Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition)

And I’m afraid that you expect

Some tale will be related.

O reader! had you in your mind

Such stores as silent thought can bring,

O gentle reader! you would find

A tale in every thing.

What more I have to say is short,

I hope you’ll kindly take it;

It is no tale; but should you think,

Perhaps a tale you’ll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see

This old man doing all he could

About the root of an old tree,

A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock totter’d in his hand;

So vain was his endeavour

That at the root of the old tree

He might have worked for ever.

”You’ve overtasked, good Simon Lee,

Give me your tool” to him I said;

And at the word right gladly he

Received my proffer’d aid.

I struck, and with a single blow

The tangled root I sever’d,

At which the poor old man so long

And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,

And thanks and praises seemed to run

So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

— I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds

With coldness still returning.

Alas! the gratitude of men

Has oftner left me mourning.

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I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it griev’d my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,

The periwinkle trail’d its wreathes;

And ‘tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopp’d and play’d:

Their thoughts I cannot measure,

But the least motion which they made,

It seem’d a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If I these thoughts may not prevent,

If such be of my creed the plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

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By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Written in April, 1798.

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day

Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip

Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.

Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!

You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,

But hear no murmuring: it flows silently

O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,

A balmy night! and tho’ the stars be dim,

Yet let us think upon the vernal showers

That gladden the green earth, and we shall find

A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

And hark! the Nightingale begins its song

”Most musical, most melancholy” Bird!

A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!

In nature there is nothing melancholy.

— But some night wandering Man, whose heart was pierc’d

With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

Or slow distemper or neglected love,

(And so, poor Wretch! fill’d all things with himself

And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale

Of his own sorrows) he and such as he

First named these notes a melancholy strain:

And many a poet echoes the conceit;

Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme

When he had better far have stretch’d his limbs

Beside a ‘brook in mossy forest-dell

By sun or moonlight, to the influxes

Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements

Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song

And of his fame forgetful! so his fame

Should share in nature’s immortality,

A venerable thing! and so his song

Should make all nature lovelier, and itself

Be lov’d, like nature! — But ‘twill not be so;

And youths and maidens most poetical

Who lose the deep’ning twilights of the spring

In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still

Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs

O’er Philomela’s pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and my Friend’s Sister! we have learnt

A different lore: we may not thus profane

Nature’s sweet voices always full of love

And joyance! Tis the merry Nightingale

That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates

With fast thick warble his delicious notes,

As he were fearful, that an April night

Would be too short for him to utter forth

Hi? love-chant, and disburthen his full soul

Of all its music! And I know a grove

Of large extent, hard by a castle huge

Which the great lord inhabits not: and so

This grove is wild with tangling underwood,

And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,

Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.

But never elsewhere in one place I knew

So many Nightingales: and far and near

In wood and thicket over the wide grove

They answer and provoke each other’s songs —

With skirmish and capricious passagings,

And murmurs musical and swift jug jug

And one low piping sound more sweet than all —

Stirring the air with such an harmony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almost

Forget it was not day!

A most gentle maid

Who dwelleth in her hospitable home

Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,

(Even like a Lady vow’d and dedicate

To something more than nature in the grove)

Glides thro’ the pathways; she knows all their notes,

That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment’s space,

What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,

Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon

Emerging, hath awaken’d earth and sky

With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds

Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,

At if one quick and sudden Gale had swept

An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch’d

Many a Nightingale perch giddily

On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,

And to that motion tune his wanton song,

Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O Warbler! till tomorrow eve,

And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!

We have been loitering long and pleasantly,

And now for our dear homes. — That strain again!

Full fain it would delay me!-My dear Babe,

Who, capable of no articulate sound,

Mars all things with his imitative lisp,

How he would place his hand beside his ear,

His little hand, the small forefinger up,

And bid us listen! And I deem it wise

To make him Nature’s playmate. He knows well

The evening star: and once when he awoke

In most distressful mood (some inward pain

Had made up that strange thing, an infant’s dream)

I hurried with him to our orchard plot,

And he beholds the moon, and hush’d at once

Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,

While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears

Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam! Well —

It is a father’s tale. But if that Heaven

Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up

Familiar with these songs, that with the night

He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,

Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.

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How rich the wave, in front, imprest

With evening twilights summer hues,

While, facing thus the crimson west,

The boat her silent path pursues!

And see how dark the backward stream!

A little moment past, so smiling!