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

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sunthaw; whether the eve-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

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A green and silent spot, amid the hills,

A small and silent dell! O’er stiller place

No singing skylark ever poised himself.

The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,

Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on,

All golden with the never-bloomless furze,

Which now blooms most profusely: but the dell,

Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate

As vernal cornfield, or the unripe flax,

When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve,

The level sunshine glimmers with green light.

Oh! ‘tis a quiet spirit-healing nook!

Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he,

The humble man, who, in his youthful years,

Knew just so much of folly as had made

His early manhood more securely wise!

Here he might lie on fern or withered heath,

While from the singing lark (that sings unseen

The minstrelsy that solitude loves best),

And from the sun, and from the breezy air,

Sweet influences trembled o’er his frame;

And he, with many feelings, many thoughts,

Made up a meditative joy, and found

Religious meanings in the forms of Nature!

And so, his senses gradually wrapped

In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,

And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark,

That singest like an angel in the clouds!

My God! it is a melancholy thing

For such a man, who would full fain preserve

His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel

For all his human brethren -O my God!

It weighs upon the heart, that he must think

What uproar and what strife may now be stirring

This way or that way o’er these silent hills -

Invasion, and the thunder and the shout,

And all the crash of onset; fear and rage,

And undetermined conflict -even now,

Even now, perchance, and in his native isle:

Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun!

We have offended, Oh! my countrymen!

We have offended very grievously,

And been most tyrannous. From east to west

A groan of accusation pierces Heaven!

The wretched plead against us; multitudes

Countless and vehement, the sons of God,

Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,

Steamed up from Cairo’s swamps of pestilence,

Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth

And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,

And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint

With slow perdition murders the whole man,

His body and his soul! Meanwhile, at home,

All individual dignity and power

Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions,

Associations and Societies,

A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,

One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,

We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,

Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth;

Contemptuous of all honourable rule,

Yet bartering freedom and the poor man’s life

For gold, as at a market! The sweet words

Of Christian promise, words that even yet

Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,

Are muttered o’er by men, whose tones proclaim

How flat and wearisome they feel their trade:

Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent

To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.

Oh! blasphemous! the Book of Life is made

A superstitious instrument, on which

We gabble o’er the oaths we mean to break;

For all must swear -all and in every place,

College and wharf, council and justice-court;

All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,

Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,

The rich, the poor, the old man and the young;

All, all make up one scheme of perjury,

That faith doth reel; the very name of God

Sounds like a juggler’s charm; and, bold with joy,

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place

(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,

Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,

Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,

And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,

Cries out, “Where is it?”

Thankless too for peace,

(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)

Secure from actual warfare, we have loved

To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!

Alas! for ages ignorant of all

Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague,

Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,)

We, this whole people, have been clamorous

For war and bloodshed; animating sports,

The which we pay for as a thing to talk of,

Spectators and not combatants! No guess

Anticipative of a wrong unfelt,

No speculation on contingency,

However dim and vague, too vague and dim

To yield a justifying cause; and forth,

(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,

And adjurations of the God in Heaven,)

We send our mandates for the certain death

Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls,

And women, that would groan to see a child

Pull off an insect’s leg, all read of war,

The best amusement for our morning meal!

The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers

From curses, who knows scarcely words enough

To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,

Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute

And technical in victories and defeats,

And all our dainty terms for fratricide;

Terms which we trundle smoothly o’er our tongues

Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which

We join no feeling and attach no form!

As if the soldier died without a wound;

As if the fibres of this godlike frame

Were gored without a pang; as if the wretch,

Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,

Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed;

As though he had no wife to pine for him,

No God to judge him! Therefore, evil days

Are coming on us, O my countrymen!

And what if all-avenging Providence,

Strong and retributive, should make us know

The meaning of our words, force us to feel

The desolation and the agony

Of our fierce doings?

Spare us yet awhile,

Father and God! O, spare us yet awhile!

Oh! let not English women drag their flight

Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes,

Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday

Laughed at the breast! Sons, brothers, husbands, all

Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms

Which grew up with you round the same fireside,

And all who ever heard the Sabbath-bells

Without the Infidel’s scorn, make yourselves pure!

Stand forth! be men! repel an impious foe,

Impious and false, a light yet cruel race,

Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth

With deeds of murder; and still promising

Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free,

Poison life’s amities, and cheat the heart

Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes,

And all that lifts the spirit! Stand we forth;

Render them back upon the insulted ocean,

And let them toss as idly on its waves

As the vile seaweed, which some mountain-blast

Swept from our shores! And oh! may we return

Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear,

Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung

So fierce a foe to frenzy!

I have told,

O Britons! O my brethren! I have told