[ { "title": "The Lime-tree Bower my Prison [Addressed to Charles Lamb, o", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,", "This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost", "Beauties and feelings, such as would have been", "Most sweet to my remembrance even when age", "Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,", "Friends, whom I never more may meet again,", "On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,", "Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,", "To that still roaring dell, of which I told;", "The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,", "And only speckled by the mid-day sun;", "Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock", "Flings arching like a bridge;--that branchless ash,", "Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves", "Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,", "Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends", "Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,", "That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)", "Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge", "Of the blue clay-stone.", "", "Now, my friends emerge", "Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again", "The many-steepled tract magnificent", "Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,", "With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up", "The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles", "Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on", "In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,", "My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined", "And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,", "In the great City pent, winning thy way", "With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain", "And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink", "Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!", "Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,", "Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!", "Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!", "And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend", "Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,", "Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round", "On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem", "Less gross than bodily; and of such hues", "As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes", "Spirits perceive his presence.", "", "A delight", "Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad", "As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,", "This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd", "Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze", "Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd", "Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see", "The shadow of the leaf and stem above", "Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree", "Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay", "Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps", "Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass", "Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue", "Through the late twilight: and though now the bat", "Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,", "Yet still the solitary humble-bee", "Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know", "That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;", "No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,", "No waste so vacant, but may well employ", "Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart", "Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes", "'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,", "That we may lift the soul, and contemplate", "With lively joy the joys we cannot share.", "My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook", "Beat its straight path along the dusky air", "Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing", "(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)", "Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,", "While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,", "Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm", "For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom", "No sound is dissonant which tells of Life." ], "linecount": "78" }, { "title": "To Nature", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "It may indeed be fantasy when I", "Essay to draw from all created things", "Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;", "And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie", "Lessons of love and earnest piety.", "So let it be; and if the wide world rings", "In mock of this belief, it brings", "Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.", "So will I build my altar in the fields,", "And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,", "And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields", "Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,", "Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise", "Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Youth And Age", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Verse, a Breeze 'mid blossoms straying,", "Where HOPE clung feeding, like a bee--", "Both were mine ! Life went a-maying", "With NATURE, HOPE, and POESY,", "[Image][Image]When I was young !", "", "When I was young ?--Ah, woful WHEN !", "Ah ! for the Change 'twixt Now and Then !", "This breathing House not built with hands,", "This body that does me grievous wrong,", "O'er жry Cliffs and glittering Sands,", "How lightly then it flashed along :--", "Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,", "On winding lakes and rivers wide,", "That ask no aid of Sail or Oar,", "That fear no spite of Wind or Tide !", "Nought cared this Body for wind or weather", "When YOUTH and I lived in't together.", "", "FLOWERS are lovely ; LOVE is flower-like ;", "FRIENDSHIP is a sheltering tree ;", "O ! the Joys, that came down shower-like,", "Of FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, and LIBERTY,", "[Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] Ere I was old !", "", "Ere I was old ? Ah woful ERE,", "Which tells me, YOUTH'S no longer here !", "O YOUTH ! for years so many and sweet,", "'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,", "I'll think it but a fond conceit--", "It cannot be that Thou art gone !", "Thy Vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd :--", "And thou wert aye a Masker bold !", "What strange Disguise hast now put on,", "To make believe, that thou art gone ?", "I see these Locks in silvery slips,", "This drooping Gait, this altered Size :", "But SPRINGTIDE blossoms on thy Lips,", "And Tears take sunshine from thine eyes !", "Life is but Thought : so think I will", "That YOUTH and I are House-mates still.", "", "Dew-drops are the gems of morning,", "But the tears of mournful eve !", "Where no hope is, life's a warning", "That only serves to make us grieve,", "[Image][Image]When we are old :", "", "That only serves to make us grieve", "With oft and tedious taking-leave,", "Like some poor nigh-related guest,", "That may not rudely be dismist ;", "Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while,", "And tells the jest without the smile." ], "linecount": "49" }, { "title": "A Soliloquy Of The Full Moon, She Being In A Mad Passion", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Now as Heaven is my Lot, they're the Pests of the Nation!", "Wherever they can come", "With clankum and blankum", "'Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation,", "With fun, jeering", "Conjuring", "Sky-staring,", "Loungering,", "And still to the tune of Transmogrification--", "Those muttering", "Spluttering", "Ventriloquogusty", "Poets", "With no Hats", "Or Hats that are rusty.", "They're my Torment and Curse", "And harass me worse", "And bait me and bay me, far sorer I vow", "Than the Screech of the Owl", "Or the witch-wolf's long howl,", "Or sheep-killing Butcher-dog's inward Bow wow", "For me they all spite--an unfortunate Wight.", "And the very first moment that I came to Light", "A Rascal call'd Voss the more to his scandal,", "Turn'd me into a sickle with never a handle.", "A Night or two after a worse Rogue there came,", "The head of the Gang, one Wordsworth by name--", "`Ho! What's in the wind?' 