Читать книгу The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Страница 143

To rear some realm with patient discipline,

Aye bidding PAIN, dark ERROR’S uncouth child,

Blameless Parenticide! his snakey scourge 125

Lift fierce against his Mother! Thus they make

Of transient Evil ever-during Good

Themselves probationary, and denied

Confess’d to view by preternatural deed

To o’erwhelm the will, save on some fated day 130

Headstrong, or with petition’d might from God.

And such perhaps the guardian Power whose ken

Still dwelt on France. He from the invisible World

Burst on the MAIDEN’S eye, impregning Air

With Voices and strange Shapes, illusions apt 135

Shadowy of Truth. [And first a landscape rose

More wild and waste and desolate, than where

The white bear drifting on a field of ice

Howls to her sunder’d cubs with piteous rage

And savage agony.] Mid the drear scene 140

A craggy mass uprear’d its misty brow,

Untouch’d by breath of Spring, unwont to know

Red Summer’s influence, or the chearful face

Of Autumn; yet its fragments many and huge

Astounded ocean with the dreadful dance 145

Of whirlpools numberless, absorbing oft

The blameless fisher at his perilous toil.

‘These are the fiends that o’er thy native land 260

Spread Guilt and Horror. Maid belov’d of Heaven!

Dar’st thou inspir’d by the holy flame of Love

Encounter such fell shapes, nor fear to meet

Their wrath, their wiles? O Maiden dar’st thou die?’

‘Father of Heaven: I will not fear.’ she said, 265

‘My arm is weak, but mighty is thy sword.’

She spake and as she spake the trump was heard

That echoed ominous o’er the streets of Rome,

When the first Caesar totter’d o’er the grave

By Freedom delv’d: the Trump, whose chilling blast 270

On Marathon and on Plataea’s plain

Scatter’d the Persian. — From his obscure haunt, &c.

‘Lo she goes!

To Orleans lo! she goes — the mission’d Maid!

The Victor Hosts wither beneath her arm!

And what are Crecy, Poictiers, Azincour 280

But noisy echoes in the ear of Pride?’

Ambition heard and startled on his throne;

But strait a smile of savage joy illum’d

His grisly features, like the sheety Burst

Of Lightning o’er the awaken’d midnight clouds 285

Wide flash’d. [For lo! a flaming pile reflects

Its red light fierce and gloomy on the face

Of SUPERSTITION and her goblin Son

Loud-laughing CRUELTY, who to the stake

A female fix’d, of bold and beauteous mien, 290

Her snow-white Limbs by iron fetters bruis’d

Her breast expos’d.] JOAN saw, she saw and knew

Her perfect image. Nature thro’ her frame

One pang shot shiv’ring; but, that frail pang soon

Dismiss’d, ‘Even so, &c.

But lo! no more was seen the ice-pil’d mount

And meteor-lighted dome. — An Isle appear’d

The Sea meantime his Billows darkest roll’d,

And each stain’d wave dash’d on the shore a corse.

His hideous features blended with the mist,

The long black locks of SLAUGHTER. PEACE beheld

And o’er the plain

The name of JUSTICE written on thy brow

Resplendent shone

A Vapor rose, pierc’d by the MAIDEN’S eye.

Guiding its course OPPRESSION sate within,

With terror pale and rage, yet laugh’d at times

Musing on Vengeance: trembled in his hand

A Sceptre fiercely-grasp’d. O’er Ocean westward

The Vapor sail’d

These images imageless, these Small-Capitals

constituting themselves Personifications, I despised even at

that time; but was forced to introduce them, to preserve the

connection with the machinery of the Poem, previously adopted

by Southey. S. T. C.

ENVY sate guiding — ENVY, hag-abhorr’d!

Like JUSTICE mask’d, and doom’d to aid the fight 410

Victorious ‘gainst oppression. Hush’d awhile

Shriek’d AMBITION’S ghastly throng

And with them those the locust Fiends that crawl’d

— if Locusts how could they shriek? I must have

caught the contagion of unthinkingness. S. T. C. 4{o}.

VER PERPETUUM

FRAGMENT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

The early Year’s fast-flying vapours stray

In shadowing trains across the orb of day:

And we, poor Insects of a few short hours,

Deem it a world of Gloom.

