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

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife,

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music; on my life

There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

And he is no mean preacher;

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless —

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by chearfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man;

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;

— We murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art;

Close up these barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

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The little hedge-row birds,

That peck along the road, regard him not.

He travels on, and in his face, his step,

His gait, is one expression; every limb,

His look and bending figure, all bespeak

A man who does not move with pain, but moves

With thought — He is insensibly subdued

To settled quiet: he is one by whom

All effort seems forgotten, one to whom

Long patience has such mild composure given,

That patience now doth seem a thing, of which

He hath no need. He is by nature led

To peace so perfect, that the young behold

With envy, what the old man hardly feels.

— I asked him whither he was bound, and what

The object of his journey; he replied

“Sir! I am going many miles to take

“A last leave of my son, a mariner,

“Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,

And there is dying in an hospital.”

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[When a Northern Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his journey with his companions; he is left behind, covered over with Deer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel if the situation of the place will afford it. He is informed of the track which his companions intend to pursue, and if he is unable to follow, or overtake them, he perishes alone in the Desart; unless he should have the good fortune to fall in with some other Tribes of Indians. It is unnecessary to add that the females are equally, or still more, exposed to the same fate. See that very interesting work, Hearne’s Journey from Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean. When the Northern Lights, as the same writer informs us, vary their position in the air, they make a rustling and a crackling noise. This circumstance is alluded to in the first stanza of the following poem.]

Before I see another day,

Oh let my body die away!

In sleep I heard the northern gleams;

The stars they were among my dreams;

In sleep did I behold the skies,

I saw the crackling flashes drive;

And yet they are upon my eyes,

And yet I am alive.

Before I see another day,

Oh let my body die away!

My fire is dead: it knew no pain;

Yet is it dead, and I remain.

All stiff with ice the ashes lie;

And they are dead, and I will die.

When I was well, I wished to live,

For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;

But they to me no joy can give,

No pleasure now, and no desire.

Then here contented will I lie;

Alone I cannot fear to die.

Alas! you might have dragged me on

Another day, a single one!

Too soon despair o’er me prevailed;

Too soon my heartless spirit failed;

When you were gone my limbs were stronger,

And Oh how grievously I rue,

That, afterwards, a little longer,

My friends, I did not follow you!

For strong and without pain I lay,

My friends, when you were gone away.

My child! they gave thee to another,

A woman who was not thy mother.

When from my arms my babe they took,

On me how strangely did he look!

Through his whole body something ran,

A most strange something did I see;

— As if he strove to be a man,

That he might pull the sledge for me.

And then he stretched his arms, how wild!

Oh mercy! like a little child.

My little joy! my little pride!

In two days more I must have died.

Then do not weep and grieve for me;

I feel I must have died with thee.

Oh wind that o’er my head art flying,

The way my friends their course did bend,

I should not feel the pain of dying,

Could I with thee a message send.

Too soon, my friends, you went away;

For I had many things to say.

I’ll follow you across the snow,

You travel heavily and slow:

In spite of all my weary pain,

I’ll look upon your tents again.

My fire is dead, and snowy white

The water which beside it stood;

The wolf has come to me to-night,

And he has stolen away my food.

For ever left alone am I,

Then wherefore should I fear to die?

My journey will be shortly run,

I shall not see another sun,

I cannot lift my limbs to know

If they have any life or no.

My poor forsaken child! if I

For once could have thee close to me,

With happy heart I then would die,

And my last thoughts would happy be,

I feel my body die away,

I shall not see another day.

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The glory of evening was spread through the west;

— On the slope of a mountain I stood;

While the joy that precedes the calm season of rest

Rang loud through the meadow and wood.

“And must we then part from a dwelling so fair?”

In the pain of my spirit I said,

And with a deep sadness I turned, to repair

To the cell where the convict is laid.

The thick-ribbed walls that o’ershadow the gate

Resound; and the dungeons unfold:

I pause; and at length, through the glimmering grate,

That outcast of pity behold.

His black matted head on his shoulder is bent,

And deep is the sigh of his breath,

And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent

On the fetters that link him to death.

‘Tis sorrow enough on that visage to gaze.

That body dismiss’d from his care;

Yet my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays

More terrible images there.

His bones are consumed, and his lifeblood is dried,

With wishes the past to undo;

And his crime, through the pains that o’erwhelm him, descried,

Still blackens and grows on his view.

When from the dark synod, or blood-reeking field,

To his chamber the monarch is led,

All soothers of sense their soft virtue shall yield,

And quietness pillow his head.

But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze,

And conscience her tortures appease,

‘Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose;

In the comfortless vault of disease.

When his fetters at night have so press’d on his limbs,

That the weight can no longer be borne,

If, while a half-slumber his memory bedims,

The wretch on his pallet should turn,

While the jail-mastiff howls at the dull clanking chain,

From the roots of his hair there shall start

A thousand sharp punctures of cold-sweating pain,

And terror shall leap at his heart.

But now he half-raises his deep-sunken eye,

And the motion unsettles a tear;

The silence of sorrow it seems to supply,

And asks of me why I am here.