Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.

5

a London Newspaper, and have since that time been republished in Mr. Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, but with some alterations; the Poet having apparently relinquished his intention of writing the Fate of the Dark Ladye': included (as Love) in Sibylline Leaves, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The four opening and three concluding stanzas with prefatory note were republished in Literary Remains, 1836, pp. 50-2, and were first collected in 1844. For a facsimile of the MS. of Lore as printed in the Lyrical Ballads, 1800 (i. 138-44), see Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS., edited by W. Hale White, 1897 (between pp. 34-5). For a collation of the Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie with two MSS. in the British Museum [Add. MSS., No. 27,902] see Coleridge's Poems. A Facsimile Reproduction, &c. Ed. by James Dykes Campbell, 1899, and Appendices of this edition.

It is probable that the greater part of the Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie was written either during or shortly after a visit which Coleridge paid to the Wordsworths's friends, George and Mary, and Sarah Hutchinson, at Sockburn, a farm-house on the banks of the Tees, in November, 1799. In the first draft, 11. 13-16, She leaned, &c.' runs thus :

She lean'd against a grey stone rudely carv'd,

The statue of an arméd Knight:
She lean'd in melancholy mood

Amid the lingering light.

In the church at Sockburn there is a recumbent statue of an 'armed knight' (of the Conyers family), and in a field near the farm-house there is a 'Grey-Stone' which is said to commemorate the slaying of a monstrous wyverne or 'worme' by the knight who is buried in the church. It is difficult to believe that the arméd knight' and the 'grey stone' of the first draft were not suggested by the statue in Sockburn Church, and the Grey-Stone' in the adjoining field. It has been argued that the Ballad of the Dark Ladie, of which only a fragment remains, was written after Coleridge returned from Germany, and that the Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie, which embodies Love, was written at Stowey in 1797 or 1798. But in referring to 'the plan' of the Lyrical Ballads of 1798 (Biog. Lit., 1817, Cap. XIV, ii. 3) Coleridge says that he had written the Ancient Mariner, and was preparing the Dark Ladie and the Christabel (both unpublished poems when this Chapter was written), but says nothing of so typical a poem as Love. By the Dark Ladié he must have meant the unfinished Ballad of the Dark Ladié, which, at one time, numbered 190 lines, not the Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie, which later on he refers to as the 'poem entitled Love' (Biog. Lit., 1817, Cap. XXIV, ii. 298), and which had appeared under that title in the Lyrical Ballads of 1800, 1802, and 1805. In Sibylline Leaves, 1828, 1829, and 1834, Lore, which was the first

5-6

7 lay] sate M. P.

O ever in my waking dreams
I dwell upon M. P., MS. erased.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the arméd man,
The statue of the arméd knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

in order of a group of poems with the sub-title Love Poems', was prefaced by the following motto:

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in aevo,
Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta
Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.
Omnia paulatim consumit longior aetas,

Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.
Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor:

Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,
Voxque aliud sonat-

Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,
Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus
Mens horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum.

15 lay] harp M. P., MS., L. B. suited] fitted M. P., MS., L. B. ruin] The Ruin M. P., MS., L. B.: 31 that] how M. P.

PETRARCH.

21 soft] sad M. P., MS. erased.

23

22 sang] sung E. M. 24 That The ruins E. M.- 29 that] who M. P.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land!

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain—

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

34 The low, the deep MS., L. B.

35 In which I told E. M.

42

That] Which MS., L. B. that] this M. P., MS., L. B. 43 And how he roam'd M. P. that] how MS. erased.

Between 44-5

And how he cross'd the Woodman's paths [path E. M.]
Tho' briars and swampy mosses beat,

How boughs rebounding scourg'd his limbs,

And low stubs gor'd his feet. M. P.

45 That] How M. P., MS. erased. 53 that] how M. P., MS, erased. 59 ever] meekly M. P.

51 that] how M. P., MS. erased. 54 murderous] lawless M. P.

For still she MS, erased,

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay;--

His dying words-but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faultering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

65

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;

70

The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

75

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin-shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

80

Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

61 that] how M. P., MS. erased. 79 murmur] murmurs M. P.

Between 80-1 I saw her bosom

85

90

rise and swell,

Heave and swell with inward sighs-
I could not choose but love to see
Her gentle bosom rise. M. P., MS. erased.
81 Her wet cheek glowed M. P., MS. erased.

84 fled] flew M. P.

1799.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

95

ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF
DEVONSHIRE1

ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER PASSAGE OVER
MOUNT GOTHARD'

And hail the Chapel! hail the Platform wild!
Where Tell directed the avenging dart,

With well-strung arm, that first preservst his child,
Then aim'd the arrow at the tyrant's heart.

SPLENDOUR'S fondly-fostered child!
And did you hail the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!
Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

5

1 First published in the Morning Post, December 24, 1799 (in four numbered stanzas): included in the Annual Anthology, 1800, in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The Duchess's poem entitled 'Passage over Mount Gothard' was published in the Morning Chronicle on Dec. 20 and in the Morning Post, Dec. 21, 1799.

94 virgin] maiden MS. erased.

95 so] thus M. P.

After 96 And now once more a tale of woe,

A woeful tale of love I sing;

For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs,

And trembles on the string.

When last I sang [sung E. M.] the cruel scorn

That craz'd this bold and lonely [lovely E. M.] knight,

And how he roam'd the mountain woods,

Nor rested day or night;

I promis'd thee a sister talo
Of Man's perfidious Cruelty;

Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong

Befel the Dark Ladie.

End of the Introduction M. P.

Ode to Georgiana, &c.-Motto 4 Then wing'd the arrow to M. P., An. Anth. Sub-title] On the 24th stanza in her Poem, entitled 'The Passage of the Mountain of St. Gothard.' M. P.

I-2

Lady, Splendor's foster'd child
And did you M. P.

2 you] you An, Anth.