The huge hall-table's oaken face, Crested with bays and rosemary. White skirts supplied the masquerade, ale; 'T was Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the| year. And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve! She leaned against the arméd man, The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. I played a soft and doleful air, She listened with a flitting blush, I told her of the Knight that wore I told her how he pined: and ah! She listened with a flitting blush, Too fondly on her face. But when I told the cruel scorn SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. And that he crossed the mountain-woods, [1772-1834.] GENEVIEVE. Nor rested day nor night; That sometimes from the savage den, ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, And sometimes starting up at once Whatever stirs this mortal frame, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I Beside the ruined tower. The moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve; In green and sunny glade, There came and looked him in the face And that unknowing what he did, SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 109 And how she wept, and clasped his knees; | On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Elane! The scorn that crazed his brain; And that she nursed 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 reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity! All impulses of soul and sense The rich and balmy eve; And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, Subdued and cherished long. She wept with pity and delight, I heard her breathe my name. Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wert blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy, Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, From dark and icycaverns called you forth, | Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen and have rest? Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God! let the torrents, like a shout of thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud Thou kingly Spirit throned among the Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, CHRISTABEL. PART I T is the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing And hark, again! the crowing cock, Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Is the night chilly and dark? The lovely lady, Christabel, |