'Tis the voice of a Wizzard!", "I saw him look at me most terribly blue !", "He was hunting for witch-rhymes from great A to Izzard,", "And soon as he'd found them made no more ado", "But chang'd me at once to a little Canoe.", "From this strange Enchantment uncharm'd by degrees", "I began to take courage & hop'd for some Ease,", "When one Coleridge, a Raff of the self-same Banditti", "Past by--& intending no doubt to be witty,", "Because I'd th' ill-fortune his taste to displease,", "He turn'd up his nose,", "And in pitiful Prose", "Made me into the half of a small Cheshire Cheese.", "Well, a night or two past--it was wind, rain & hail--", "And I ventur'd abroad in a thick Cloak & veil--", "But the very first Evening he saw me again", "The last mentioned Ruffian popp'd out of his Den--", "I was resting a moment on the bare edge of Naddle", "I fancy the sight of me turn'd his Brains addle--", "For what was I now?", "A complete Barley-mow", "And when I climb'd higher he made a long leg,", "And chang'd me at once to an Ostrich's Egg--", "But now Heaven be praised in contempt of the Loon,", "I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.", "Yet my heart is still fluttering--", "For I heard the Rogue muttering--", "He was hulking and skulking at the skirt of a Wood", "When lightly & brightly on tip-toe I stood", "On the long level Line of a motionless Cloud", "And ho! what a Skittle-ground! quoth he aloud", "And wish'd from his heart nine Nine-pins to see", "In brightness & size just proportion'd to me.", "So I fear'd from my soul,", "That he'd make me a Bowl,", "But in spite of his spite", "This was more than his might", "And still Heaven be prais'd! in contempt of the Loon", "I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon." ], "linecount": "66" }, { "title": "The Blossing Of The Solitary Date-Tree", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Beneath the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the Thrones of", "Frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. `What no one", "with us shares, seems scarce our own.' The presence of a ONE,", "", "The best belov'd, who loveth me the best,", "", "is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow", "globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and all without, that", "would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen", "and crushes it into flatness.", "", "II", "", "The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and", "lovelier the object presented to the sense ; the more exquisite the", "individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and", "opportunities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel the ache of", "solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him.", "What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are", "shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them", "?", "", "III", "", "Hope, Imagination, honourable Aims,", "Free Commune with the choir that cannot die,", "Science and Song, delight in little things,", "The buoyant child surviving in the man ;", "Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean, sky,", "With all their voices--O dare I accuse", "My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen,", "Or call my destiny niggard ! O no ! no !", "It is her largeness, and her overflow,", "Which being incomplete, disquieteth me so !", "", "IV", "", "For never touch of gladness stirs my heart,", "But tim'rously beginning to rejoice", "Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start", "In lonesome tent, I listen for thy voice.", "Belovйd ! 'tis not thine ; thou art not there !", "Then melts the bubble into idle air,", "And wishing without hope I restlessly despair.", "", "V", "", "The mother with anticipated glee", "Smiles o'er the child, that, standing by her chair", "And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her knee,", "Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare", "To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight", "She hears her own voice with a new delight ;", "And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes aright,", "", "VI", "", "Then is she tenfold gladder than before !", "But should disease or chance the darling take,", "What then avail those songs, which sweet of yore", "Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake ?", "Dear maid ! no prattler at a mother's knee", "Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee :", "Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me ?" ], "linecount": "52" }, { "title": "The Suicide's Argument", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no", "No question was asked me--it could not be so !", "If the life was the question, a thing sent to try", "And to live on be YES; what can NO be ? to die.", "", "NATURE'S ANSWER", "", "Is't returned, as 'twas sent ? Is't no worse for the wear ?", "Think first, what you ARE ! Call to mind what you WERE !", "I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,", "Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope,", "Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair ?", "Make out the invent'ry ; inspect, compare !", "Then die--if die you dare !" ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Fears In Solitude", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "A green and silent spot, amid the hills,", "A small and silent dell ! O'er stiller place", "No singing sky-lark 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 corn-field, 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 wrapt", "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, speach-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,", "(Portentious sight !) the owlet Atheism,", "Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,", "Drops his blue-fringйd lids, and holds them close,", "And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,", "Cries out, `Where is it ?'", "", "[Image][Image][Image] 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 wing, all read of war,", "The best amusement for our morning meal !", "The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers", "From curses, and 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 ?", "", "[Image][Image][Image] 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 fire-side,", "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 sea-weed, 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 !", "", "[Image][Image][Image][Image] I have told,", "O Britons ! O my brethren ! I have told", "Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.", "Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed ;", "For never can true courage dwell with them,", "Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look", "At their own vices. We have been too long", "Dupes of a deep delusion ! Some, belike,", "Groaning with restless enmity, expect", "All change from change of constituted power ;", "As if a Government had been a robe,", "On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged", "Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe", "Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach", "A radical causation to a few", "Poor drudges of chastising Providence,", "Who borrow all their hues and qualities", "From our own folly and rank wickedness,", "Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others, meanwhile,", "Dote with a mad idolatry ; and all", "Who will not fall before their images,", "And yield them worship, they are enemies", "Even of their country !", "", "[Image] [Image] [Image] Such have I been deemed--", "But, O dear Britain ! O my Mother Isle !", "Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy", "To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,", "A husband, and a father ! who revere", "All bonds of natural love, and find them all", "Within the limits of thy rocky shores.", "O native Britain ! O my Mother Isle !", "How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy", "To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,", "Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,", "Have drunk in all my intellectual life,", "All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,", "All adoration of God in nature,", "All lovely and all honourable things,", "Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel", "The joy and greatness of its future being ?", "There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul", "Unborrowed from my country ! O divine", "And beauteous island ! thou hast been my sole", "And most magnificent temple, in the which", "I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,", "Loving the God that made me !--", "", "[Image][Image][Image][Image][Image] May my fears,", "My filial fears, be vain ! and may the vaunts", "And menace of the vengeful enemy", "Pass like the gust, that roared and died away", "In the distant tree : which heard, and only heard", "In this low dell, bowed not the delicate grass.", "", "But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad", "The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze :", "The light has left the summit of the hill,", "Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful,", "Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,", "Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot !", "On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill,", "Homeward I wind my way ; and lo ! recalled", "From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me,", "I find myself upon the brow, and pause", "Startled ! And after lonely sojourning", "In such a quiet and surrounded nook,", "This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main,", "Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty", "Of that huge amphitheatre of rich", "And elmy fields, seems like society--", "Conversing with the mind, and giving it", "A livelier impulse and a dance of thought !", "And now, belovйd Stowey ! I behold", "Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms", "Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend ;", "And close behind them, hidden from my view,", "Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe", "And my babe's mother dwell in peace ! With light", "And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend,", "Remembering thee, O green and silent dell !", "And grateful, that by nature's quietness", "And solitary musings, all my heart", "Is softened, and made worthy to indulge", "Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind." ], "linecount": "237" }, { "title": "Work Without Hope", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—", "The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—", "And Winter slumbering in the open air,", "Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!", "And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,", "Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.", "", "Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,", "Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.", "Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,", "For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!", "With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:", "And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?", "Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,", "And Hope without an object cannot live.", "", "(composed 21st February 1825)" ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "The Faded Flower", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Ungrateful he, who pluck'd thee from thy stalk,", "Poor faded flow'ret! on his careless way;", "Inhal'd awhile thy odours on his walk,", "Then onward pass'd and left thee to decay.", "Ah! melancholy emblem! had I seen", "Thy modest beauties dew'd with Evening's gem,", "I had not rudely cropp'd thy parent stem,", "But left thee, blushing, 'mid the enliven'd green.", "And now I bend me o'er thy wither'd bloom,", "And drop the tear - as Fancy, at my side,", "Deep-sighing, points the fair frail Abra's tomb -", "'Like thine, sad Flower, was that poor wanderer's pride!", "Oh! lost to Love and Truth, whose selfish joy", "Tasted her vernal sweets, but tasted to destroy!'" