"WITH A WILD PLEASURE, FALLING ON MINE EAR-(S. T. COLERIDGE)

134

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,

A balmy night! And though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

"SO SHALT THOU SEE AND HEAR THE LOVELY SHAPES AND SOUNDS INTELLIGIBLE

OF THAT ETERNAL LANGUAGE WHICH THY GOD UTTERS!"-SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.

["Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell."]
And, hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
"Most musical, most melancholy" bird!*
A melancholy bird! Oh, idle thought!
In Nature there is nothing melancholy.

But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

* "Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy."

MILTON, Il Penseroso.

MOST LIKE ARTICULATE SOUNDS OF THINGS TO COME!"- -COLERIDGE.

"LIFE'S CURRENT THEN RAN SPARKLING TO THE NOON, OR SILVERY STOLE BENEATH

THE PENSIVE MOONS. T. COLERIDGE)

GREAT UNIVERSAL TEACHER! HE SHALL MOULD-(COLERIDGE)

Or slow distemper, or neglected love,

(And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself,
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrow,) he, and such as he,
First named these notes a melancholy strain.
And many a poet echoes the conceit ;

Poet who hath been building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretched his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By sun or moonlight, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song

And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
Should share in Nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself

Be loved like Nature!......

[From "The Nightingale: a Conversation Poem,” 1798.]

AH, NOW IT WORKS RUDE BRAKES AND THORNS AMONG, OR O'ER THE ROUGH ROCK BURSTS AND FOAMS ALONG."-COLERIDGE.

YOUTH AND AGE.

JERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—
Both were mine! Life went a-Maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!

When I was young ?—Ah, woful when !
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aëry cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along ;-

THY SPIRIT, AND BY GIVING MAKE IT ASK."-S. T. COLERIDGE.

"YEA, EVERYTHING THAT IS, AND WILL BE FREE! BEAR WITNESS FOR ME, WHERESO'ER YE BE,-(COLERIDGE)

136

SO FOR THE MOTHER'S SAKE THE CHILD WAS DEAR,- (COLERIDGE)

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
Oh, the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,

Ere I was old.

Ere I was old?—Ah, woful Ere!
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-
It cannot be, that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled :-
And Thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that Thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size :
But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,

When we are old:

With oft and tedious taking-leave,

AND DEARER WAS THE MOTHER FOR THE CHILD."-S. T. Coleridge,

WITH WHAT DEEP WORSHIP I HAVE STILL ADORED THE SPIRIT OF DIVINEST LIBERTY!"-S. T. COLERIDGE.

66 STOP, CHRISTIAN PASSER-BY! STOP, CHILD OF GOD!

LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION. 137

Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist;
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,

And tells the jest without the smile.

["Youth and Age," written just before Coleridge left the Lakes, "with a strangely aged tone for a man of only seven or eight and thirty, has," says Professor Shairp, "a quaint beauty; to adopt its own words, it is like sadness, that 'tells the jest without the smile.'"]

A POET LIES, OR THAT WHICH ONCE SEEMED HE.

OH, LIFT A THOUGHT IN PRAYER FOR S. T.

C.-(SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE)

LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION.
'ER wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule,

And sun thee in the light of happy faces;

Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For as old Atlas on his broad back places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it,—
Do these upbear the little world below
Of Education,-Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks I see them grouped, in seemly show,
The straightened arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that, touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow embossed in snow.
Oh, part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love, too, will sink and die.

But Love is subtle and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes,
And the soft murmurs of the mother-dove,
Woos back the fleeting spirit and half supplies ;—
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love.
Yet haply there will come a weary day,
When, overtasked at length,

AND READ WITH GENTLE BREAST: BENEATH THIS SOD

THAT HE, WHO MANY A YEAR, WITH TOIL OF BREATH, FOUND DEATH IN LIFE, MAY HERE FIND LIFE IN DEATH!"-Coleridge.

33
RAGE HAS WEAPONS ALWAYS NIGH. -CONINGTON'S VIRGIL.

PROFESSOR CONINGTON.

Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth,
And, both supporting, does the work of both.

[From Coleridge's "Miscellaneous Poetical Works."]

**COMRADES AND FRIENDS, OURS IS THE STRENGTH HAS BROOKED THE TEST OF WOES."-CONINGTON'S VIRGIL.

Professor Conington.

[DRYDEN'S translation of Virgil has at length found a dangerous rival in
Professor Conington's, which is not only more accurate and scholarly, but
more instinct with energy and motion. The only forcible objection to it
must be a metrical one-that the octo-syllabic ballad measure he has
adopted fails to convey the balanced movement and harmonious cadences
of the original so well as Dryden's statelier rhythm.

After all, Professor Conington's version is "full of taste, and has passages
of rare beauty and pathos. The narrative runs on with a swift current,
and always rises in elevation with the original, though often with a very
different selection of the special mood to which it gives most emphasis.
The accuracy of translation is far greater than in any version known to us....
To the young, we suspect, this will always be the most popular version of
the Aeneid.' The variety and velocity of the rhythm make a poem of
mild, sweet, historic lustre, beat with the swift pulse of youth."
John Conington was born at Boston, in Lincolnshire, August 10, 1825;
was educated at Rugby, and afterwards at the University of Oxford, where
he acquired distinction by his extraordinary classical proficiency. He has
edited, with minute yet comprehensive scholarship, the " Agamemnon
and "Choephorae " of Aeschylus, and the works of Virgil; and has trans-
lated the "Aeneid" of Virgil, and the "Odes and Carmen Seculare" and
"Satires" of Horace. He held the Professorship of Latin at Oxford
from June 1854 until his death in 1869.]

THE LAST DAYS OF TROY.

[Aeneas relates to Dido, Queen of Carthage, the principal events that marked the last days of Troy, when beleaguered by the Greeks, who, after a ten years' siege, succeeded in capturing it by a cunning stratagem. They constructed a wooden horse, filled its interior with armed men, and pretending to retreat, left it exposed to the gaze of the Trojans. These,

66 CAN AUGHT BEGUILE LOVE'S WATCHFUL EYE?"-IBID.

"O WORSE-SCARRED HEARTS! THESE WOUNDS AT LENGTH THE GODS WILL HEAL."-CONINGTON'S VIRGIL.