115 On whom those truths do rest, Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, 120 A Presence which is not to be put by; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 125 Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! 130 IX. O joy! that in our embers The thought of our past years in me doth breed 135 For that which is most worthy to be blest Delight and liberty, the simple creed 140 Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Blank misgivings of a Creature 145 Moving about in worlds not realised, 150 High instincts before which our mortal Nature Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 160 Can utterly abolish or destroy! 165 170 Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, X. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that through your hearts to-day 176 What though the radiance which was once so bright 180 185 Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; Which having been must ever be; In the faith that looks through death, XI. And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; 190 I only have relinquished one delight 195 To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. ×× To me the meanest flower that blows can give Herrig-Forster, British Authors. 23 SCHILL. [Comp. 1809-publ. 1815] Brave Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight 5 A meteor wert thou crossing a dark night: In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. AMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772 SAMU ---1834) was born at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, where his father was vicar and head-master of the grammar school. From Christ's Hospital, London, where he startled his schoolfellow Lamb by his precocious interest in metaphysics, he passed to Jesus College, Cambridge, which he left without a degree in 1794. Unfitted for a regular profession by his indolent character and extreme views in religion and politics, he early looked to writing for support, especially after a scheme of emigrating to America with Southey and some other friends and founding a communistic colony or 'Pantisocracy' had come to nothing. His marriage to Sara Fricker (1795) brought him a few months of happy retirement at the small watering-place of Clevedon, near Bristol, which he commemorated in some fine lyrics (Eolian Harp and Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement). After the failure of several plans of occupation, a home was found for him in the little market-town of Nether Stowey, Somerset, where a congenial literary circle gathered round a rich tanner, Thomas Poole. The three years spent there (1796-1798) proved a happy time of poetic inspiration for him, especially after the Wordsworths had removed to the neighbouring Alfoxden (1797). The result of the stimulating friendship of the two poets was the me morable Lyrical Ballads (1798), to which Coleridge contributed his wonderful ballad of the Ancient Mariner. Not included in this volume, but composed about that time were also the exquisite lines entitled Love, the first part of the weird ballad of Christabel (continuated by a second part in 1800, both published 1816), and the magnificent fragment of Kubla Khan, which was the record of an opium-dream. In 1798 the munificence of the brothers Wedgwood enabled him to go to Germany, where he studied at Göttingen and became well acquainted with German literature and philosophy. On his return he published his powerful translation of Schiller's Wallenstein (1800), and took up his abode at Greta Hall, near Keswick (1800-1810), whither his brother-in-law Southey followed him in 1803, whilst Wordsworth was already settled there at Grasmere. Much troubled by rheumatism and neuralgia Coleridge had more and more become a slave to opium - drinking, which severely injured both his body and mind. To restore his health he tried a sojourn at Malta (1804); but in vain. A growing estrangement from his wife aggravated his despondency, and led him at last to leave his family in the Lakes and to go to London. There he found a home with an old friend, Mr. Morgan, and managed to do much journalistic work, besides giving several courses of lectures on Shakspere and other poets, which have come down to us only in fragmentary notes. Finally he placed himself under the care of the physician Dr. Gillman, in whose house at Highgate he spent the last 18 years of his life. There he occupied himself mainly with metaphysical studies, and soon became the centre of admiring friends and disciples, who were never tired of listening to long expositions of his political and religious ideas, which had more and more veered round to a steady Toryism and devout Anglicanism. Coleridge claims a place in the front ranks of English writers as a poet, critic, and philosopher. As a poet his work is very unequal; but his really great poetry, small though it be in bulk, is hardly equalled for imaginative vigour and artistic workmanship. His poetry of natural scenery is wonderfully interfused with a metaphysical and mystic vein. But above all he was the poet of the supernatural, the marvellous, which he knows how to bring home to us by presenting it at once with realistic consistency and rich suggestive dreaminess, and by depicting its weird effects with a delicate and subtle psychology. His greatest poem, the fragment on Christabel and the serpent-witch Geraldine, is also remarkable for its irregular, but harmoniously modulated metre (four beats with an iambic-anapæstic rhythm), which was imitated both by Byron and Scott. In his criticism on art he adopted the æsthetic teaching of Paul Richter, Schlegel, and Schelling, and, under the influence of Lessing, first taught his countrymen to admire Shakspere not as a wild irregular genius, but as a consummate artist. Also as a thinker he introduced German philosophy, and tried to combine the transcendentalism of Kant with the theosophic mysticism of Schelling. The most important of his prose works is the Biographia Literaria (1817), in which he traced the development of his literary and philosophic opinions; his most popular one is the Aids to Reflection (1825), an edifying religious manuel, which holds an important place in ecclesiastical history as one of the first utterances of that anti-rationalistic feeling which found full expression in the socalled 'Oxford Movement'. Twice he started a periodical, the radical Watchman (1796) and the æsthetic Friend (1809), of which only the second had a temporary success. THE EOLIAN HARP. COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE. My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, 5 (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!), And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents. 10 Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed! The stilly murmur of the distant sea Tells us of silence. And that simplest lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caressed, 16 Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings Over delicious surges sink and rise, 25 Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! O! the one life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where 30 Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air Is Music slumbering on her instrument. And thus, my love! as on the midway slope 35 Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, And tranquil muse upon tranquillity; Full many a thought uncalled and undetained, 40 And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain, And what if all of animated nature But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this cot, and thee, dear honoured Maid! |