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

And brought it forth into the light;

The Shepherds met him with his charge

An unexpected sight!

Into their arms the Lamb they took,

Said they, “He’s neither maim’d nor scarr’d” —

Then up the steep ascent they hied

And placed him at his Mother’s side;

And gently did the Bard

Those idle Shepherd-boys upbraid,

And bade them better mind their trade.

’Tis said, that some have died for love:

And here and there a churchyard grave is found

In the cold North’s unhallow’d ground,

Because the wretched man himself had slain,

His love was such a grievous pain.

And there is one whom I five years have known;

He dwells alone

Upon Helvellyn’s side.

He loved — The pretty Barbara died,

And thus he makes his moan:

Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid

When thus his moan he made.

Oh! move thou Cottage from behind that oak

Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,

That in some other way yon smoke

May mount into the sky!

The clouds pass on; they from the Heavens depart:

I look — the sky is empty space;

I know not what I trace;

But when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart.

O! what a weight is in these shades! Ye leaves,

When will that dying murmur be suppress’d?

Your sound my heart of peace bereaves,

It robs my heart of rest.

Thou Thrush, that singest loud and loud and free,

Into yon row of willows flit,

Upon that alder sit;

Or sing another song, or chuse another tree

Roll back, sweet rill! back to thy mountain bounds,

And there for ever be thy waters chain’d!

For thou dost haunt the air with sounds

That cannot be sustain’d;

If still beneath that pine-tree’s ragged bough

Headlong yon waterfall must come,

Oh let it then be dumb! —

Be any thing, sweet rill, but that which thou art now.

Thou Eglantine whose arch so proudly towers

(Even like a rainbow spanning half the vale)

Thou one fair shrub, oh! shed thy flowers,

And stir not in the gale.

For thus to see thee nodding in the air,

To see thy arch thus stretch and bend,

Thus rise and thus descend,

Disturbs me, till the sight is more than I can bear.

The man who makes this feverish complaint

Is one of giant stature, who could dance

Equipp’d from head to foot in iron mail.

Ah gentle Love! if ever thought was thine

To store up kindred hours for me, thy face

Turn from me, gentle Love, nor let me walk

Within the sound of Emma’s voice, or know

Such happiness as I have known to-day.

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At the corner of Wood-Street, when daylight appears,

There’s a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:

Poor Susan has pass’d by the spot and has heard

In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees

A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,

And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,

Down which she so often has tripp’d with her pail,

And a single small cottage, a nest like a Jove’s,

The only one dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in Heaven, but they fade,

The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;

The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,

And the colours have all pass’d away from her eyes.

Poor Outcast! return — to receive thee once more

The house of thy Father will open its door,

And thou once again, in thy plain russet gown,

May’st hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own.

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If thou in the dear love of some one friend

Hast been so happy, that thou know’st what thoughts

Will, sometimes, in the happiness of love

Make the heart sink, then wilt thou reverence

This quiet spot. — St. Herbert hither came

And here, for many seasons, from the world

Remov’d, and the affections of the world

He dwelt in solitude. He living here,

This island’s sole inhabitant! had left

A Fellow-labourer, whom the good Man lov’d

As his own soul; and when within his cave

Alone he knelt before the crucifix

While o’er the lake the cataract of Lodore

Peal’d to his orisons, and when he pac’d

Along the beach of this small isle and thought

Of his Companion, he had pray’d that both

Might die in the same moment. Nor in vain

So pray’d he: — as our Chronicles report,

Though here the Hermit number’d his last days,

Far from St. Cuthbert his beloved friend,

Those holy men both died in the same hour.

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Rude is this Edifice, and Thou hast seen

Buildings, albeit rude, that have maintain’d

Proportions more harmonious, and approach’d

To somewhat of a closer fellowship

With the ideal grace. Yet as it is

Do take it in good part; for he, the poor

Vitruvius of our village, had no help

From the great city; never on the leaves

Of red Morocco folio saw display’d

The skeletons and pre-existing ghosts

Of Beauties yet unborn, the rustic Box,

Snug Cot, with Coach-house, Shed and Hermitage.

It is a homely pile, yet to these walls

The heifer comes in the snow-storm, and here

The new-dropp’d lamb finds shelter from the wind.

And hither does one Poet sometimes row

His pinnace, a small vagrant barge, up-piled

With plenteous store of heath and wither’d fern,

A lading which he with his sickle cuts

Among the mountains, and beneath this roof

He makes his summer couch, and here at noon

Spreads out his limbs, while, yet unborn, the sheep

Panting beneath the burthen of their wool

Lie round him, even as if they were a part

Of his own household: nor, while from his bed

He through that door-place looks toward the lake

And to the stirring breezes, does he want

Creations lovely as the work of sleep,

Fair sights, and visions of romantic joy.

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Let thy wheel-barrow alone.

Wherefore, Sexton, piling still

In thy bone-house bone on bone?

Tis already like a hill

In a field of battle made,

Where three thousand skulls are laid.

— These died in peace each with the other,

Father, Sister, Friend, and Brother.

Mark the spot to which I point!

From this platform eight feet square

Take not even a finger-joint:

Andrew’s whole fireside is there.

Here, alone, before thine eyes,

Simon’s sickly Daughter lies

From weakness, now, and pain defended,

Whom he twenty winters tended.

Look but at the gardener’s pride,

How he glories, when he sees

Roses, lilies, side by side,

Violets in families.

By the heart of Man, his tears,

By his hopes and by his fears,

Thou, old Greybeard! art the Warden

Of a far superior garden.

Thus then, each to other dear,

Let them all in quiet lie,

Andrew there and Susan here,

Neighbours in mortality.

And should I live through sun and rain

Seven widow’d years without my Jane,

O Sexton, do not then remove her,

Let one grave hold the Lov’d and Lover!