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

Lo! through the dusky silence of the groves,

Thro’ vales irriguous, and thro’ green retreats,

With languid murmur creeps the placid stream

And works its secret way.

Awhile meand’ring round its native fields 5

It rolls the playful wave and winds its flight:

Then downward flowing with awaken’d speed

Embosoms in the Deep!

Thus thro’ its silent tenor may my Life

Smooth its meek stream by sordid wealth unclogg’d, 10

Alike unconscious of forensic storms,

And Glory’s bloodstain’d palm!

And when dark Age shall close Life’s little day,

Satiate of sport, and weary of its toils,

E’en thus may slumbrous Death my decent limbs 15

Compose with icy hand!

AN ODE IN THE MANNER OF ANACREON

As late, in wreaths, gay flowers I bound,

Beneath some roses Love I found;

And by his little frolic pinion

As quick as thought I seiz’d the minion,

Then in my cup the prisoner threw, 5

And drank him in its sparkling dew:

And sure I feel my angry guest

Fluttering his wings within my breast!

TO DISAPPOINTMENT

Hence! thou fiend of gloomy sway,

That lov’st on withering blast to ride

O’er fond Illusion’s air-built pride.

Sullen Spirit! Hence! Away!

Where Avarice lurks in sordid cell, 5

Or mad Ambition builds the dream,

Or Pleasure plots th’ unholy scheme

There with Guilt and Folly dwell!

But oh! when Hope on Wisdom’s wing

Prophetic whispers pure delight, 10

Be distant far thy cank’rous blight,

Demon of envenom’d sting.

Then haste thee, Nymph of balmy gales!

Thy poet’s prayer, sweet May! attend!

Oh! place my parent and my friend 15

‘Mid her lovely native vales.

Peace, that lists the woodlark’s strains,

Health, that breathes divinest treasures,

Laughing Hours, and Social Pleasures

Wait my friend in Cambria’s plains. 20

Affection there with mingled ray

Shall pour at once the raptures high

Of filial and maternal Joy;

Haste thee then, delightful May!

And oh! may Spring’s fair flowerets fade, 25

May Summer cease her limbs to lave

In cooling stream, may Autumn grave

Yellow o’er the corn-cloath’d glade;

Ere, from sweet retirement torn,

She seek again the crowded mart: 30

Nor thou, my selfish, selfish heart

Dare her slow return to mourn!

A FRAGMENT FOUND IN A LECTURE-ROOM

Where deep in mud Cam rolls his slumbrous stream,

And bog and desolation reign supreme;

Where all Boeotia clouds the misty brain,

The owl Mathesis pipes her loathsome strain.

Far, far aloof the frighted Muses fly, 5

Indignant Genius scowls and passes by:

The frolic Pleasures start amid their dance,

And Wit congeal’d stands fix’d in wintry trance.

But to the sounds with duteous haste repair

Cold Industry, and wary-footed Care; 10

And Dulness, dosing on a couch of lead,

Pleas’d with the song uplifts her heavy head,

The sympathetic numbers lists awhile,

Then yawns propitiously a frosty smile… .

A LOVER’S COMPLAINT TO HIS MISTRESS

WHO DESERTED HIM IN QUEST OF A MORE WEALTHY HUSBAND IN THE EAST INDIES

The dubious light sad glimmers o’er the sky:

‘Tis silence all. By lonely anguish torn,

With wandering feet to gloomy groves I fly,

And wakeful Love still tracks my course forlorn.

And will you, cruel Julia! will you go? 5

And trust you to the Ocean’s dark dismay?

Shall the wide wat’ry world between us flow?

And winds unpitying snatch my Hopes away?

Thus could you sport with my too easy heart?

Yet tremble, lest not unaveng’d I grieve! 10

The winds may learn your own delusive art,

And faithless Ocean smile — but to deceive!

WITH FIELDING’S ‘AMELIA’

Virtues and Woes alike too great for man

In the soft tale oft claim the useless sigh;

For vain the attempt to realise the plan,

On Folly’s wings must Imitation fly.

With other aim has Fielding here display’d 5

Each social duty and each social care;

With just yet vivid colouring portray’d

What every wife should be, what many are.

And sure the Parent of a race so sweet

With double pleasure on the page shall dwell, 10

Each scene with sympathizing breast shall meet,

While Reason still with smiles delights to tell

Maternal hope, that her loved progeny

In all but sorrows shall Amelias be!

WRITTEN AFTER A WALK BEFORE SUPPER

Tho’ much averse, dear Jack, to flicker,

To find a likeness for friend V — ker,

I’ve made thro’ Earth, and Air, and Sea,

A Voyage of Discovery!

And let me add (to ward off strife) 5

For V — ker and for V — ker’s Wife —

She large and round beyond belief,

A superfluity of beef!

Her mind and body of a piece,

And both composed of kitchen-grease. 10

In short, Dame Truth might safely dub her

Vulgarity enshrin’d in blubber!

He, meagre bit of littleness,

All snuff, and musk, and politesse;

So thin, that strip him of his clothing, 15

He’d totter on the edge of Nothing!

In case of foe, he well might hide

Snug in the collops of her side.

Ah then, what simile will suit?

Spindle-leg in great jack-boot? 20

Pismire crawling in a rut?

Or a spigot in a butt?

Thus I humm’d and ha’d awhile,

When Madam Memory with a smile

Thus twitch’d my ear—’Why sure, I ween, 25

In London streets thou oft hast seen

The very image of this pair:

A little Ape with huge She-Bear

Link’d by hapless chain together:

An unlick’d mass the one — the other 30

An antic small with nimble crupper — —’

But stop, my Muse! for here comes supper.

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The stream with languid murmur creeps,

In Lumin’s flowery vale:

Beneath the dew the Lily weeps

Slow-waving to the gale.

‘Cease, restless gale!’ it seems to say, 5

‘Nor wake me with thy sighing!

The honours of my vernal day

On rapid wing are flying.

‘Tomorrow shall the Traveller come

Who late beheld me blooming: 10

His searching eye shall vainly roam

The dreary vale of Lumin.’

With eager gaze and wetted cheek

My wonted haunts along,

Thus, faithful Maiden! thou shalt seek 15

The Youth of simplest song.

But I along the breeze shall roll

The voice of feeble power;

And dwell, the Moonbeam of thy soul,

In Slumber’s nightly hour. 20

THE COMPLAINT OF NINATHÓMA:FROM THE SAME

How long will ye round me be swelling,

O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea?

Not always in caves was my dwelling,

Nor beneath the cold blast of the tree.

Through the high-sounding halls of Cathlóma 5

In the steps of my beauty I strayed;

The warriors beheld Ninathóma,

And they blesséd the white-bosom’d Maid!

A Ghost! by my cavern it darted!

In moonbeams the Spirit was drest — 10

For lovely appear the Departed

When they visit the dreams of my rest!

But disturb’d by the tempest’s commotion

Fleet the shadowy forms of delight —

Ah cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean! 15

To howl through my cavern by night.

SONGS OF THE PIXIES

The Pixies, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race of beings

invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a small distance

from a village in that county, half-way up a wood-covered hill, is an

excavation called the Pixies’ Parlour. The roots of old trees form its