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

Echo to the bleat of flocks;

(Those grassy hills, those glittering dells

Proudly ramparted with rocks)

And Ocean mid his uproar wild

Speaks safety to his Island-child! 130

Hence for many a fearless age

Has social Quiet lov’d thy shore;

Nor ever proud Invader’s rage

Or sack’d thy towers, or stain’d thy fields with gore.

VIII

Abandon’d of Heaven! mad Avarice thy guide, 135

At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride —

Mid thy herds and thy cornfields secure thou hast stood,

And join’d the wild yelling of Famine and Blood!

The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering

Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream! 140

Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream

Of central fires through nether seas up-thundering

Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies

By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,

If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes, 145

O Albion! thy predestin’d ruins rise,

The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap,

Muttering distemper’d triumph in her charméd sleep.

IX

Away, my soul, away!

In vain, in vain the Birds of warning sing — 150

And hark! I hear the famish’d brood of prey

Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind!

Away, my soul, away!

I unpartaking of the evil thing,

With daily prayer and daily toil 155

Soliciting for food my scanty soil,

Have wail’d my country with a loud Lament.

Now I recentre my immortal mind

In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content;

Cleans’d from the vaporous passions that bedim 160

God’s Image, sister of the Seraphim.

'Let it not be forgotten during the perusal of this Ode that it was written many years before the abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Legislature, likewise before the invasion of Switzerland by the French Republic, which occasioned the Ode that follows’

MS. Note by S. T. C.

Title] Ode for the last day of the Year 1796, C. I.: Ode on the

Departing Year

When lo! far onwards waving on the wind

I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR.

From Poverty’s heart-wasting languish

From Distemper’s midnight anguish

Seiz’d in sore travail and portentous birth

(Her eyeballs flashing a pernicious glare)

Sick Nature struggles! Hark! her pangs increase!

Her groans are horrible! but O! most fair

The promis’d Twins she bears — Equality and Peace!

Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir

Loud-laughing, red-eyed Massacre

When shall sceptred SLAUGHTER cease?

A while he crouch’d, O Victor France!

Beneath the lightning of thy lance;

With treacherous dalliance courting PEACE —

But soon upstarting from his coward trance

The boastful bloody Son of Pride betray’d

His ancient hatred of the dove-eyed Maid.

A cloud, O Freedom! cross’d thy orb of Light,

And sure he deem’d that orb was set in night:

For still does MADNESS roam on GUILT’S bleak dizzy height!

With treacherous dalliance wooing Peace.

But soon up-springing from his dastard trance

The boastful bloody Son of Pride betray’d

His hatred of the blest and blessing Maid.

One cloud, O Freedom! cross’d thy orb of Light,

And sure he deem’d that orb was quench’d in night:

For still, &c.

To juggle this easily-juggled people into better

humour with the supplies (and themselves, perhaps, affrighted

by the successes of the French) our Ministry sent an

Ambassador to Paris to sue for Peace. The supplies are

granted: and in the meantime the Archduke Charles turns the

scale of victory on the Rhine, and Buonaparte is checked

before Mantua. Straightways our courtly messenger is commanded

to uncurl his lips, and propose to the lofty Republic to

restore all its conquests, and to suffer England to

retain all hers (at least all her important ones), as

the only terms of Peace, and the ultimatum of the negotiation!

The friends of Freedom in this country are idle. Some are

timid; some are selfish; and many the torpedo torch of

hopelessness has numbed into inactivity. We would fain hope

that (if the above account be accurate — it is only the French

account) this dreadful instance of infatuation in our Ministry

will rouse them to one effort more; and that at one and the

same time in our different great towns the people will be

called on to think solemnly, and declare their thoughts

fearlessly by every method which the remnant of the

Constitution allows.

Aye Memory sits: thy vest profan’d with gore.

Thou with an unimaginable groan

Gav’st reck’ning of thy Hours!

On every Harp on every Tongue

While the mute Enchantment hung:

Like Midnight from a thundercloud

Spake the sudden Spirit loud.

Like Thunder from a Midnight Cloud

Spake the sudden Spirit loud

For ever shall the bloody island scowl?

For ever shall her vast and iron bow

Shoot Famine’s evil arrows o’er the world,

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below;

Rise, God of Mercy, rise! why sleep thy bolts unhurl’d?

For ever shall the bloody Island scowl?

For aye, unbroken shall her cruel Bow

Shoot Famine’s arrows o’er thy ravaged World?

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below —

Rise, God of Nature, rise, why sleep thy Bolts unhurl’d?

‘In Europe the smoking villages of Flanders and the

putrified fields of La Vendée — from Africa the unnumbered

victims of a detestable Slave-Trade. In Asia the desolated

plains of Indostan, and the millions whom a rice-contracting

Governor caused to perish. In America the recent enormities of

the Scalp-merchants. The four quarters of the globe groan

beneath the intolerable iniquity of the nation.’

At coward distance, yet with kindling pride —

Safe ‘mid thy herds and cornfields thou hast stood,

And join’d the yell of Famine and of Blood.

All nations curse thee: and with eager wond’ring

1797.

Mid thy Cornfields and Herds thou in plenty hast stood

And join’d the loud yellings of Famine and Blood.

1803.

Stretch’d on the marge of some fire-flashing fount

In the black Chamber of a sulphur’d mount.

In the long sabbath of high self-content.

Cleans’d from the fleshly passions that bedim

In the deep sabbath of blest self-content

Cleans’d from the fears and anguish that bedim

1797.

In the blest sabbath of high self-content

Cleans’d from bedimming Fear, and Anguish weak and blind.

1803.

Table of Contents

A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOLBOY TO HIS LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Underneath an old oak tree

There was of swine a huge company,

That grunted as they crunched the mast:

For that was ripe, and fell full fast.

Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high: 5

One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.

Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:

He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!

Blacker was he than blackest jet,

Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet. 10

He picked up the acorn and buried it straight

By the side of a river both deep and great.

Where then did the Raven go?

He went high and low,

Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go. 15

Many Autumns, many Springs

Travelled he with wandering wings:

Many Summers, many Winters —

I can’t tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a She, 20