Were it not better hope a nobler doom, 5

Proud to believe that with more active powers

On rapid many-coloured wing

We thro’ one bright perpetual Spring

Shall hover round the fruits and flowers,

Screen’d by those clouds and cherish’d by those showers! 10

ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY 1796

Sweet flower! that peeping from thy russet stem

Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort

This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month

Hath borrow’d Zephyr’s voice, and gazed upon thee

With blue voluptuous eye) alas, poor Flower! 5

These are but flatteries of the faithless year.

Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,

Even now the keen North-East is on its way.

Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee

To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth 10

Nipp’d by consumption mid untimely charms?

Or to Bristowa’s bard, the wondrous boy!

An amaranth, which earth scarce seem’d to own,

Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong

Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief 15

Shall I compare thee to poor Poland’s hope,

Bright flower of hope killed in the opening bud?

Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine

And mock my boding! Dim similitudes

Weaving in moral strains, I’ve stolen one hour 20

From anxious Self, Life’s cruel taskmaster!

And the warm wooings of this sunny day

Tremble along my frame and harmonize

The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts

Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes 25

Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument.

TO A PRIMROSE

THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON

Nitens et roboris expers

Turget et insolida est: et spe delectat.

OVID, Metam. [xv. 203].

Thy smiles I note, sweet early Flower,

That peeping from thy rustic bower

The festive news to earth dost bring,

A fragrant messenger of Spring.

But, tender blossom, why so pale? 5

Dost hear stern Winter in the gale?

And didst thou tempt the ungentle sky

To catch one vernal glance and die?

Such the wan lustre Sickness wears

When Health’s first feeble beam appears; 10

So languid are the smiles that seek

To settle on the care-worn cheek,

When timorous Hope the head uprears,

Still drooping and still moist with tears,

If, through dispersing grief, be seen 15

Of Bliss the heavenly spark serene.

And sweeter far the early blow,

Fast following after storms of Woe,

Than (Comfort’s riper season come)

Are full-blown joys and Pleasure’s gaudy bloom. 20

VERSES: ADDRESSED TO J. HORNE TOOKE AND THE COMPANY WHO MET ON JUNE 28TH, 1796,

TO CELEBRATE HIS POLL AT THE WESTMINSTER ELECTION

Britons! when last ye met, with distant streak

So faintly promis’d the pale Dawn to break:

So dim it stain’d the precincts of the Sky

E’en Expectation gaz’d with doubtful Eye.

But now such fair Varieties of Light 5

O’ertake the heavy sailing Clouds of Night;

Th’ Horizon kindles with so rich a red,

That tho’ the Sun still hides his glorious head

Th’ impatient Matin-bird, assur’d of Day,

Leaves his low nest to meet its earliest ray; 10

Loud the sweet song of Gratulation sings,

And high in air claps his rejoicing wings!

Patriot and Sage! whose breeze-like Spirit first

The lazy mists of Pedantry dispers’d

(Mists in which Superstition’s pigmy band 15

Seem’d Giant Forms, the Genii of the Land!),

Thy struggles soon shall wak’ning Britain bless,

And Truth and Freedom hail thy wish’d success.

Yes Tooke! tho’ foul Corruption’s wolfish throng

Outmalice Calumny’s imposthum’d Tongue, 20

Thy Country’s noblest and determin’d Choice,

Soon shalt thou thrill the Senate with thy voice;

With gradual Dawn bid Error’s phantoms flit,

Or wither with the lightning’s flash of Wit;

Or with sublimer mien and tones more deep, 25

Charm sworded Justice from mysterious Sleep,

‘By violated Freedom’s loud Lament,

Her Lamps extinguish’d and her Temple rent;

By the forc’d tears her captive Martyrs shed;

By each pale Orphan’s feeble cry for bread; 30

By ravag’d Belgium’s corse-impeded Flood,

And Vendee steaming still with brothers’ blood!’

And if amid the strong impassion’d Tale,

Thy Tongue should falter and thy Lips turn pale;

If transient Darkness film thy aweful Eye, 35

And thy tir’d Bosom struggle with a sigh:

Science and Freedom shall demand to hear

Who practis’d on a Life so doubly dear;

Infus’d the unwholesome anguish drop by drop,

Pois’ning the sacred stream they could not stop! 40

Shall bid thee with recover’d strength relate

How dark and deadly is a Coward’s Hate:

What seeds of death by wan Confinement sown,

When Prison-echoes mock’d Disease’s groan!