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment)", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood,", "That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood", "Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank", "Of its wide base controls the fronting bank,", "(By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away", "The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay)", "High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits", "His channel'd Brows; low murmurs stir by fits", "And dark below the horrid Faquir sits;", "An Horror from its broad Head's branchy wreath", "Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath--" ], "linecount": "11" }, { "title": "What Is Life?", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Resembles Life what once was held of Light,", "Too ample in itself for human sight ?", "An absolute Self--an element ungrounded--", "All, that we see, all colours of all shade", "[Image]By encroach of darkness made ?--", "Is very life by consciousness unbounded ?", "And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,", "A war-embrace of wrestling Life and Death ?" ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Something Childish, But Very Natural", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "If I had but two little wings", "And were a little feathery bird,", "To you I'd fly, my dear!", "But thoughts like these are idle things,", "And I stay here.", "", "But in my sleep to you I fly:", "I'm always with you in my sleep!", "The world is all one's own.", "But then one wakes, and where am I?", "All, all alone.", "", "Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:", "So I love to wake ere break of day:", "For though my sleep be gone,", "Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,", "And still dreams on." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt (fragment)", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt--", "A Flight of Hopes for ever on the wing", "But made Tranquillity a conscious Thing--", "And wheeling round and round in sportive coil", "Fann'd the calm air upon the brow of Toil--" ], "linecount": "5" }, { "title": "Reflections On Having Left A Place Of Retirement", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Low was our pretty Cot : our tallest Rose", "Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear", "At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,", "The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air", "Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch", "Thick Jasmins twined : the little landscape round", "Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.", "It was a spot which you might aptly call", "The Valley of Seclusion ! Once I saw", "(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quiteness)", "A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by,", "Bristowa's citizen : methought, it calm'd", "His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse", "With wiser feelings : for he paus'd, and look'd", "With a pleas'd sadness, and gaz'd all around,", "Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz'd round again,", "And sigh'd, and said, it was a Blessйd Place.", "And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear", "Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note", "(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen", "Gleaming on sunny wings) in whisper'd tones", "I said to my Belovйd, `Such, sweet Girl !", "The inobtrusive song of Happiness,", "Unearthly minstrelsy ! then only heard", "When the Soul seeks to hear ; when all is hush'd,", "And the Heart listens !'", "", "[Image][Image][Image]But the time, when first", "From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount", "I climb'd with perilous toil and reach'd the top,", "Oh ! what a goodly scene ! Here the bleak mount,", "The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep ;", "Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ;", "And river, now with bushy rocks o'er-brow'd,", "Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ;", "And seats, and lawns, the Abbey and the wood,", "And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire ;", "The Channel there, the Islands and white sails,", "Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless Ocean--", "It seem'd like Omnipresence ! God, methought,", "Had build him there a Temple : the whole World", "Seem'd imag'd in its vast circumference :", "No wish profan'd my overwhelmйd heart.", "Blest hour ! It was a luxury,--to be !", "", "Ah ! quiet Dell ! dear Cot, and Mount sublime !", "I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right,", "While my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled,", "That I should dream away the entrusted hours", "On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart", "With feelings all too delicate for use ?", "Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye", "Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth :", "And he that works me good with unmov'd face,", "Does it but half : he chills me while he aids,", "My benefactor, not my brother man !", "Yet even this, this cold beneficience", "Praise, praise it, O my Soul ! oft as thou scann'st", "The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe !", "Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the Wretched,", "Nursing in some delicious solitude", "Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies !", "I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,", "Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight", "Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.", "", "Yet oft when after honourable toil", "Rests the tir'd mind, and waking loves to dream,", "My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot !", "Thy Jasmin and thy window-peeping Rose,", "And Myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.", "And I shall sigh fond wishes--sweet Abode !", "Ah !--had none greater ! And that all had such !", "It might be so--but the time is not yet.", "Speed it, O Father ! Let thy Kingdom come !" ], "linecount": "72" }, { "title": "The Improvisatore", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Scene--A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.", "", "Katharine. What are the words ?", "", "Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore ; here he comes. Kate has a favour", "to ask of you, Sir ; it is that you will repeat the ballad [Believe me if", "all those endearing young charms.--EHC's ? note] that Mr. ____ sang so", "sweetly.", "", "Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies ; but I do not recollect the", "words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this :--", "", "Love would remain the same if true,", "When we were neither young nor new ;", "Yea, and in all within the will that came,", "By the same proofs would show itself the same.", "", "Eliza. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my", "mother admired so much ? It begins with something about two vines so close", "that their tendrils intermingle.", "", "Friend. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother.", "", "We'll live together, like two neighbour vines,", "Circling our souls and loves in one another !", "We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit ;", "One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ;", "One age go with us, and one hour of death", "Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy.", "", "Katharine. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile one to old", "age--this love--if true ! But is there any such true love ?", "", "Friend. I hope so.", "", "Katharine. But do you believe it ?", "", "Eliza (eagerly). I am sure he does.", "", "Friend. From a man turned of fifty, Katharine, I imagine, expects a", "less confident answer.", "", "Katharine. A more sincere one, perhaps.", "", "Friend. Even though he should have obtained the nick-name of", "Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at", "Christmas times ?", "", "Eliza. Nay, but be serious.", "", "Friend. Serious ! Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a", "Love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The", "difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to remain so. It will be", "asked whether I am not the `elderly gentleman' who sate `despairing", "beside a clear stream', with a willow for his wig-block.", "", "Eliza. Say another word, and we will call it downright affectation.", "", "Katharine. No ! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for", "our presumption in expecting that Mr. ___ would waste his sense on two", "insignificant girls.", "", "Friend. