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

Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,

And wash’d and sanctified to Poesy.

Yes — thou wert plung’d, but with forgetful hand

Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son: 10

And with those recreant unbaptizéd heels

Thou’rt flying from thy bounden ministeries —

So sore it seems and burthensome a task

To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:

For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy, 15

And I have arrows mystically dipped

Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead?

And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth

‘Without the meed of one melodious tear’?

Thy Burns, and Nature’s own beloved bard, 20

Who to the ‘Illustrious of his native Land

So properly did look for patronage.’

Ghost of Mæcenas! hide thy blushing face!

They snatch’d him from the sickle and the plough —

To gauge ale-firkins.

Oh! for shame return! 25

On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount,

There stands a lone and melancholy tree,

Whose agéd branches to the midnight blast

Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough,

Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled, 30

And weeping wreath it round thy Poet’s tomb.

Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow,

Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers

Of nightshade, or its red and tempting fruit,

These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand 35

Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine,

The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility!

ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR

ARGUMENT

The Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence that

regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however

calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls

on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a

while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of

the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November

1796; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined

against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of

the Departing Year, etc., as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies,

in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.

I

Spirit who sweepest the wild Harp of Time!

It is most hard, with an untroubled ear

Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!

Yet, mine eye fix’d on Heaven’s unchanging clime

Long had I listen’d, free from mortal fear, 5

With inward stillness, and a bowéd mind;

When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,

I saw the train of the Departing Year!

Starting from my silent sadness

Then with no unholy madness, 10

Ere yet the enter’d cloud foreclos’d my sight,

I rais’d the impetuous song, and solemnis’d his flight.

II

Hither, from the recent tomb,

From the prison’s direr gloom,

From Distemper’s midnight anguish; 15

And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish;

Or where, his two bright torches blending,

Love illumines Manhood’s maze;

Or where o’er cradled infants bending,

Hope has fix’d her wishful gaze; 20

Hither, in perplexéd dance,

Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!

By Time’s wild harp, and by the hand

Whose indefatigable sweep

Raises its fateful strings from sleep, 25

I bid you haste, a mix’d tumultuous band!

From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth,

Haste for one solemn hour;

And with a loud and yet a louder voice, 30

O’er Nature struggling in portentous birth,

Weep and rejoice!

Still echoes the dread Name that o’er the earth

Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell:

And now advance in saintly Jubilee 35

Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell,

They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

III

I mark’d Ambition in his war-array!

I heard the mailéd Monarch’s troublous cry —

‘Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! 40

Groans not her chariot on its onward way?’

Fly, mailéd Monarch, fly!

Stunn’d by Death’s twice mortal mace,

No more on Murder’s lurid face

The insatiate Hag shall gloat with drunken eye! 45

Manes of the unnumber’d slain!

Ye that gasp’d on Warsaw’s plain!

Ye that erst at Ismail’s tower,

When human ruin choked the streams,

Fell in Conquest’s glutted hour, 50

Mid women’s shrieks and infants’ screams!

Spirits of the uncoffin’d slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,

Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling! 55

The exterminating Fiend is fled —

(Foul her life, and dark her doom)

Mighty armies of the dead

Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb!

Then with prophetic song relate, 60

Each some Tyrant-Murderer’s fate!

IV

Departing Year! ‘twas on no earthly shore

My soul beheld thy Vision! Where alone,

Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,

Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscrib’d with gore, 65

With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied’st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,

Deep silence o’er the ethereal multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, 70

From the choiréd gods advancing,

The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,

And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

V

Throughout the blissful throng,

Hush’d were harp and song: 75

Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven,

(The mystic Words of Heaven)

Permissive signal make:

The fervent Spirit bow’d, then spread his wings and spake!

‘Thou in stormy blackness throning 80

Love and uncreated Light,

By the Earth’s unsolaced groaning,

Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!

By Peace with proffer’d insult scared,

Masked Hate and envying Scorn! 85

By years of Havoc yet unborn!

And Hunger’s bosom to the frost-winds bared!

But chief by Afric’s wrongs,

Strange, horrible, and foul!

By what deep guilt belongs 90

To the deaf Synod, ‘full of gifts and lies!’

By Wealth’s insensate laugh! by Torture’s howl!

Avenger, rise!

For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,

Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow? 95

Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud!

And on the darkling foe

Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud!

O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow!

The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries! 100

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below!

Rise, God of Nature! rise.’

VI

The voice had ceas’d, the Vision fled;

Yet still I gasp’d and reel’d with dread.

And ever, when the dream of night 105

Renews the phantom to my sight,

Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;

My ears throb hot; my eyeballs start;

My brain with horrid tumult swims;

Wild is the tempest of my heart; 110

And my thick and struggling breath

Imitates the toil of death!

No stranger agony confounds

The Soldier on the war-field spread,

When all foredone with toil and wounds, 115

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!

(The strife is o’er, the daylight fled,

And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

See! the starting wretch’s head

Lies pillow’d on a brother’s corse!) 120

VII

Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,

O Albion! O my mother Isle!

Thy valleys, fair as Eden’s bowers,

Glitter green with sunny showers;

Thy grassy uplands’ gentle swells 125