Shall bid th’ indignant Father flash dismay, 45

And drag the unnatural Villain into Day

Who to the sports of his flesh’d Ruffians left

Two lovely Mourners of their Sire bereft!

‘Twas wrong, like this, which Rome’s first Consul bore,

So by th’ insulted Female’s name he swore 50

Ruin (and rais’d her reeking dagger high)

Not to the Tyrants but the Tyranny!

ON A LATE CONNUBIAL RUPTURE IN HIGH LIFE

[PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF WALES]

I sigh, fair injur’d stranger! for thy fate;

But what shall sighs avail thee? thy poor heart,

‘Mid all the ‘pomp and circumstance’ of state,

Shivers in nakedness. Unbidden, start

Sad recollections of Hope’s garish dream, 5

That shaped a seraph form, and named it Love,

Its hues gay-varying, as the orient beam

Varies the neck of Cytherea’s dove.

To one soft accent of domestic joy

Poor are the shouts that shake the high-arch’d dome; 10

Those plaudits that thy public path annoy,

Alas! they tell thee — Thou’rt a wretch at home!

O then retire, and weep! Their very woes

Solace the guiltless. Drop the pearly flood

On thy sweet infant, as the full-blown rose, 15

Surcharg’d with dew, bends o’er its neighbouring bud.

And ah! that Truth some holy spell might lend

To lure thy Wanderer from the Syren’s power;

Then bid your souls inseparably blend

Like two bright dewdrops meeting in a flower. 20

SONNET: ON RECEIVING A LETTER INFORMING ME OF THE BIRTH OF A SON

When they did greet me father, sudden awe

Weigh’d down my spirit: I retired and knelt

Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt

No heavenly visitation upwards draw

My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart. 5

Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought

Th’ unquiet silence of confuséd thought

And shapeless feelings: my o’erwhelméd heart

Trembled, and vacant tears stream’d down my face.

And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend, 10

Lover of souls! and groan for future grace,

That ere my babe youth’s perilous maze have trod,

Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend,

And he be born again, a child of God.

Sept. 20, 1796.

SONNET: COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE

OF THE BIRTH OF A SON, SEPT. 20, 1796

Oft o’er my brain does that strange fancy roll

Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)

Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,

Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul

Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said 5

We liv’d, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,

If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead,

(As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear)

I think that I should struggle to believe 10

Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere

Sentenc’d for some more venial crime to grieve;

Did’st scream, then spring to meet Heaven’s quick reprieve,

While we wept idly o’er thy little bier!

SONNET: TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME

Charles! my slow heart was only sad, when first

I scann’d that face of feeble infancy:

For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst

All I had been, and all my child might be!

But when I saw it on its mother’s arm, 5

And hanging at her bosom (she the while

Bent o’er its features with a tearful smile)

Then I was thrill’d and melted, and most warm

Impress’d a father’s kiss: and all beguil’d

Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, 10

I seem’d to see an angel-form appear —

‘Twas even thine, belovéd woman mild!

So for the mother’s sake the child was dear,

And dearer was the mother for the child.

SONNET

[TO CHARLES LLOYD]

The piteous sobs that choke the Virgin’s breath

For him, the fair betrothéd Youth, who lies

Cold in the narrow dwelling, or the cries

With which a Mother wails her darling’s death,

These from our nature’s common impulse spring, 5

Unblam’d, unprais’d; but o’er the piléd earth

Which hides the sheeted corse of grey-hair’d Worth,

If droops the soaring Youth with slacken’d wing;

If he recall in saddest minstrelsy

Each tenderness bestow’d, each truth imprest, 10

Such grief is Reason, Virtue, Piety!

And from the Almighty Father shall descend

Comforts on his late evening, whose young breast

Mourns with no transient love the Agéd Friend.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND

ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR

Composed in 1796

A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep,

But a green mountain variously up-piled,

Where o’er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep,

Or colour’d lichens with slow oozing weep;

Where cypress and the darker yew start wild; 5

And, ‘mid the summer torrent’s gentle dash

Dance brighten’d the red clusters of the ash;

Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguil’d,

Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep;

Till haply startled by some fleecy dam, 10

That rustling on the bushy cliff above

With melancholy bleat of anxious love,

Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb:

Such a green mountain ‘twere most sweet to climb,

E’en while the bosom ach’d with loneliness — 15

How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime

Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round,

Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!