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem ! Now then commences the", "discourse ; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished", "from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often", "usurps its name, on the other--", "", "Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the", "Friend). But is not Love the union of both ?", "", "Friend (aside to Lucius). He never loved who thinks so.", "", "Eliza. Brother, we don't want you. There ! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the", "flower vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman.", "", "Lucius. I'll have my revenge ! I know what I will say !", "", "Eliza. Off ! Off ! Now, dear Sir,--Love, you were saying--", "", "Friend. Hush ! Preaching, you mean, Eliza.", "", "Eliza (impatiently). Pshaw !", "", "Friend. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not", "the most common thing in the world : and that mutual love still less", "so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated", "by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the", "well-known ballad, `John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in addition to a", "depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes", "a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature ; a constitutional", "communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul ; a delight in the", "detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament", "within--to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But", "above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide", "of life--even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt", "oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away and which,", "in all our lovings, is the Love ;----", "", "Eliza. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to", "understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself.", "", "Katharine. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for", "us.", "", "Friend. ---- I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the", "self for itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the", "total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own", ";--that quiet perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved", "object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and,", "finding, again seeks on ;--lastly, when `life's changeful orb has", "pass'd the full', a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus", "brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly", "experience ; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not", "the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by", "familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty", "which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of", "possessing the same or the correspondent excellence in their own", "characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the", "beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of", "love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow ; and dares", "make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a", "thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged Virtue the", "caressing fondness that belongs to the Innocence of childhood, and", "repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been", "dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in", "feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.", "", "Eliza. What a soothing--what an elevating idea !", "", "Katharine. If it be not only an idea.", "", "Friend. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are", "rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it", "be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world", "under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife. A", "person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as a", "neighbour, friend, housemate--in short, in all the concentric circles", "of attachment save only the last and inmost ; and yet from how many", "causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this ! Pride,", "coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or", "ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,--one or", "the other--too often proves `the dead fly in the compost of spices',", "and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction.", "For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort", "of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself", "alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this high", "sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part,", "grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of", "preserving the same but by negatives--that is, but not doing or saying", "any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical", ";--or, (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which", "some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most", "worthless object they could be employed in remembering.", "", "Eliza (in answer to a whisper from Katharine). To a hair ! He must have", "sate for it himself. Save me from such folks ! But they are out of the", "question.", "", "Friend. True ! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too", "general insensibility to a very important truth ; this, namely, that", "the MISERY of human life is made up of large masses, each separated", "from the other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a child ;", "years after, a failure in trade ; after another longer or shorter", "interval, a daughter may have married unhappily ;--in all but the", "singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total", "of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily counted, and distinctly", "remembered. The HAPPINESS of life, on the contrary, is made up of", "minute fractions--the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a", "smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a", "playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of", "pleasurable thought and genial feeling.", "", "Katharine. Well, Sir ; you have said quite enough to make me despair of", "finding a `John Anderson, my Jo, John', with whom to totter down the hill", "of life.", "", "Friend. Not so ! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer than good", "women, but that what another would find in you, you may hope to find", "in another. But well, however, may that boon be rare, the possession", "of which would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue.", "", "Eliza. Surely, he, who has described it so well, must have possessed it ?", "", "Friend. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly", "anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment !", "", "(Then, after a pause of a few minutes),", "", "--------------------------------------", "ANSWER, ex improviso", "", "Yes, yes ! that boon, life's richest treat", "He had, or fancied that he had ;", "Say, 'twas but in his own conceit--", "The fancy made him glad !", "Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish !", "The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish,", "The fair fulfilment of his poesy,", "When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy !", "But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain", "Unnourished wane ;", "Faith asks her daily bread,", "And Fancy must be fed !", "Now so it chanced--from wet or dry,", "It boots not how--I know not why--", "She missed her wonted food ; and quickly", "Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly.", "Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay,", "His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and flow ;", "Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay,", "Above its anchor driving to and fro.", "", "That boon, which but to have possess'd", "In a belief, gave life a zest--", "Uncertain both what it had been,", "And if by error lost, or luck ;", "And what is was ;--an evergreen", "Which some insidious blight had struck,", "Or annual flower, which, past its blow,", "No vernal spell shall e'er revive ;", "Uncertain, and afraid to know,", "Doubts toss'd him to and fro :", "Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive,", "Like babes bewildered in a snow,", "That cling and huddle from the cold", "In hollow tree or ruin'd fold.", "", "Those sparkling colours, once his boast", "Fading, one by one away,", "Thin and hueless as a ghost,", "Poor Fancy on her sick bed lay ;", "Ill at distance, worse when near,", "Telling her dreams to jealous Fear !", "Where was it then, the sociable sprite,", "That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish !", "Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,", "Itself a substance by no other right", "But that it intercepted Reason's light ;", "It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,", "A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow !", "Thank Heaven ! 'tis not so now.", "", "O bliss of blissful hours !", "The boon of Heaven's decreeing,", "While yet in Eden's bowers", "Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate !", "The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing,", "They bore with them thro' Eden's closing gate !", "Of life's gay summer tide the sovran Rose !", "Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows", "When Passion's flowers all fall or fade ;", "If this were ever his, in outward being,", "Or but his own true love's projected shade,", "Now that at length by certain proof he knows,", "That whether real or a magic show,", "Whate'er it was, it is no longer so ;", "Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,", "Yet, Lady ! deem him not unblest :", "The certainty that struck Hope dead,", "Hath left Contentment in her stead :", "And that is next to Best !" ], "linecount": "216" }, { "title": "From 'Religious Musings'", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "I", "", "THERE is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,", "Omnific. His most holy name is Love.", "Truth of subliming import! with the which", "Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,", "He from his small particular orbit flies", "With blest outstarting! From himself he flies,", "Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze", "Views all creation; and he loves it all,", "And blesses it, and calls it very good!", "This is indeed to dwell with the Most High!", "Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim", "Can press no nearer to the Almighty’s throne.", "But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts", "Unfeeling of our universal Sire,", "And that in His vast family no Cain", "Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow", "Victorious Murder a blind Suicide)", "Haply for this some younger Angel now", "Looks down on Human Nature: and, behold!", "A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad", "Embattling Interests on each other rush", "With unhelmed rage!", "’Tis the sublime of man,", "Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves", "Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!", "This fraternizes man, this constitutes", "Our charities and bearings. But ’tis God", "Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole;", "This the worst superstition, him except", "Aught to desire, Supreme Reality!", "The plenitude and permanence of bliss!", "", "II", "", "Toy-bewitched,", "Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,", "No common centre Man, no common sire", "Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing,", "Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart", "Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams", "Feeling himself, his own low self the whole;", "When he by sacred sympathy might make", "The whole one Self! Self, that no alien knows!", "Self, far diffused as Fancy’s wing can travel!", "Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own,", "Yet all of all possessing! This is Faith!", "This the Messiah’s destined victory!" ], "linecount": "46" }, { "title": "This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,", "This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost", "Beauties and feelings, such as would have been", "Most sweet to my remembrance even when age", "Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,", "Friends, whom I never more may meet again,", "On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,", "Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,", "To that still roaring dell, of which I told;", "The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,", "And only speckled by the mid-day sun;", "Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock", "Flings arching like a bridge; -- that branchless ash,", "Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves", "Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,", "Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends", "Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,", "That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)", "Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge", "Of the blue clay-stone.", "Now, my friends emerge", "Beneath the wide wide Heaven -- and view again", "The many-steepled tract magnificent", "Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,", "With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up", "The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles", "Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on", "In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,", "My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined", "And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,", "In the great City pent, winning thy way", "With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain", "And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink", "Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!", "Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,", "Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!", "Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!", "And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend", "Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,", "Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round", "On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem", "Less gross than bodily; and of such hues", "As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes", "Spirits perceive his presence.", "A delight", "Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad", "As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,", "This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd", "Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze", "Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd", "Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see", "The shadow of the leaf and stem above", "Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree", "Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay", "Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps", "Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass", "Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue", "Through the late twilight; and though now the bat", "Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,", "Yet still the solitary humble-bee", "Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know", "That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;", "No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,", "No waste so vacant, but may well employ", "Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart", "Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes", "'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,", "That we may lift the soul, and contemplate", "With lively joy the joys we cannot share.", "My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook", "Beat its straight path along the dusky air", "Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing", "(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)", "Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,", "While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,", "Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm", "For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom", "No sound is dissonant which tells of Life." ], "linecount": "78" }, { "title": "Life", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "As late I journey'd o'er the extensive plain", "Where native Otter sports his scanty stream,", "Musing in torpid woe a Sister's pain,", "The glorious prospect woke me from the dream.", "", "At every step it widen'd to my sight -", "Wood, Meadow, verdant Hill, and dreary Steep,", "Following in quick succession of delight, -", "Till all - at once - did my eye ravish'd sweep!", "", "May this (I cried) my course through Life portray!", "New scenes of Wisdom may each step display,", "And Knowledge open as my days advance!", "Till what time Death shall pour the undarken'd ray,", "My eye shall dart thro' infinite expanse,", "And thought suspended lie in Rapture's blissful trance." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Human Life", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "If dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom", "Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare", "As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,", "Whose sound and motion not alone declare,", "But are their whole of being ! If the breath", "Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,", "If even a soul like Milton's can know death ;", "O Man ! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,", "Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes !", "Surplus of Nature's dread activity,", "Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,", "Retreating slow, with meditative pause,", "She formed with restless hands unconsciously.", "Blank accident ! nothing's anomaly !", "If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,", "Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,", "The counter-weights !--Thy laughter and thy tears", "Mean but themselves, each fittest to create", "And to repay the other ! Why rejoices", "Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good ?", "Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood ?", "Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,", "Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,", "That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold ?", "Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold", "These costless shadows of thy shadowy self ?", "Be sad ! be glad ! be neither ! seek, or shun !", "Thou hast no reason why ! Thou canst have none ;", "Thy being's being is contradiction." ], "linecount": "29" }, { "title": "To A Primrose", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "The first seen in the season", "", "Nitens et roboris expers", "Turget et insolida est: et spe delectat.", "- Ovid, Metam. [xv.203].", "", "Thy smiles I note, sweet early Flower,", "That peeping from thy rustic bower", "The festive news to earth dost bring,", "A fragrant messenger of Spring.", "", "But, tender blossom, why so pale?", "Dost hear stern Winter in the gale?", "And didst thou tempt the ungentle sky", "To catch one vernal glance and die?", "", "Such the wan lustre Sickness wears", "When Health's first feeble beam appears;", "So languid are the smiles that seek", "To settle on the care-worn cheek,", "", "When timorous Hope the head uprears,", "Still drooping and still moist with tears,", "If, through dispersing grief, be seen", "Of Bliss the heavenly spark serene.", "", "And sweeter far the early blow,", "Fast following after storms of Woe,", "Than (Comfort's riper season come)", "Are full-blown joys and Pleasure's gaudy bloom." