When they within this gross and visible sphere

Chain down the wingéd thought, scoffing ascent,

Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat 30

With noisy emptiness of learned phrase,

Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences,

Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all

Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves,

Untenanting creation of its God. 35

But Properties are God: the naked mass

(If mass there be, fantastic guess or ghost)

Acts only by its inactivity.

Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think

That as one body seems the aggregate 40

Of atoms numberless, each organized;

So by a strange and dim similitude

Infinite myriads of selfconscious minds

Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs

With absolute ubiquity of thought 45

(His one eternal self-affirming act!)

All his involvéd Monads, that yet seem

With various province and apt agency

Each to pursue its own self-centering end.

Some nurse the infant diamond in the mine; 50

Some roll the genial juices through the oak;

Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air,

And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed,

Yoke the red lightnings to their volleying car.

Thus these pursue their never-varying course, 55

No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild,

With complex interests weaving human fates,

Duteous or proud, alike obedient all,

Evolve the process of eternal good.

And what if some rebellious, o’er dark realms 60

Arrogate power? yet these train up to God,

And on the rude eye, unconfirmed for day,

Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom.

As ere from Lieule-Oaive’s vapoury head

The Laplander beholds the far-off Sun 65

Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,

While yet the stern and solitary Night

Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn

With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam.

Guiding his course or by Niemi lake 70

Or Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone

Of Solfar-kapper, while the snowy blast

Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,

Making the poor babe at its mother’s back

Scream in its scanty cradle: he the while 75

Wins gentle solace as with upward eye

He marks the streamy banners of the North,

Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join

Who there in floating robes of rosy light

Dance sportively. For Fancy is the power 80

That first unsensualises the dark mind,

Giving it new delights; and bids it swell

With wild activity; and peopling air,

By obscure fears of Beings invisible,

Emancipates it from the grosser thrall 85

Of the present impulse, teaching Self-control,

Till Superstition with unconscious hand

Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain,

Nor yet without permitted power impressed,

I deem those legends terrible, with which 90

The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng:

Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan

O’er slaughter’d infants, or that Giant Bird

Vuokho, of whose rushing wings the noise

Is Tempest, when the unutterable Shape 95

Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once

That shriek, which never murderer heard, and lived.

Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance

Pierces the untravelled realms of Ocean’s bed

Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave 100

By misshaped prodigies beleaguered, such

As Earth ne’er bred, nor Air, nor the upper Sea: