Royal Institution, in the spring of 1808; in one this question, and always will do so, when it is of which he astonished his auditory by thanking recollected what he has had the power to effect. his Maker, in the most serious manner, for so or- It will not forgive him for writing upon party, and dering events, that he was totally ignorant of a in support of principles that even now are pretty single word of "that frightful jargon, the French nearly exploded, "what was meant for mankind." language!" And yet, notwithstanding this public Coleridge mistook his walk when he set up for a avowal of his entire ignorance of the language, politician, and it is to be feared the public have a Mr. C. is said to have been in the habit, while great deal to regret on account of it. He will not conversing with his friends, of expressing the ut- be known hereafter by his Morning Post articles, most contempt for the literature of that country! but by his verses. Whatever pains his political Whelmed in the wild mazes of metaphysics, papers may have cost him, and from his own acand for ever mingling its speculations with all he count they were laboriously composed, they will does or says, Coleridge has of late produced nothing avail him nothing with posterity. The verses of equal to the power of his pen. A few verses in an Coleridge give him his claim to lasting celebrity, annual, or a sonnet in a magazine, are the utmost and it is in vain that he would have the world of his efforts. He resides at Hampstead, in the think otherwise. He says, "Would that the crihouse of a friend having a good garden, where he terion of a scholar's utility were the number and walks for hours together enwrapped in visions of moral value of the truths which he has been the new theories of theology, or upon the most abstruse means of throwing into the general circulation, or of meditations. He goes into the world at times, to the number and value of the minds whom, by his the social dinner-party, where he gratifies his self- conversation or letters, he has excited into activity, love by pouring out the stores of his mind in con- and supplied with the germs of their after-growth! versation to admiring listeners. Were he not apt A distinguished rank might not indeed then be to be too profound, he would make an excellent awarded to my exertions, but I should dare look talker, or rather un grand causeur for a second forward to an honorable acquittal.” Madame de Sévigné, if such an accomplished fe- In temper and disposition Coleridge is kind and male is to be found in the nineteenth century, amiable. His person is bulky and his physiog either in England or France. The fluency of nomy is heavy, but his eye is remarkably fine; Coleridge's language, the light he throws upon and neither envy nor uncharitableness have his subjects, and the pleasure he feels in commu- made any successful impression in attacking his nicating his ideas, and his knowledge, innate or moral character. His family have long resided acquired, are equally remarkable to the stranger. with Mr. Southey's in the north of England; the He has been accused of indolence, not perhaps narrow pecuniary circumstances of our poet are with reason: the misdirection of his distinguished assigned as the reason. It is ardently desired talents would be a better explanation of that for by all lovers of the Muses, that the author of the which he has been blamable. He attempts to "Ancient Mariner," and of "Genevieve," may justify himself on the score of quantity, by assert- see life protracted to a green old age, and yet ing that some of his best things were published in produce works which may rival those of his denewspapers. The world differs with him upon parted years. 10 THE POETICAL WORKS OF SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. Juvenile Poems. PREFACE. COMPOSITIONS resembling those here collected are But O! how grateful to a wounded heart Shaw. The communicativeness of our Nature leads us to describe our own sorrows; in the endeavor to describe them, intellectual activity is exerted; and from intellectual activity there results a pleasure, which is gradually associated, and mingles as a corrective, with the painful subject of the description. True!" (it may be answered) "but how are the PUBLIC interested in your sorrows or your Description?" We are for ever attributing personal Unities to imaginary Aggregates. What is the PUBLIC, but a term for a number of scattered individuals? of whom as many will be interested in these sorrows, as have experienced the same or similar. Holy be the lay [impelled to seek for sympathy; but a Poet's feelings Love and the wish of Poets when their tongue Pleasures of Imagination. There is one species of Egotism which is truly disgusting; not that which leads us to communicate our feelings to others but that which would reduce the feelings of others to an identity with our own. The Atheist, who exclaims "pshaw!" when he glances his eye on the praises of Deity, is an Egotist: an old man, when he speaks contemptuously of Loveverses, is an Egotist: and the sleek Favorites of Fortune are Egotists, when they condemn all "melancholy, discontented" verses. Surely, it would be candid not merely to ask whether the poem pleases ourselves, but to consider whether or no there may not be others, to whom it is well calculated to give an innocent pleasure. I shall only add, that each of my readers will, I hope, remember, that these Poems on various subjects, which he reads at one time and under the influence of one set of feelings, were written at different times and prompted by very different feelings; and therefore that the supposed inferiority of one Poem to another may sometimes be owing to the temper of mind in which he happens to peruse it. My poems have been rightly charged with a profusion of double-epithets, and a general turgidness. I have pruned the double-epithets with no sparing hand; and used my best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both of thought and diction.