erudition, and display his fine critical taste and discernment. In penetrating into and embracing the whole meaning of a favourite author-unfolding the nice shades and distinctions of thought, character, feeling, or melody-darting on it the light of his own creative mind and suggestive fancy-and perhaps linking the whole to some glorious original conception or image, Coleridge stands unrivalled. He does not appear as a critic, but as an eloquent and gifted expounder of kindred excellence and genius. He seems like one who has the key to every hidden chamber of profound and subtle thought and every ethereal conception. We cannot think, however, that he could ever have built up a regular system of ethics or criticism. He wanted the art to combine and arrange his materials. He was too languid and irresolute. He had never attained the art of writing with clearness and precision; for he is often unintelligible, turgid, and verbose, as if he struggled in vain after perspicacity and method. His intellect could not subordinate the 'shaping spirit' of his imagination.

The poetical works of Coleridge have been collected and published in three volumes. They are various in style and manner, embracing ode, tragedy, and epigram, love-poems, and strains of patriotism and superstition-a wild witchery of imagination and, at other times, severe and stately thought and intellectual retrospection. His language is often rich and musical, highly figurative and ornate. Many of his minor poems are characterised by tenderness and beauty, but others are disfigured by passages of turgid sentimentalism and puerile affectation. The most original and striking of his productions is his well-known tale of The Ancient Mariner. According to De Quincey, the germ of this story is contained in a passage of Shelvocke, one of the classical circumnavigators of the earth, who states that his second captain, being a melancholy man, was possessed by a fancy that some long season of foul weather was owing to an albatross which had steadily pursued the ship, upon which he shot the bird, but without mending their condition. Coleridge makes the ancient mariner relate the circumstances attending his act of inhumanity to one of three weddingguests whom he meets and detains on his way to the marriage-feast. He holds him with his glittering eye,' and invests his narration with a deep preternatural character and interest, and with touches of exquisite tenderness and energetic description. The versification is irregular, in the style of the old ballads, and most of the action of the piece is unnatural; yet the poem is full of vivid and original imagination. There is nothing else like it,' says one of his critics; 'it is a poem by itself; between it and other compositions, in parimateria, there is a chasm which you cannot overpass. The sensitive reader feels himself insulated, and a sea of wonder and mystery flows round him as round the spell-stricken ship itself.' Coleridge further illustrates his theory of the connection between the material and the spiritual world in his unfinished poem of Christabel, a romantic supernatural tale, filled with wild imagery and the most remarkable modulation of verse. The versification is founded on what the poet calls a new principle-though it was evidently practised by Chaucer and Shakspeare-namely, that of counting in each line the number of accentuated

words, not the number of syllables. Though the latter,' he says, 'may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four.' This irregular harmony delighted both Scott and Byron, by whom it was imitated. We add a brief specimen :

The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek;
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.
Hush, beating heart of Christabel !
Jesu Maria shield her well!

She foldeth her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?
There she sees a damsel bright,
Dressed in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone :
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandalled were;
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly!

A finer passage is that describing broken friendships:

Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;

And life is thorny; and youth is vain :
And to be wroth with one we love,

Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.

Each spake words of high disdain

And insult to his heart's best brother: They parted-ne'er to meet again!

But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder:
A dreary sea now flows between.
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

This metrical harmony of Coleridge exercises a sort of fascination even when it is found united to incoherent images and absurd conceptions. Thus in Khubla Khan, a fragment written from recollections of a dream, we have the following melodious rhapsody:

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,

The odes of Coleridge are highly_passionate and elevated in conception. That on France was considered by Shelley to be the finest English ode of modern times. The hymn on Chamouni is equally lofty and brilliant. His Genevieve is a pure and exquisite love-poem, without that gorgeous diffuseness which characterises the odes, yet more chastely and carefully finished, and abounding in the delicate and subtle traits of his imagination. Coleridge was deficient in the rapid energy and strong passion necessary for the drama. The poetical beauty of certain passages would not, on the stage, atone for the paucity of action and want of interest in his two plays, though, as works of genius, they vastly excel those of a more recent date which prove highly successful in representation.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

PART I.

It is an ancient mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three;

"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?

'The bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set;
Mayst hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand; 'There was a ship,' quoth he.

Hold off; unhand me, gray-beard loon ;' Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye

The wedding guest stood still,

And listens like a three-years' child;
The mariner hath his will.

The wedding-guest sat on a stone,

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed mariner :

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the light-house top.

'The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he;

And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea.

*Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon "

The wedding-guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The wedding-guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed mariner :

'And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong;

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

"With sloping masts and dripping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

'And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold;

And ice mast-high came floating by
As green as emerald.

'And through the drifts the snowy cliffs
Did send a dismal sheen;

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-
The ice was all between.

'Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,

The glorious sun uprist;

Then all averred I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.

"Twas right, ," said they, "such birds to slay That bring the fog and mist."

'The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

'Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

'All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody sun at noon

Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.

'Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

'Water, water everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

'The very deep did rot; O Christ!
That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

'About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

'And some in dreams assured were
Of the spirit that plagued us so ;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

'And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

'Ah, well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.

PART III.

'There passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parched, and glazed each eye.

A weary time! a weary time!