O then ‘twere loveliest sympathy, to mark 20

The berries of the half-uprooted ash

Dripping and bright; and list the torrent’s dash, —

Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,

Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;

In social silence now, and now to unlock 25

The treasur’d heart; arm linked in friendly arm,

Save if the one, his muse’s witching charm

Muttering browbent, at unwatch’d distance lag;

Till high o’er head his beckoning friend appears,

And from the forehead of the topmost crag 30

Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears

That shadowing Pine its old romantic limbs,

Which latest shall detain the enamour’d sight

Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,

Tinged yellow with the rich departing light; 35

And haply, bason’d in some unsunn’d cleft,

A beauteous spring, the rock’s collected tears,

Sleeps shelter’d there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!

Together thus, the world’s vain turmoil left,

Stretch’d on the crag, and shadow’d by the pine, 40

And bending o’er the clear delicious fount,

Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine

To cheat our noons in moralising mood,

While west-winds fann’d our temples toil-bedew’d:

Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, 45

To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,

Where smiling with blue eye, Domestic Bliss

Gives this the Husband’s, that the Brother’s kiss!

Thus rudely vers’d in allegoric lore,

The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace; 50

That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,

And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour

To glad, and fertilise the subject plains;

That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,

And many a fancy-blest and holy sod 55

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains

Low-murmuring, lay; and starting from the rock’s

Stiff evergreens, (whose spreading foliage mocks

Want’s barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,

And Bigotry’s mad fire-invoking rage!) 60

O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,

Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;

And from the stirring world uplifted high

(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,

To quiet musings shall attune the mind, 65

And oft the melancholy theme supply),

There, while the prospect through the gazing eye

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,

We’ll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,

Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, 70

As neighbouring fountains image each the whole:

Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth

We’ll discipline the heart to pure delight,

Rekindling sober joy’s domestic flame.

They whom I love shall love thee, honour’d youth! 75

Now may Heaven realise this vision bright!

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE

C. LLOYD WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,

O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!

To plunder’d Want’s half-shelter’d hovel go,

Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear

Moan haply in a dying mother’s ear: 5

Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood

O’er the rank churchyard with sear elm-leaves strew’d,

Pace round some widow’s grave, whose dearer part

Was slaughter’d, where o’er his uncoffin’d limbs

The flocking flesh-birds scream’d! Then, while thy heart 10

Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,

Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)

What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!

O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign’d,

All effortless thou leave Life’s commonweal 15

A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.

TO A FRIEND: [CHARLES LAMB] WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY

Dear Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween

That Genius plung’d thee in that wizard fount

Hight Castalie: and (sureties of thy faith)

That Pity and Simplicity stood by,

And promis’d for thee, that thou shouldst renounce 5

The world’s low cares and lying vanities,

Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,

And wash’d and sanctified to Poesy.

Yes — thou wert plung’d, but with forgetful hand

Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son: 10

And with those recreant unbaptizéd heels

Thou’rt flying from thy bounden ministeries —

So sore it seems and burthensome a task

To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:

For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy, 15

And I have arrows mystically dipped

Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead?

And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth

‘Without the meed of one melodious tear’?

Thy Burns, and Nature’s own beloved bard, 20

Who to the ‘Illustrious of his native Land

So properly did look for patronage.’

Ghost of Mæcenas! hide thy blushing face!

They snatch’d him from the sickle and the plough —

To gauge ale-firkins.

Oh! for shame return! 25

On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount,

There stands a lone and melancholy tree,

Whose agéd branches to the midnight blast

Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough,

Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled, 30

And weeping wreath it round thy Poet’s tomb.

Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow,

Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers

Of nightshade, or its red and tempting fruit,

These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand 35

Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine,

The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility!

ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR

ARGUMENT

The Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence that

regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however

calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls

on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a

while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of

the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November

1796; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined

against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of

the Departing Year, etc., as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies,

in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.

I

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 fix’d on Heaven’s unchanging clime

Long had I listen’d, free from mortal fear, 5

With inward stillness, and a bowéd 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, 10

Ere yet the enter’d cloud foreclos’d my sight,

I rais’d the impetuous song, and solemnis’d his flight.

