"A SENSE O'ER ALL MY SOUL IMPREST THAT I AM WEAK, YET NOT UNBLEST,-(COLERIDGE) "THE BUOYANT CHILD SURVIVING IN THE MAN."-S. T. COLERIDGE. SINCE IN ME, ROUND ME, EVERYWHERE, ETERNAL STRENGTH AND WISDOM ARE."-COLERIDGE. Mother of wildly-working I watch thy gliding, while with watery light Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil; "WORK WITHOUT HOPE DRAWS NECTAR IN A SIEVE,-(COLERIDGE) And thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud [From Coleridge's "Poetical Works."] "I MAY NOT HOPE FROM OUTWARD FORMS TO WIN, THE PASSION-COLERIDGE) AND THE LIFE, WHOSE FOUNTAINS ARE WITHIN."-SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. CALM ON THE OCEAN. OWN dropped the breeze, the sails dropped 'Twas sad as sad could be; All in a hot and copper sky, Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. AND HOPE WITHOUT AN OBJECT CANNOT LIVE.”—s. t. coleridge. "THE KNIGHT'S BONES ARE DUST, HIS GOOD SWORD RUST; HIS SOUL IS WITH THE SAINTS, I TRUST."-COLERIDGE. OURS IS THE REPTILE'S LOT, MUCH TOIL, MUCH BLAME, SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. The very deep did rot: O Christ! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs About, about, in reel and rout There passed a weary time. Each throat At first it seemed a little speck, It moved and moved, and took at last A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! As if it dodged a water-sprite, With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Through utter drought all dumb we stood ! And cried, A sail! a sail! MANIFOLD MOTIONS MAKING LITTLE SPEED."-COLERIDGE. "TRANQUILLITY! THOU BETTER NAME THAN ALL THE FAMILY OF FAME!"-SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. "LOVE'S DESPAIR IS BUT HOPE'S PINING GHOST!"-COLERIDGE. PARTED friends. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, As they were drinking all. 127 [From "The Ancient Mariner," Parts ii., iii.—"Of all our writers of the briefer narrative poetry, Coleridge is the finest since Chaucer; and assuredly he is the sweetest of all our poets. Waller's music is but a courtflourish in comparison; and though Beaumont and Fletcher, Collins, Gray, Keats, Shelley, and others, have several as sweet passages, and Spenser is in a certain sense musical throughout, yet no man has written whole poems, of equal length, so perfect in the sentiment of music, so varied with it, and yet leaving on the ear so unbroken and single an effect."—Leigh Hunt.] "FOR SHE BELIKE HATH DRUNKEN DEEP OF ALL THE BLESSEDNESS OF SLEEP."-COLERIDGE. PARTED FRIENDS. LAS! they had been friends in youth; And constancy lives in realms above; To free the hollow heart from paining- But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, DREAMING HOPES, DELICIOUS TO THE SOUL."-S. T. COLERIDGE. "AN ORPHAN'S CURSE WOULD DRAG TO HELL A SPIRIT FROM ON HIGH."-S. T. COLERIDGE. "O HAPPY LIVING THINGS! NO TONGUE THEIR BEAUTY MIGHT DECLARE."-COLERIDGE. 128 THE STAINS AND SHADINGS OF FORGOTTEN TEARS."-COLERIDGE. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been. [From "Christabel." "It would be hard," says Professor Shairp, "to analyze the strange witchery in 'Christabel;' the language so simple and natural, yet so aërially musical, the rhythm so original, yet so fitted to the story, and the glamour over all, a glamour so peculiar to this one poem."] "TO BE BELOVED IS ALL I NEED, AND WHOM I LOVE I LOVE INDEED."-S. T. COLERIDGE. KUBLA KHAN; OR, A VISION IN A DREAM. A FRAGMENT. [Coleridge relates that, having been reading a passage in Purchas's "Pilgrims,” an old and quaint book of travels, he fell asleep; and during his sleep he composed a poem of several hundreds of lines, which were fresh in his memory when he awoke. Unfortunately he did not begin to transcribe them until some hours later, and all he could then remember was the following beautiful fragment. We may add that this psychological phenomenon is not uncommon.] IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: So twice five miles of fertile ground But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, IN NATURE THERE IS NOTHING MELANCHOLY."-S. T. COLeridge. |