violence to craft, or betrayed it in venomous looks, she could not have beaten the soft-voiced, appalling spells, or sudden, snakeeyed glances of the lady Geraldine,-looks which the innocent Christabel, in her fascination, feels compelled to "imitate."

A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy,

And the lady's eyes they shrank in her head,

Each shrank up to a serpent's eye;

And with somewhat of malice and more of dread,

At Christabel she look'd askance.

This is as exquisite in its knowledge of the fascinating tendencies of fear as it is in its description. And what can surpass a line quoted already in the Essay (but I must quote it again!) for very perfection of grace and sentiment?—the line in the passage where Christabel is going to bed, before she is aware that her visitor is a witch.

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.

Oh! it is too late now; and habit and self-love blinded me at the time, and I did not know (much as I admired im) how great a poet lived in that grove at Highgate; or I would have cultivat ed its walks more, as I might have done, and endeavored to return him, with my gratitude, a small portion of the delight his verses have given me.

I must add, that I do not think Coleridge's earlier poems at all equal to the rest. Many, indeed, I do not care to read a second time; but there are some ten or a dozen, of which I never fire, and which will one day make a small and precious volume to

put in the pockets of all enthusiasts in poetry, and endure with the language. Five of these are The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, Genevieve, and Youth and Age. Some, that more personally relate to the poet, will be added for the love of him, not omitting the Visit of the Gods, from Schiller, and the famous passage on the Heathen Mythology, also from Schiller. A short life, a portrait, and some other engravings perhaps, will complete the book, after the good old fashion of Cooke's and Bell's editions of the Poets; and then, like the contents of the Jew of Malta's casket, there will be

Infinite riches in a little room.

I play'd a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace, For well she knew I could not choose But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The lady of the land.

I told her how he pin'd, and—ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace, And she forgave me, that I gaz'd Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely knight, And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night:

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade,

There came and look'd him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a fiend,
This miserable knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,
He leap'd amid a murderous band,
And sav'd from outrage worse than death
The lady of the land!

And how she wept and claspt his knees; And how she tended him in vain

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

And that she nurs'd him in a cave;

And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay.

His dying words—but when I reach'd
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturb'd her soul with pity.

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long.

She wept with pity and delight,

She blush'd with love and virgin shame And like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heav'd-she stept aside,

As conscious of my look she stept Then suddenly, with timorous eye, She fled to me and wept.

She half enclos'd me in her arms,

She press'd me with a meek embrace: And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love and partly fear,

And partly 't was a bashful art That I might rather feel than see, The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride,

And so I won my Genevieve,
My own, my beauteous bride!

I can hardly say a word upon this poem for very admiration. I must observe, however, that one of the charms of it consists in the numerous repetitions and revolvings of the words, one on the other, as if taking delight in their own beauty.

www.wm

KUBLA KHAN.

SUGGESTED TO THE AUTHOR BY A PASSAGE IN PURCHAS'S PILGRIMAGE.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan1

A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill, athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forc'd;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thrasher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks, at once and ever,
It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: