Читать книгу The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Страница 108
LINES WRITTEN WITH A SLATE-PENCIL UPON A STONE, THE LARGEST OF A HEAP LYING NEAR A DESERTED QUARRY, UPON ONE OF THE ISLANDS AT RYDALE.
ОглавлениеStranger! this hillock of mishapen stones
Is not a ruin of the ancient time,
Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem’st, the Cairn
Of some old British Chief: ‘tis nothing more
Than the rude embryo of a little dome
Or pleasure-house, which was to have been built
Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle.
But, as it chanc’d, Sir William having learn’d
That from the shore a full-grown man might wade,
And make himself a freeman of this spot
At any hour he chose, the Knight forthwith
Desisted, and the quarry and the mound
Are monuments of his unfinish’d task. —
The block on which these lines are trac’d, perhaps,
Was once selected as the cornerstone
Of the intended pile, which would have been
Some quaint odd plaything of elaborate skill,
So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush,
And other little builders who dwell here,
Had wonder’d at the work. But blame him not,
For old Sir William was a gentle Knight
Bred in this vale to which he appertain’d
With all his ancestry. Then peace to him
And for the outrage which he had devis’d
Entire forgiveness. — But if thou art one
On fire with thy impatience to become
An Inmate of these mountains, if disturb’d
By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn
Out of the quiet rock the elements
Of thy trim mansion destin’d soon to blaze
In snow-white splendour, think again, and taught
By old Sir William and his quarry, leave
Thy fragments to the bramble and the rose,
There let the vernal slow-worm sun himself,
And let the redbreast hop from stone to stone.
In the School of —— is a tablet on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the federal persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.
If Nature, for a favorite Child
In thee hath temper’d so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild
Yet never once doth go astray,
Read o’er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue
Its history of two hundred years.
— When through this little wreck of fame,
Cypher and syllable, thine eye
Has travell’d down to Matthew’s name,
Pause with no common sympathy.
And if a sleeping tear should wake
Then be it neither check’d nor stay’d:
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.
Poor Matthew, all his frolics o’er,
Is silent as a standing pool,
Far from the chimney’s merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.
The sighs which Matthew heav’d were sighs
Of one tir’d out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew’s eyes
Were tears of light, the oil of gladness.
Yet sometimes when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round
It seem’d as if he drank it up,
He felt with spirit so profound.
— Thou soul of God’s best earthly mould,
Thou happy soul, and can it be
That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?
The Two April Mornings.
We walk’d along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun,
And Matthew stopp’d, he look’d, and said,
”The will of God be done!”
A village Schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.
And on that morning, through the grass,
And by the steaming rills,
We travell’d merrily to pass
A day among the hills.
”Our work,” said I, “was well begun;
Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,
So sad a sigh has brought?”
A second time did Matthew stop,
And fixing still his eye
Upon the eastern mountain-top
To me he made reply.
Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind
A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.
And on that slope of springing corn
The selfsame crimson hue
Fell from the sky that April morn,
The same which now I view!
With rod and line my silent sport
I plied by Derwent’s wave,
And, coming to the church, stopp’d short
Beside my Daughter’s grave.
Nine summers had she scarcely seen
The pride of all the vale;
And then she sang! — she would have been
A very nightingale.
Six feet in earth my Emma lay,
And yet I lov’d her more,
For so it seem’d, than till that day
I e’er had lov’d before.
And, turning from her grave, I met
Beside the churchyard Yew
A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.