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Sonnet", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "To the River Otter", "", "Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West!", "How many various-fated years have past,", "What happy and what mournful hours, since last", "I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast,", "Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest", "Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes", "I never shut amid the sunny ray,", "But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,", "Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,", "And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes", "Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way,", "Visions of Childhood! oft have ye beguil'd", "Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:", "Ah! that once more I were a careless Child!" ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Christabel", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "PART I", "'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock", "And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;", "Tu-whit!- Tu-whoo!", "And hark, again! the crowing cock,", "How drowsily it crew.", "Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,", "Hath a toothless mastiff, which", "From her kennel beneath the rock", "Maketh answer to the clock,", "Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;", "Ever and aye, by shine and shower,", "Sixteen short howls, not over loud;", "Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.", "Is the night chilly and dark?", "The night is chilly, but not dark.", "The thin gray cloud is spread on high,", "It covers but not hides the sky.", "The moon is behind, and at the full;", "And yet she looks both small and dull.", "The night is chill, the cloud is gray:", "'T is a month before the month of May,", "And the Spring comes slowly up this way.", "The lovely lady, Christabel,", "Whom her father loves so well,", "What makes her in the wood so late,", "A furlong from the castle gate?", "She had dreams all yesternight", "Of her own betrothed knight;", "And she in the midnight wood will pray", "For the weal of her lover that's far away.", "She stole along, she nothing spoke,", "The sighs she heaved were soft and low,", "And naught was green upon the oak,", "But moss and rarest mistletoe:", "She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,", "And in silence prayeth she.", "The lady sprang up suddenly,", "The lovely lady, Christabel!", "It moaned as near, as near can be,", "But what it is she cannot tell.-", "On the other side it seems to be,", "Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.", "The night is chill; the forest bare;", "Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?", "There is not wind enough in the air", "To move away the ringlet curl", "From the lovely lady's cheek-", "There is not wind enough to twirl", "The one red leaf, the last of its clan,", "That dances as often as dance it can,", "Hanging so light, and hanging so high,", "On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.", "Hush, beating heart of Christabel!", "Jesu, Maria, shield her well!", "She folded her arms beneath her cloak,", "And stole to the other side of the oak.", "What sees she there?", "There she sees a damsel bright,", "Dressed in a silken robe of white,", "That shadowy in the moonlight shone:", "The neck that made that white robe wan,", "Her stately neck, and arms were bare;", "Her blue-veined feet unsandaled were;", "And wildly glittered here and there", "The gems entangled in her hair.", "I guess, 't was frightful there to see", "A lady so richly clad as she-", "Beautiful exceedingly!", "'Mary mother, save me now!'", "Said Christabel, 'and who art thou?'", "The lady strange made answer meet,", "And her voice was faint and sweet:-", "'Have pity on my sore distress,", "I scarce can speak for weariness:", "Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!'", "Said Christabel, 'How camest thou here?'", "And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,", "Did thus pursue her answer meet:-", "'My sire is of a noble line,", "And my name is Geraldine:", "Five warriors seized me yestermorn,", "Me, even me, a maid forlorn:", "They choked my cries with force and fright,", "And tied me on a palfrey white.", "The palfrey was as fleet as wind,", "And they rode furiously behind.", "They spurred amain, their steeds were white:", "And once we crossed the shade of night.", "As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,", "I have no thought what men they be;", "Nor do I know how long it is", "(For I have lain entranced, I wis)", "Since one, the tallest of the five,", "Took me from the palfrey's back,", "A weary woman, scarce alive.", "Some muttered words his comrades spoke:", "He placed me underneath this oak;", "He swore they would return with haste;", "Whither they went I cannot tell-", "I thought I heard, some minutes past,", "Sounds as of a castle bell.", "Stretch forth thy hand,' thus ended she,", "'And help a wretched maid to flee.'", "Then Christabel stretched forth her hand,", "And comforted fair Geraldine:", "'O well, bright dame, may you command", "The service of Sir Leoline;", "And gladly our stout chivalry", "Will he send forth, and friends withal,", "To guide and guard you safe and free", "Home to your noble father's hall.'", "She rose: and forth with steps they passed", "That strove to be, and were not, fast.", "Her gracious stars the lady blest,", "And thus spake on sweet Christabel:", "'All our household are at rest,", "The hall is silent as the cell;", "Sir Leoline is weak in health,", "And may not well awakened be,", "But we will move as if in stealth;", "And I beseech your courtesy,", "This night, to share your couch with me.'", "They crossed the moat, and Christabel", "Took the key that fitted well;", "A little door she opened straight,", "All in the middle of the gate;", "The gate that was ironed within and without,", "Where an army in battle array had marched out.", "The lady sank, belike through pain,", "And Christabel with might and main", "Lifted her up, a weary weight,", "Over the threshold of the gate:", "Then the lady rose again,", "And moved, as she were not in pain.", "So, free from danger, free from fear,", "They crossed the court: right glad they were.", "And Christabel devoutly cried", "To the Lady by her side;", "'Praise we the Virgin all divine,", "Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!'", "'Alas, alas!' said Geraldine,", "'I cannot speak for weariness.'", "So, free from danger, free from fear,", "They crossed the court: right glad they were.", "Outside her kennel the mastiff old", "Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.", "The mastiff old did not awake,", "Yet she an angry moan did make.", "And what can ail the mastiff bitch?", "Never till now she uttered yell", "Beneath the eye of Christabel.", "Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch:", "For what can aid the mastiff bitch?", "They passed the hall, that echoes still,", "Pass as lightly as you will.", "The brands were flat, the brands were dying,", "Amid their own white ashes lying;", "But when the lady passed, there came", "A tongue of light, a fit of flame;", "And Christabel saw the lady's eye,", "And nothing else saw she thereby,", "Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,", "Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.", "'O softly tread,' said Christabel,", "'My father seldom sleepeth well.'", "Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,", "And, jealous of the listening air,", "They steal their way from stair to stair,", "Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,", "And now they pass the Baron's room,", "As still as death, with stifled breath!", "And now have reached her chamber door;", "And now doth Geraldine press down", "The rushes of the chamber floor.", "The moon shines dim in the open air,", "And not a moonbeam enters here.", "But they without its light can see", "The chamber carved so curiously,", "Carved with figures strange and sweet,", "All made out of the carver's brain,", "For a lady's chamber meet:", "The lamp with twofold silver chain", "Is fastened to an angel's feet.", "The silver lamp burns dead and dim;", "But Christabel the lamp will trim.", "She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,", "And left it swinging to and fro,", "While Geraldine, in wretched plight,", "Sank down upon the floor below.", "'O weary lady, Geraldine,", "I pray you, drink this cordial wine!", "It is a wine of virtuous powers;", "My mother made it of wild flowers.'", "'And will your mother pity me,", "Who am a maiden most forlorn?'", "Christabel answered- 'Woe is me!", "She died the hour that I was born.", "I have heard the gray-haired friar tell,", "How on her death-bed she did say,", "That she should hear the castle-bell", "Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.", "O mother dear! that thou wert here!'", "'I would,' said Geraldine, 'she were!'", "But soon, with altered voice, said she-", "'Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!", "I have power to bid thee flee.'", "Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?", "Why stares she with unsettled eye?", "Can she the bodiless dead espy?", "And why with hollow voice cries she,", "'Off, woman, off! this hour is mine-", "Though thou her guardian spirit be,", "Off, woman. off! 