II

Hither, from the recent tomb,

From the prison’s direr gloom,

From Distemper’s midnight anguish; 15

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 fix’d her wishful gaze; 20

Hither, in perplexéd 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, 25

I bid you haste, a mix’d tumultuous band!

From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth,

Haste for one solemn hour;

And with a loud and yet a louder voice, 30

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 35

Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell,

They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

III

I mark’d Ambition in his war-array!

I heard the mailéd Monarch’s troublous cry —

‘Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! 40

Groans not her chariot on its onward way?’

Fly, mailéd Monarch, fly!

Stunn’d by Death’s twice mortal mace,

No more on Murder’s lurid face

The insatiate Hag shall gloat with drunken eye! 45

Manes of the unnumber’d slain!

Ye that gasp’d on Warsaw’s plain!

Ye that erst at Ismail’s tower,

When human ruin choked the streams,

Fell in Conquest’s glutted hour, 50

Mid women’s shrieks and infants’ screams!

Spirits of the uncoffin’d slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,

Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling! 55

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, 60

Each some Tyrant-Murderer’s fate!

IV

Departing Year! ‘twas on no earthly shore

My soul beheld thy Vision! Where alone,

Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,

Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscrib’d with gore, 65

With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied’st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,

Deep silence o’er the ethereal multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, 70

From the choiréd gods advancing,

The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,

And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

V

Throughout the blissful throng,

Hush’d were harp and song: 75

Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven,

(The mystic Words of Heaven)

Permissive signal make:

The fervent Spirit bow’d, then spread his wings and spake!

‘Thou in stormy blackness throning 80

Love and uncreated Light,

By the Earth’s unsolaced groaning,

Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!

By Peace with proffer’d insult scared,

Masked Hate and envying Scorn! 85

By years of Havoc yet unborn!

And Hunger’s bosom to the frost-winds bared!

But chief by Afric’s wrongs,

Strange, horrible, and foul!

By what deep guilt belongs 90

To the deaf Synod, ‘full of gifts and lies!’

By Wealth’s insensate laugh! by Torture’s howl!

Avenger, rise!

For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,

Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow? 95

Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud!

And on the darkling foe

Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud!

O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow!

The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries! 100

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below!

Rise, God of Nature! rise.’

VI

The voice had ceas’d, the Vision fled;

Yet still I gasp’d and reel’d with dread.

And ever, when the dream of night 105

Renews the phantom to my sight,

Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;

My ears throb hot; my eyeballs start;

My brain with horrid tumult swims;

Wild is the tempest of my heart; 110

And my thick and struggling breath

Imitates the toil of death!

No stranger agony confounds

The Soldier on the war-field spread,

When all foredone with toil and wounds, 115

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!

(The strife is o’er, the daylight fled,

And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

See! the starting wretch’s head

Lies pillow’d on a brother’s corse!) 120

VII

Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,

O Albion! O my mother Isle!

Thy valleys, fair as Eden’s bowers,

Glitter green with sunny showers;

Thy grassy uplands’ gentle swells 125

Echo to the bleat of flocks;

(Those grassy hills, those glittering dells

Proudly ramparted with rocks)

And Ocean mid his uproar wild

Speaks safety to his Island-child! 130

Hence for many a fearless age

Has social Quiet lov’d thy shore;

Nor ever proud Invader’s rage

Or sack’d thy towers, or stain’d thy fields with gore.

VIII

Abandon’d of Heaven! mad Avarice thy guide, 135

At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride —

Mid thy herds and thy cornfields secure thou hast stood,

And join’d the wild yelling of Famine and Blood!

The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering

Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream! 140

Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream

Of central fires through nether seas up-thundering

Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies

By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,

If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes, 145

O Albion! thy predestin’d ruins rise,

The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap,

Muttering distemper’d triumph in her charméd sleep.

IX

Away, my soul, away!

In vain, in vain the Birds of warning sing — 150

And hark! I hear the famish’d brood of prey

Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind!

Away, my soul, away!

I unpartaking of the evil thing,

With daily prayer and daily toil 155

Soliciting for food my scanty soil,

Have wail’d my country with a loud Lament.

Now I recentre my immortal mind

In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content;

Cleans’d from the vaporous passions that bedim 160

God’s Image, sister of the Seraphim.

