WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
MUCH on my early youth I love to dwell,
Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell,
Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale,
I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale!
Yet though the hours flew by on careless wing,
Full heavily of Sorrow would I sing.
Aye as the star of evening flung its beam
In broken radiance on the wavy stream,
My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom
Mourn'd with the breeze, O Lee Boo!* o'er thy
Where'er I wander'd, Pity still was near,
Breathed from the heart and glisten'd in the tear :
No knell that toll'd but fill'd
my anxious eye,
And suffering Nature wept that one should die !†
Thus to sad sympathies I soothed my breast,
Calm, as the rainbow in the weeping West:
When slumbering Freedom roused by high Disdain
With giant fury burst her triple chain !
Fierce on her front the blasting Dog-star glow'd;
Her banners, like a midnight meteor, flow'd;
* Lee Boo, the son of Abba Thule, Prince of the Pelew Islands, came over to England with Captain Wilson, died of the small-pox, and is buried in Greenwich Churchyard. See Keate's Account. † Southey's Retrospect.
Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies
She came, and scatter'd battles from her eyes!
Then Exultation waked the patriot fire
And swept with wild hand the Tyrtæan lyre :*
Red from the Tyrant's wound I shook the lance,
And strode in joy the reeking plains of France!
Fall'n is the oppressor, friendless, ghastly, low,†
And my
heart aches, though Mercy struck the blow.
With wearied thought once more I seek the shade,
Where peaceful Virtue weaves the myrtle braid.
And O! if Eyes whose holy glances roll,
Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul ;+
If Smiles more winning, and a gentler Mien
Than the love-wilder'd Maniac's brain hath seen
Shaping celestial forms in vacant air,
If these demand the impassion'd Poet's care-
If Mirth and soften'd Sense and Wit refined,
The blameless features of a lovely mind;
Then haply shall my trembling hand assign
No fading wreath to Beauty's saintly shrine.
Nor, Sara! thou these early flowers refuse-
Ne'er lurk'd the snake beneath their simple hues ;
No purple bloom the Child of Nature brings
From Flattery's night-shade: as he feels he sings.
September, 1792.
* And swept with wilder hand th' Alcæan lyre:-1796. + In ghastly horror lie th' oppressors low.—Ib.
The eloquent messengers of the pure soul.-Ib.
F while my passion I impart
You deem my words untrue,
O place your hand upon my heart-
Feel how it throbs for you!
Ah no reject the thoughtless claim
In pity to your Lover!
That thrilling touch would aid the flame
It wishes to discover.
H! cease thy tears and sobs, my little Life!
I did but snatch away the unclasp'd knife :
Some safer toy will soon arrest thine eye,
And to quick laughter change this peevish cry!
Poor stumbler on the rocky coast of woe,
Tutor❜d by pain each source of pain to know!
Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire;
Alike the Good, the Ill offend thy sight,
And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright!
Untaught, yet wise! mid all thy brief alarms.
Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms,
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest!
Man's breathing miniature! thou makest me sigh—
A babe art thou-and such a thing am I !
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,
Break Friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar
glow !
O thou that rearest with celestial aim
The future seraph in my mortal frame,
Thrice holy Faith! whatever thorns I meet
As on I totter with unpractised feet,
Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee,
Meek nurse of souls through their long infancy!
WRITTEN AT SHURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER, SEPTEMBER, 1795, IN ANSWER TO A
Good verse most good, and bad verse then seems better Received from absent friend by way of letter.
For what so sweet can labour'd lays impart
As one rude rhyme warm from a friendly heart?-ANON.
NOR travels my meandering eye
The starry wilderness on high;
Nor now with curious sight
I mark the glowworm, as I pass,
Move with "green radiance" through the grass,
An emerald of light.
O ever present to my view!
My wafted spirit is with you,
And soothes your boding fears:
I see you all oppress'd with gloom
Sit lonely in that cheerless room—
Ah me! you are in tears!
Beloved woman! did you fly
Chill'd Friendship's dark disliking eye,
Or Mirth's untimely din ?
With cruel weight these trifles press
A temper sore with tenderness,
When aches the void within.
* The expression "green radiance" is borrowed from Mr. Wordsworth, a poet whose versification is occasionally harsh and his diction too frequently obscure; but whom I deem unrivalled among the writers of the present day in manly sentiment, novel imagery, and vivid colouring. (Note by S. T. C. in the editions of 1796-97.) [This criticism refers to the two juvenile poems of "The Evening Walk" and "Descriptive Sketches" (1793), which were all that Wordsworth had then published. The expression quoted by Coleridge occurs in the former of these pieces:
"Delighted with the glowworm's harmless ray,
Toss'd light from hand to hand; while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around."]
In a copy of the second edition of his Poems, now in the possession of Mr. Frederick Locker, Coleridge has written as follows, under this allusion of his to Wordsworth :
"This note was written before I had ever seen Mr. Wordsworth, atque utinam opera ejus tantum noveram."
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