* This latter Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way. If I could judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm, that the most interesting passages * Without any feeling of anger, I may yet be allowed to are those in which the Author develops his own critical gauntlet for a certain class of faults, which I had, viz. express some degree of surprise, that after having run the feelings? The sweet voice of Cona* never sounds a too ornate and elaborately poetic diction, and nothing havso sweetly, as when it speaks of itself; and I should ing come before the judgment-seat of the Reviewers during almost suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who the long interval, I should for at least seventeen years, quarte could read the opening of the third book of the Paradise Lost without peculiar emotion. By a Law of our Nature, he, who labors under a strong feeling, is * Ossian. after quarter, have been placed by them in the foremost rank of the proscribed, and made to abide the brunt of abuse and ridicule for faults directly opposite, viz. bald and prosaic language, and an affected simplicity both of matter and manner -faults which assuredly did not enter into the character of my compositions.-Literary Life, i. 51. Published 1817. And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY. fault however had insinuated itself into my Religious Musings with such intricacy of union, that sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the weed from the fear of snapping the flower. A third and heavier accusation has been brought against me, that of ob scurity; but not, I think, with equal justice. An Author is obscure, when his conceptions are dim and imperfect, and his language incorrect, or unappropriate, or involved. A poem that abounds in allusions, like the Bard of Gray, or one that impersonates high and abstract truths, like Collins's Ode] on the poetical character, claims not to be popular—| but should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency is in the Reader. But this is a charge which every poet, whose imagination is warm and rapid, must expect from his contemporaries. Milton did not escape it; and it was adduced with virulence against Gray and Collins. We now hear no more of it: not that their poems are better understood at present, than they were at their first publication; but their] fame is established; and a critic would accuse himself of frigidity or inattention, who should profess not to understand them. But a living writer is yet sub judice; and if we cannot follow his conceptions or enter into his feelings, it is more consoling to our pride to consider him as lost beneath, than as soaring above us. If any man expect from my poems the O'er rough and smooth with even step he pass'd, same easiness of style which he admires in a drink- And knows not whether he be first or last. ing-song, for him I have not written. Intelligibilia, non intellectum adfero. I expect neither profit nor general fame by my writings; and I consider myself as having been amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me its own "exceeding great reward:" it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude: and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me. S. T. C. JUVENILE POEMS. GENEVIEVE. MAID of my Love, sweet Genevieve! SONNET. TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON. MILD Splendor of the various-vested Night! AN ALLEGORY. On the wide level of a mountain's head This far outstript the other; MONODY ON THE DEATH OF O WHAT a wonder seems the fear of death, Away, Grim Phantom! Scorpion King, away! For coward Wealth and Guilt in robes of state! Made each chance knell from distant spire or dome Thee, Chatterton! these unblest stones protect Yet oft, perforce ('t is suffering Nature's call,) Now indignation checks the feeble sigh, Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine eye, Is this the land of song-ennobled line? Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain Ah me! yet Spenser, gentlest bard divine, And o'er her darling dead Pity hopeless hung her head, While "mid the pelting of that merciless storm," Sublime of thought, and confident of fame, And now his cheeks with deeper ardors flame, He hears the widow's prayer, the good man's praise; To scenes of bliss transmutes his fancied wealth, But that Despair and Indignation rose, Ye woods! that wave o'er Avon's rocky steep, Poor Chatterton! farewell! of darkest hues The last pale Hope that shiver'd at my heart! Sweet Flower of Hope! free Nature's genial child! And the stern Fate transpierced with viewless dart within! Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal Grace, And Joy's wild gleams that lighten'd o'er thy face? Such were the struggles of the gloomy hour, (Her bosom bare, and wildly pale her cheek, Thy sullen gaze she bade thee roll On scenes that well might melt thy soul; See, see her breast's convulsive throe, Ah! dash the poison'd chalice from thy hand! Hence, gloomy thoughts! no more my soul shall On joys that were! No more endure to weigh O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive! Alas vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood Avon. a river near Bristol; the birth-place of Chatterton. Muse on the sore ills I had left behind. SONGS OF THE PIXIES. O'er his hush'd soul our soothing witcheries shed, V. When Evening's dusky car, The Pixies, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race of The roots of old trees form its ceiling; and on its sides are To this place the Author conducted a party of young Ladies, during the Summer months of the year 1793; one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colorless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion the following irregular Ode was written. On leaves of aspen trees Or, haply, at the visionary hour, Along our wildly-bower'd sequester'd walk, Or guide of soul-subduing power The electric flash, that from the melting eye VI. Or through the mystic ringlets of the vale VII. Hence, thou lingerer, Light! Mother of wildly-working dreams! we view And clouds, in watery colors drest, |