How glazed each weary eye!

When looking westward I beheld
A something in the sky.

'At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

'A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!

And still it neared and neared:

As if it dodged a water-sprite,

It plunged, and tacked, and veered.

'With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood;

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,

And cried: "A sail! a sail!"

'With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

Agape they heard me call;

Gramercy they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,

As they were drinking all.

"See! see!" I cried, "she tacks no more,

Hither to work us weal;

Without a breeze, without a tide,

She steadies with upright keel."

'The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was well-nigh done,
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the sun.

'And straight the sun was flecked with bars— Heaven's mother send us grace!—

As if through a dungeon grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

'Alas! thought I, and my heart beat loud,
How fast she nears and nears;

Are those her sails that glance in the sun
Like restless gossameres?

'Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate;

And is that woman all her crew?

Is that a death, and are there two?

Is death that woman's mate?

'Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold;

Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The nightmare Life-in-death was she,

Who thicks man's blood with cold.

'The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice;

"The game is done! I've won, I've won!"

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

'The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out,

At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea

Off shot the spectre-bark.

'We listened and looked sideways up;

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip.

The stars were dim, and thick the night,

The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip

Till clomb above the eastern bar

The horned moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

'One after one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

"Four times fifty living men-
And I heard nor sigh nor groan-
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

'The souls did from their bodies fly-
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul it passed me by
Like the whizz of my cross-bow.'

PART IV.

'I fear thee, ancient mariner,

I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,

As is the ribbed sea-sand.

'I fear thee and thy glittering eye, And thy skinny hand so brown.' 'Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest, This body dropped not down.

'Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

'The many men so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on, and so did I.

'I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

'I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gushed,

A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

'I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

'The cold sweat melted from their limbs,

Nor rot nor reek did they;

The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away.

'An orphan's curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is a curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die.

'The moving moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide :

Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.

'Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April hoarfrost spread;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

'Beyond the shadow of the ship I watched the water-snakes;

They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes.

'Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

They coiled and swam; and every track

Was a flash of golden fire.

‘O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

'The self-same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free

The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

'The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.

"They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;

It had been strange, even in a dream,

To have seen those dead men rise.

"The helmsman steered, the ship moved on, Yet never a breeze up blew ;

The mariners all 'gan work the ropes
Where they were wont to do ;

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools-
We were a ghastly crew.

'The body of my brother's son

Stood by me, knee to knee :

The body and I pulled at one rope,

But he said nought to me.'

'I fear thee, ancient mariner!'

6

Be calm, thou wedding-guest!

'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,

Which to their corses came again,

But a troop of spirits blest :

'For when it dawned, they dropped their arms,

And clustered round the mast;

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed.

'Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

'Sometimes, a-dropping from the sky,
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,

How they seemed to fill the sea and air,
With their sweet jargoning!

'And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

'It ceased; yet still the sails made on

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.'

[The ship is driven onward, but at length the curse is finally expiated. A wind springs up:

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring-
It mingled strangely with my fears.
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

The mariner sees his native country. The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies, and appear in their own forms of light, each waving his hand to the shore. A boat with a pilot and hermit on board approaches the ship, which suddenly sinks. The mariner is rescued ; he entreats the hermit to shrive him, and the penance of life falls on him.]

'Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

'Since then, at an uncertain hour

That agony returns ;

And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

"I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me :

To him my tale I teach.

'What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there :

But in the garden-bower the bride
And bridemaids singing are:
And hark! the little vesper-bell
Which biddeth me to prayer.

'O wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea :

So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

'O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company!

'To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,

Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest:
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

'He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.'

The mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone and now the wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn :

A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.

From the Ode to the Departing Year' (1795)
Spirit who sweepest the wild harp of time!
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
Yet, mine eye fixed on heaven's unchanging clime
Long when I listened, free from mortal fear,

With inward stillness, and submitted mind;
When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,
I saw the train of the departing year!

Starting from my silent sadness,
Then with no unholy madness,

Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight,

I raised the impetuous song, and solemnised his flight.

Hither, from the recent tomb,
From the prison's direr gloom,

From Distemper's midnight anguish ;

And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish ;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines manhood's maze;

Or where, o'er cradled infants bending,
Hope has fixed her wishful gaze,
Hither, in perplexed dance,

Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!
By Time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep

Raises its fateful strings from sleep,

I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band!

From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth,
Haste for one solemn hour;

And with a loud and yet a louder voice,
O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth

Weep and rejoice!

Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of hell:
And now advance in saintly jubilee
Justice and Truth! They, too, have heard thy spell;
They, too, obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

I marked Ambition in his war-array!

I heard the mailèd monarch's troublous cry'Ah ! wherefore does the northern conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?'

Fly, mailed monarch, fly!

Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace,
No more on Murder's lurid face

The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye!
Manes of the unnumbered slain !

Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain !
Ye that erst at Ismail's tower,

When human ruin choked the streams,

Fell in conquest's glutted hour,

'Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams! Spirits of the uncoffined slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,

Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling!

The exterminating fiend is fled

Foul her life, and dark her doom

Mighty armies of the dead

Dance like death-fires round her tomb!
Then with prophetic song relate
Each some tyrant-murderer's fate!