'Let it not be forgotten during the perusal of this Ode that it was written many years before the abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Legislature, likewise before the invasion of Switzerland by the French Republic, which occasioned the Ode that follows’

MS. Note by S. T. C.

Title] Ode for the last day of the Year 1796, C. I.: Ode on the

Departing Year

When lo! far onwards waving on the wind

I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR.

From Poverty’s heart-wasting languish

From Distemper’s midnight anguish

Seiz’d in sore travail and portentous birth

(Her eyeballs flashing a pernicious glare)

Sick Nature struggles! Hark! her pangs increase!

Her groans are horrible! but O! most fair

The promis’d Twins she bears — Equality and Peace!

Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir

Loud-laughing, red-eyed Massacre

When shall sceptred SLAUGHTER cease?

A while he crouch’d, O Victor France!

Beneath the lightning of thy lance;

With treacherous dalliance courting PEACE —

But soon upstarting from his coward trance

The boastful bloody Son of Pride betray’d

His ancient hatred of the dove-eyed Maid.

A cloud, O Freedom! cross’d thy orb of Light,

And sure he deem’d that orb was set in night:

For still does MADNESS roam on GUILT’S bleak dizzy height!

With treacherous dalliance wooing Peace.

But soon up-springing from his dastard trance

The boastful bloody Son of Pride betray’d

His hatred of the blest and blessing Maid.

One cloud, O Freedom! cross’d thy orb of Light,

And sure he deem’d that orb was quench’d in night:

For still, &c.

To juggle this easily-juggled people into better

humour with the supplies (and themselves, perhaps, affrighted

by the successes of the French) our Ministry sent an

Ambassador to Paris to sue for Peace. The supplies are

granted: and in the meantime the Archduke Charles turns the

scale of victory on the Rhine, and Buonaparte is checked

before Mantua. Straightways our courtly messenger is commanded

to uncurl his lips, and propose to the lofty Republic to

restore all its conquests, and to suffer England to

retain all hers (at least all her important ones), as

the only terms of Peace, and the ultimatum of the negotiation!

The friends of Freedom in this country are idle. Some are

timid; some are selfish; and many the torpedo torch of

hopelessness has numbed into inactivity. We would fain hope

that (if the above account be accurate — it is only the French

account) this dreadful instance of infatuation in our Ministry

will rouse them to one effort more; and that at one and the

same time in our different great towns the people will be

called on to think solemnly, and declare their thoughts

fearlessly by every method which the remnant of the

Constitution allows.

Aye Memory sits: thy vest profan’d with gore.

Thou with an unimaginable groan

Gav’st reck’ning of thy Hours!

On every Harp on every Tongue

While the mute Enchantment hung:

Like Midnight from a thundercloud

Spake the sudden Spirit loud.

Like Thunder from a Midnight Cloud

Spake the sudden Spirit loud

For ever shall the bloody island scowl?

For ever shall her vast and iron bow

Shoot Famine’s evil arrows o’er the world,

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below;

Rise, God of Mercy, rise! why sleep thy bolts unhurl’d?

For ever shall the bloody Island scowl?

For aye, unbroken shall her cruel Bow

Shoot Famine’s arrows o’er thy ravaged World?

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below —

Rise, God of Nature, rise, why sleep thy Bolts unhurl’d?

‘In Europe the smoking villages of Flanders and the

putrified fields of La Vendée — from Africa the unnumbered

victims of a detestable Slave-Trade. In Asia the desolated

plains of Indostan, and the millions whom a rice-contracting

Governor caused to perish. In America the recent enormities of

the Scalp-merchants. The four quarters of the globe groan

beneath the intolerable iniquity of the nation.’

At coward distance, yet with kindling pride —

Safe ‘mid thy herds and cornfields thou hast stood,

And join’d the yell of Famine and of Blood.

All nations curse thee: and with eager wond’ring

1797.

Mid thy Cornfields and Herds thou in plenty hast stood

And join’d the loud yellings of Famine and Blood.

1803.

Stretch’d on the marge of some fire-flashing fount

In the black Chamber of a sulphur’d mount.

In the long sabbath of high self-content.

Cleans’d from the fleshly passions that bedim

In the deep sabbath of blest self-content

Cleans’d from the fears and anguish that bedim

1797.

In the blest sabbath of high self-content

Cleans’d from bedimming Fear, and Anguish weak and blind.

1803.