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

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee

O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams, of half-extinguish’d thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,

And their glad animal movements all gone by,)

To me was all in all. — I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite: a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, or any interest

Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts

Have followed, for such loss, I would believe

Abundant recompence. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye and ear; both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognize

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

Nor, perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more

Suffer my genial spirits to decay?

For thou art with me, here, upon the banks

Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; ‘tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb

Our chearful faith that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain winds be free

To blow against thee: and in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor perchance,

If I should be, where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence, wilt thou then forget

That on the banks of this delightful stream

We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came,

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road which leads from Richmond to Askrigg. Its name is derived from a remarkable chase, the memory of which is preserved by the monuments spoken of in the second Part of the following Poem, which monuments do now exist as I have there described them.

The Knight had ridden down from Wensley moor

With the slow motion of a summer’s cloud;

He turn’d aside towards a Vassal’s door,

And, “Bring another Horse!” he cried aloud.

”Another Horse!” — That shout the Vassal heard,

And saddled his best steed, a comely Grey;

Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third

Which he had mounted on that glorious day.

Joy sparkeled in the prancing Courser’s eyes;

The horse and horsemen are a happy pair;

But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies,

There is a doleful silence in the air.

A rout this morning left Sir Walter’s Hall,

That as they gallop’d made the echoes roar;

But horse and man are vanish’d, one and all;

Such race, I think, was never seen before.

Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind,

Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain:

Brach, Swift and Music, noblest of their kind,

Follow, and weary up the mountain strain.

The Knight halloo’d, he chid and cheer’d them on

With suppliant gestures and upbraidings stern;

But breath and eyesight fail, and, one by one,

The dogs are stretch’d among the mountain fern.

Where is the throng, the tumult of the chace?

The bugles that so joyfully were blown?

— This race it looks not like an earthly race;

Sir Walter and the Hart are left alone.

The poor Hart toils along the mountain side;

I will not stop to tell how far he fled,

Nor will I mention by what death he died;

But now the Knight beholds him lying dead.

Dismounting then, he lean’d against a thorn;

He had no follower, dog, nor man, nor boy:

He neither smack’d his whip, nor blew his horn,

But gaz’d upon the spoil with silent joy.

Close to the thorn on which Sir Walter lean’d,

Stood his dumb partner in this glorious act;

Weak as a lamb the hour that it is yean’d,

And foaming like a mountain cataract.

Upon his side the Hart was lying stretch’d:

His nose half-touch’d a spring beneath a hill,

And with the last deep groan his breath had fetch’d

The waters of the spring were trembling still.

And now, too happy for repose or rest,

Was never man in such a joyful case,