Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend,

And he be born again, a child of God.

Sept. 20, 1796.

SONNET: COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE

OF THE BIRTH OF A SON, SEPT. 20, 1796

Oft o’er my brain does that strange fancy roll

Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)

Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,

Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul

Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said 5

We liv’d, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,

If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead,

(As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear)

I think that I should struggle to believe 10

Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere

Sentenc’d for some more venial crime to grieve;

Did’st scream, then spring to meet Heaven’s quick reprieve,

While we wept idly o’er thy little bier!

SONNET: TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME

Charles! my slow heart was only sad, when first

I scann’d that face of feeble infancy:

For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst

All I had been, and all my child might be!

But when I saw it on its mother’s arm, 5

And hanging at her bosom (she the while

Bent o’er its features with a tearful smile)

Then I was thrill’d and melted, and most warm

Impress’d a father’s kiss: and all beguil’d

Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, 10

I seem’d to see an angel-form appear —

‘Twas even thine, belovéd woman mild!

So for the mother’s sake the child was dear,

And dearer was the mother for the child.

SONNET

[TO CHARLES LLOYD]

The piteous sobs that choke the Virgin’s breath

For him, the fair betrothéd Youth, who lies

Cold in the narrow dwelling, or the cries

With which a Mother wails her darling’s death,

These from our nature’s common impulse spring, 5

Unblam’d, unprais’d; but o’er the piléd earth

Which hides the sheeted corse of grey-hair’d Worth,

If droops the soaring Youth with slacken’d wing;

If he recall in saddest minstrelsy

Each tenderness bestow’d, each truth imprest, 10

Such grief is Reason, Virtue, Piety!

And from the Almighty Father shall descend

Comforts on his late evening, whose young breast

Mourns with no transient love the Agéd Friend.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND

ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR

Composed in 1796

A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep,

But a green mountain variously up-piled,

Where o’er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep,

Or colour’d lichens with slow oozing weep;

Where cypress and the darker yew start wild; 5

And, ‘mid the summer torrent’s gentle dash

Dance brighten’d the red clusters of the ash;

Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguil’d,

Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep;

Till haply startled by some fleecy dam, 10

That rustling on the bushy cliff above

With melancholy bleat of anxious love,

Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb:

Such a green mountain ‘twere most sweet to climb,

E’en while the bosom ach’d with loneliness — 15

How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime

Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round,

Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!

O then ‘twere loveliest sympathy, to mark 20

The berries of the half-uprooted ash

Dripping and bright; and list the torrent’s dash, —

Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,

Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;

In social silence now, and now to unlock 25

The treasur’d heart; arm linked in friendly arm,

Save if the one, his muse’s witching charm

Muttering browbent, at unwatch’d distance lag;

Till high o’er head his beckoning friend appears,

And from the forehead of the topmost crag 30

Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears

That shadowing Pine its old romantic limbs,

Which latest shall detain the enamour’d sight

Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,

Tinged yellow with the rich departing light; 35

And haply, bason’d in some unsunn’d cleft,

A beauteous spring, the rock’s collected tears,

Sleeps shelter’d there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!

Together thus, the world’s vain turmoil left,

Stretch’d on the crag, and shadow’d by the pine, 40

And bending o’er the clear delicious fount,

Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine

To cheat our noons in moralising mood,

While west-winds fann’d our temples toil-bedew’d:

Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, 45

To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,

Where smiling with blue eye, Domestic Bliss

Gives this the Husband’s, that the Brother’s kiss!

Thus rudely vers’d in allegoric lore,

The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace; 50

That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,

And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour

To glad, and fertilise the subject plains;

That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,

And many a fancy-blest and holy sod 55

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains

Low-murmuring, lay; and starting from the rock’s

Stiff evergreens, (whose spreading foliage mocks

Want’s barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,

And Bigotry’s mad fire-invoking rage!) 60

O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,

Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;

And from the stirring world uplifted high

(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,

To quiet musings shall attune the mind, 65

And oft the melancholy theme supply),

There, while the prospect through the gazing eye

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,

We’ll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,

Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, 70

As neighbouring fountains image each the whole:

Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth

We’ll discipline the heart to pure delight,

Rekindling sober joy’s domestic flame.

They whom I love shall love thee, honour’d youth! 75

Now may Heaven realise this vision bright!

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE

C. LLOYD WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,

O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!

To plunder’d Want’s half-shelter’d hovel go,

Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear

Moan haply in a dying mother’s ear: 5

Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood

O’er the rank churchyard with sear elm-leaves strew’d,

Pace round some widow’s grave, whose dearer part

Was slaughter’d, where o’er his uncoffin’d limbs

The flocking flesh-birds scream’d! Then, while thy heart 10

Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,

Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)

What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!

O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign’d,

All effortless thou leave Life’s commonweal 15

A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.

TO A FRIEND: [CHARLES LAMB] WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY

Dear Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween

That Genius plung’d thee in that wizard fount

Hight Castalie: and (sureties of thy faith)

That Pity and Simplicity stood by,

And promis’d for thee, that thou shouldst renounce 5

The world’s low cares and lying vanities,