't is given to me.'", "Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,", "And raised to heaven her eyes so blue-", "'Alas!' said she, 'this ghastly ride-", "Dear lady! it hath wildered you!'", "The lady wiped her moist cold brow,", "And faintly said, ''T is over now!'", "Again the wild-flower wine she drank:", "Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,", "And from the floor, whereon she sank,", "The lofty lady stood upright:", "She was most beautiful to see,", "Like a lady of a far countree.", "And thus the lofty lady spake-", "'All they, who live in the upper sky,", "Do love you, holy Christabel!", "And you love them, and for their sake,", "And for the good which me befell,", "Even I in my degree will try,", "Fair maiden, to requite you well.", "But now unrobe yourself; for I", "Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.'", "Quoth Christabel, 'So let it be!'", "And as the lady bade, did she.", "Her gentle limbs did she undress", "And lay down in her loveliness.", "But through her brain, of weal and woe,", "So many thoughts moved to and fro,", "That vain it were her lids to close;", "So half-way from the bed she rose,", "And on her elbow did recline.", "To look at the lady Geraldine.", "Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,", "And slowly rolled her eyes around;", "Then drawing in her breath aloud,", "Like one that shuddered, she unbound", "The cincture from beneath her breast:", "Her silken robe, and inner vest,", "Dropped to her feet, and full in view,", "Behold! her bosom and half her side-", "A sight to dream of, not to tell!", "O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!", "Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs:", "Ah! what a stricken look was hers!", "Deep from within she seems half-way", "To lift some weight with sick assay,", "And eyes the maid and seeks delay;", "Then suddenly, as one defied,", "Collects herself in scorn and pride,", "And lay down by the maiden's side!-", "And in her arms the maid she took,", "Ah, well-a-day!", "And with low voice and doleful look", "These words did say:", "'In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,", "Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!", "Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,", "This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;", "But vainly thou warrest,", "For this is alone in", "Thy power to declare,", "That in the dim forest", "Thou heard'st a low moaning,", "And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair:", "And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity,", "To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.'", "It was a lovely sight to see", "The lady Christabel, when she", "Was praying at the old oak tree.", "Amid the jagged shadows", "Of mossy leafless boughs,", "Kneeling in the moonlight,", "To make her gentle vows;", "Her slender palms together prest,", "Heaving sometimes on her breast;", "Her face resigned to bliss or bale-", "Her face, oh, call it fair not pale,", "And both blue eyes more bright than clear.", "Each about to have a tear.", "With open eyes (ah, woe is me!)", "Asleep, and dreaming fearfully,", "Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis,", "Dreaming that alone, which is-", "O sorrow and shame! Can this be she,", "The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree?", "And lo! the worker of these harms,", "That holds the maiden in her arms,", "Seems to slumber still and mild,", "As a mother with her child.", "A star hath set, a star hath risen,", "O Geraldine! since arms of thine", "Have been the lovely lady's prison.", "O Geraldine! one hour was thine-", "Thou'st had thy will! By tarn and rill,", "The night-birds all that hour were still.", "But now they are jubilant anew,", "From cliff and tower, tu-whoo! tu-whoo!", "Tu-whoo! tu-whoo! from wood and fell!", "And see! the lady Christabel", "Gathers herself from out her trance;", "Her limbs relax, her countenance", "Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids", "Close o'er her eyes; and tears she sheds-", "Large tears that leave the lashes bright!", "And oft the while she seems to smile", "As infants at a sudden light!", "Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,", "Like a youthful hermitess,", "Beauteous in a wilderness,", "Who, praying always, prays in sleep.", "And, if she move unquietly,", "Perchance, 't is but the blood so free", "Comes back and tingles in her feet.", "No doubt, she hath a vision sweet.", "What if her guardian spirit 't were,", "What if she knew her mother near?", "But this she knows, in joys and woes,", "That saints will aid if men will call:", "For the blue sky bends over all.", "PART II", "Each matin bell, the Baron saith,", "Knells us back to a world of death.", "These words Sir Leoline first said,", "When he rose and found his lady dead:", "These words Sir Leoline will say", "Many a morn to his dying day!", "And hence the custom and law began", "That still at dawn the sacristan,", "Who duly pulls the heavy bell,", "Five and forty beads must tell", "Between each stroke- a warning knell,", "Which not a soul can choose but hear", "From Bratha Head to Wyndermere.", "Saith Bracy the bard, 'So let it knell!", "And let the drowsy sacristan", "Still count as slowly as he can!'", "There is no lack of such, I ween,", "As well fill up the space between.", "In Langdale Pike and Witch's Lair,", "And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent,", "With ropes of rock and bells of air", "Three sinful sextons' ghosts are pent,", "Who all give back, one after t' other,", "The death-note to their living brother;", "And oft too, by the knell offended,", "Just as their one! two! three! is ended,", "The devil mocks the doleful tale", "With a merry peal from Borrowdale.", "The air is still! through mist and cloud", "That merry peal comes ringing loud;", "And Geraldine shakes off her dread,", "And rises lightly from the bed;", "Puts on her silken vestments white,", "And tricks her hair in lovely plight,", "And nothing doubting of her spell", "Awakens the lady Christabel.", "'Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel?", "I trust that you have rested well.'", "And Christabel awoke and spied", "The same who lay down by her side-", "O rather say, the same whom she", "Raised up beneath the old oak tree!", "Nay, fairer yet! and yet more fair!", "For she belike hath drunken deep", "Of all the blessedness of sleep!", "And while she spake, her looks, her air,", "Such gentle thankfulness declare,", "That (so it seemed) her girded vests", "Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts.", "'Sure I have sinned!' said Christabel,", "'Now heaven be praised if all be well!'", "And in low faltering tones, yet sweet,", "Did she the lofty lady greet", "With such perplexity of mind", "As dreams too lively leave behind.", "So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed", "Her maiden limbs, and having prayed", "That He, who on the cross did groan,", "Might wash away her sins unknown,", "She forthwith led fair Geraldine", "To meet her sire, Sir Leoline.", "The lovely maid and the lady tall", "Are pacing both into the hall,", "And pacing on through page and groom,", "Enter the Baron's presence-room.", "The Baron rose, and while he prest", "His gentle daughter to his breast,", "With cheerful wonder in his eyes", "The lady Geraldine espies,", "And gave such welcome to the same,", "As might beseem so bright a dame!", "But when he heard the lady's tale,", "And when she told her father's name,", "Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale,", "Murmuring o'er the name again,", "Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine?", "Alas! they had been friends in youth;", "But whispering tongues can poison truth;", "And constancy lives in realms above;", "And life is thorny; and youth is vain;", "And to be wroth with one we love", "Doth work like madness in the brain.", "And thus it chanced, as I divine,", "With Roland and Sir Leoline.", "Each spake words of high disdain", "And insult to his heart's best brother:", "They parted- ne'er to meet again!", "But never either found another", "To free the hollow heart from paining-", "They stood aloof, the scars remaining,", "Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;", "A dreary sea now flows between.", "But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,", "Shall wholly do away, I ween,", "The marks of that which once hath been.", "Sir Leoline, a moment's space,", "Stood gazing on the damsel's face:", "And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine", "Came back upon his heart again.", "O then the Baron forgot his age,", "His noble heart swelled high with rage;", "He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side", "He would proclaim it far and wide,", "With trump and solemn heraldry,", "That they, who thus had wronged the dame", "Were base as spotted infamy!", "'And if they dare deny the same,", "My herald shall appoint a week,", "And let the recreant traitors seek", "My tourney court- that there and then", "I may dislodge their reptile souls", "From the bodies and forms of men!'", "He spake: his eye in lightning rolls!", "For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned", "In the beautiful lady the child of his friend!", "And now the tears were on his face,", "And fondly in his arms he took", "Fair Geraldine who met the embrace,", "Prolonging it with joyous look.", "Which when she viewed, a vision fell", "Upon the soul of Christabel,", "The vision of fear, the touch and pain!", "She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again-", "(Ah, woe is me! Was it for thee,", "Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?)", "Again she saw that bosom old,", "Again she felt that bosom cold,", "And drew in her breath with a hissing sound:", "Whereat the Knight turned wildly round,", "And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid", "With eyes upraised, as one that prayed.", "The touch, the sight, had passed away,", "And in its stead that vision blest,", "Which comforted her after-rest,", "While in the lady's arms she lay,", "Had put a rapture in her breast,", "And on her lips and o'er her eyes", "Spread smiles like light!", "With new surprise,", "'What ails then my beloved child?'", "The Baron said- His daughter mild", "Made answer, 'All will yet be well!'", "I ween, she had no power to tell", "Aught else: so mighty was the spell.", "Yet he who saw this Geraldine,", "Had deemed her sure a thing divine.", "Such sorrow with such grace she blended,", "As if she feared she had offended", "Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid!", "And with such lowly tones she prayed", "She might be sent without delay", "Home to her father's mansion.", "'Nay!", "Nay, by my soul!' said Leoline.", "'Ho! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine!", "Go thou, with music sweet and loud,", "And take two steeds with trappings proud,", "And take the youth whom thou lov'st best", "To bear thy harp, and learn thy song,", "And clothe you both in solemn vest,", "And over the mountains haste along,", "Lest wandering folk, that are abroad,", "Detain you on the valley road.", "'And when he has crossed the Irthing flood,", "My merry bard! he hastes, he hastes", "Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood,", "And reaches soon that castle good", "Which stands and threatens Scotland's wastes.", "'Bard Bracy! bard Bracy! your horses are fleet,", "Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet,", "More loud than your horses' echoing feet!", "And loud and loud to Lord Roland call,", "Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall!", "Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free-", "Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me.", "He bids thee come without delay", "With all thy numerous array;", "And take thy lovely daughter home:", "And he will meet thee on the way", "With all his numerous array", "White with their panting palfreys' foam:", "And, by mine honor! I will say,", "That I repent me of the day", "When I spake words of fierce disdain", "To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine!-", "- For since that evil hour hath flown,", "Many a summer's sun hath shone;", "Yet ne'er found I a friend again", "Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine.'", "The lady fell, and clasped his knees,", "Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing;", "And Bracy replied, with faltering voice,", "His gracious hail on all bestowing;", "'Thy words, thou sire of Christabel,", "Are sweeter than my harp can tell;", "Yet might I gain a boon of thee,", "This day my journey should not be,", "So strange a dream hath come to me;", "That I had vowed with music loud", "To clear yon wood from thing unblest,", "Warned by a vision in my rest!", "For in my sleep I saw that dove,", "That gentle bird, whom thou dost love,", "And call'st by thy own daughter's name-", "Sir Leoline! I saw the same,", "Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan,", "Among the green herbs in the forest alone.", "Which when I saw and when I heard,", "I wondered what might ail the bird;", "For nothing near it could I see,", "Save the grass and herbs underneath the old tree.", "And in my dream methought I went", "To search out what might there be found;", "And what the sweet bird's trouble meant,", "That thus lay fluttering on the ground.", "I went and peered, and could descry", "No cause for her distressful cry;", "But yet for her dear lady's sake", "I stooped, methought, the dove to take,", "When lo! I saw a bright green snake", "Coiled around its wings and neck.", "Green as the herbs on which it couched,", "Close by the dove's its head it crouched;", "And with the dove it heaves and stirs,", "Swelling its neck as she swelled hers!", "I woke; it was the midnight hour,", "The clock was echoing in the tower;", "But though my slumber was gone by,", "This dream it would not pass away-", "It seems to live upon my eye!", "And thence I vowed this self-same day", "With music strong and saintly song", "To wander through the forest bare,", "Lest aught unholy loiter there.'", "Thus Bracy said: the Baron, the while,", "Half-listening heard him with a smile;", "Then turned to Lady Geraldine,", "His eyes made up of wonder and love;", "And said in courtly accents fine,", "'Sweet maid, Lord Roland's beauteous dove,", "With arms more strong than harp or song,", "Thy sire and I will crush the snake!'", "He kissed her forehead as he spake,", "And Geraldine in maiden wise", "Casting down her large bright eyes,", "With blushing cheek and courtesy fine", "She turned her from Sir Leoline;", "Softly gathering up her train,", "That o'er her right arm fell again;", "And folded her arms across her chest,", "And couched her head upon her breast,", "And looked askance at Christabel-", "Jesu, Maria, shield her well!", "A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy,", "And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head,", "Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye,", "And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread,", "At Christabel she looked askance!-", "One moment- and the sight was fled!", "But Christabel in dizzy trance", "Stumbling on the unsteady ground", "Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound;", "And Geraldine again turned round,", "And like a thing that sought relief,", "Full of wonder and full of grief,", "She rolled her large bright eyes divine", "Wildly on Sir Leoline.", "The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone,", "She nothing sees- no sight but one!", "The maid, devoid of guile and sin,", "I know not how, in fearful wise,", "So deeply had she drunken in", "That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,", "That all her features were resigned", "To this sole image in her mind:", "And passively did imitate", "That look of dull and treacherous hate!", "And thus she stood, in dizzy trance,", "Still picturing that look askance", "With forced unconscious sympathy", "Full before her father's view-", "As far as such a look could be", "In eyes so innocent and blue!", "And when the trance was o'er, the maid", "Paused awhile, and inly prayed:", "Then falling at the Baron's feet,", "'By my mother's soul do I entreat", "That thou this woman send away!'", "She said: and more she could not say;", "For what she knew she could not tell,", "O'er-mastered by the mighty spell.", "Why is thy cheek so wan and wild,", "Sir Leoline? Thy only child", "Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride.", "So fair, so innocent, so mild;", "The same, for whom thy lady died!", "O by the pangs of her dear mother", "Think thou no evil of thy child!", "For her, and thee, and for no other,", "She prayed the moment ere she died:", "Prayed that the babe for whom she died,", "Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride!", "That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,", "Sir Leoline!", "And wouldst thou wrong thy only child,", "Her child and thine?", "Within the Baron's heart and brain", "If thoughts, like these, had any share,", "They only swelled his rage and pain,", "And did but work confusion there.", "His heart was cleft with pain and rage,", "His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild,", "Dishonored thus in his old age;", "Dishonored by his only child,", "And all his hospitality", "To the insulted daughter of his friend", "By more than woman's jealousy", "Brought thus to a disgraceful end-", "He rolled his eye with stern regard", "Upon the gentle ministrel bard,", "And said in tones abrupt, austere-", "'Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here?", "I bade thee hence!' The bard obeyed;", "And turning from his own sweet maid,", "The aged knight, Sir Leoline,", "Led forth the lady Geraldine!", "(Coleridge never finished the poem;", "this conclusion is by James Gillman,", "who cared for Coleridge during the", "latter years. He wrote the following", "based on what the poet would outline", "for his friends.)", "THE CONCLUSION TO PART II", "A little child, a limber elf,", "Singing, dancing to itself,", "A fairy thing with red round cheeks,", "That always finds, and never seeks,", "Makes such a vision to the sight", "As fills a father's eyes with light;", "And pleasures flow in so thick and fast", "Upon his heart, that he at last", "Must needs express his love's excess", "With words of unmeant bitterness.", "Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together", "Thoughts so all unlike each other;", "To mutter and mock a broken charm,", "To dally with wrong that does no harm.", "Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty", "At each wild word to feel within", "A sweet recoil of love and pity.", "And what, if in a world of sin", "(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)", "Such giddiness of heart and brain", "Comes seldom save from rage and pain,", "So talks as it's most used to do.", "THE END" ], "linecount": "689" }, { "title": "The Moon, how definite its orb! (fragment)", "author": "Samuel Coleridge", "lines": [ "The Moon, how definite its orb!", "Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze--", "'Tis there indeed,--but where is it not?--", "It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven,", "Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake,", "Whose very murmur does of it partake", "And low and close the broad smooth mountain", "Is more a thing of Heaven than when", "Distinct by one dim shade and yet undivided from the universal cloud", "In which it towers, finite in height." ], "linecount": "10" } ]