Читать книгу The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Страница 128

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COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND

O Friend! O Teacher! God’s great Gift to me!

Into my Heart have I received that Lay

More than historic, that prophetic Lay

Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)

Of the foundations and the building up

Of thine own spirit thou hast loved to tell

What may be told, by words revealable:

With heavenly breathings, like the secret soul

Of vernal growth, oft quickening in the heart

Thoughts, that obey no mastery of words,

Pure Self-beholdings! Theme as hard as high,

Of Smiles spontaneous and mysterious Fear!

The first born they of Reason and twin birth!

Of tides obedient to external force,

And currents self-determin’d, as might seem,

Or by some inner power! Of moments awful,

Now in thy hidden life, and now abroad,

When power stream’d from thee, and thy soul receiv’d

The light reflected, as a light bestow’d!

Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,

Hybloean murmurs of poetic thought

Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens

Native or outland, Lakes and famous Hills;

Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars

Were rising; or by secret mountain streams,

The guides and the companions of thy way!

Of more than Fancy—of the Social Sense

Distending, and of Man belov’d as Man,

Where France in all her Towns lay vibrating,

Even as a Bark becalm’d on sultry seas

Quivers beneath the voice from Heaven, the burst

Of Heaven’s immediate thunder, when no cloud

Is visible, or shadow on the main!

For thou wert there, thy own brows garlanded,

Amid the tremor of a Realm aglow!

Amid a mighty nation jubilant!

When from the general Heart of Human Kind

Hope sprang forth, like an armed Deity!

Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,

So summon’d homeward; thenceforth calm and sure,

As from the Watch-tower of Man’s absolute Self,

With light unwaning on her eyes, to look

Far on—herself a Glory to behold,

The Angel of the Vision! Then (last strain)

Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice,

Action and Joy!—an Orphic Tale indeed,

A Tale divine of high and passionate Thoughts,

To their own Music chaunted!—

A great Bard!

Ere yet the last strain dying awed the air,

With steadfast eyes I saw thee in the choir

Of ever-enduring men. The truly Great

Have all one age, and from one visible space

Shed influence: for they, both power and act,

Are permanent, and Time is not with them,

Save as it worketh for them, they in it.

Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old,

And to be plac’d, as they, with gradual fame

Among the Archives of Mankind, thy Work

Makes audible a linked Song of Truth,

Of Truth profound a sweet continuous Song

Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!

Dear shall it be to every human heart,

To me how more than dearest! Me, on whom

Comfort from thee, and utterance of thy Love,

Come with such Heights and Depths of Harmony

Such sense of Wings uplifting, that its might

Scatter’d and quell’d me, till my Thoughts became

A bodily Tumult; and thy faithful Hopes,

Thy Hopes of me, dear Friend! by me unfelt!

Were troublous to me, almost as a Voice

Familiar once and more than musical;

As a dear Woman’s Voice to one cast forth,

A Wanderer with a worn-out heart forlorn,

Mid Strangers pining with untended wounds.

O Friend! too well thou know’st, of what sad years

The long suppression had benumbed my soul,

That, even as Life returns upon the Drown’d,

The unusual Joy awoke a throng of Pains—

Keen Pangs of Love, awakening, as a Babe,

Turbulent, with an outcry in the Heart!

And Fears self-will’d, that shunn’d the eye of Hope,

And Hope, that scarce would know itself from Fear;

Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,

And Genius given and Knowledge won in vain;

And all, which I had cull’d in wood-walks wild,

And all, which patient Toil had rear’d, and all,

Commune with Thee had open’d out—but Flowers

Strew’d on my Corse, and borne upon my Bier,

In the same Coffin, for the selfsame Grave!

That way no more! and ill beseems it me,

Who came a Welcomer, in Herald’s Guise,

Singing of Glory and Futurity,

To wander back on such unhealthful road

Plucking the Poisons of Self-harm! And ill

Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths

Strew’d before thy advancing! Thou too, Friend!

Impair thou not the memory of that hour

Of thy Communion with my nobler mind

By pity or grief, already felt too long!

Nor let my words import more blame than needs.

The tumult rose and ceas’d: for Peace is nigh

Where Wisdom’s voice has found a list’ning Heart.

Amid the howl of more than wintry storms

The Halcyon hears the Voice of vernal Hours,

Already on the wing!

Eve following Eve

Dear tranquil Time, when the sweet sense of Home

Is sweetest! Moments, for their own sake hail’d,

And more desired, more precious for thy Song!

In silence listening, like a devout child,

My soul lay passive, by the various strain

Driven as in surges now, beneath the stars

With momentary stars of her own birth,

Fair constellated Foam, still darting off

Into the Darkness; now a tranquil Sea,

Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the Moon.

And when—O Friend! my Comforter! my Guide!

Strong in thyself and powerful to give strength!—

Thy long sustained Song finally clos’d,

And thy deep voice had ceas’d—yet thou thyself

Wert still before mine eyes, and round us both

That happy Vision of beloved Faces—

(All whom, I deepliest love—in one room all!)

Scarce conscious and yet conscious of its close

I sate, my Being blended in one Thought,

(Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)

Absorb’d; yet hanging still upon the Sound—

And when I rose, I found myself in Prayer.