By him to be acquitted, as I hope; REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, 5 Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said: Right onward. What? though dread of threatened death And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath Inconstant to the truth within thy heart! That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start, And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own, 15 20 25 Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, Moved in the scanty circlet of his light: And was it strange if he withdrew the ray That did but guide the night-birds to their prey? The ascending day-star with a bolder eye ? 1826. 35 35 19 recreant] recreant L. S., 1828, 1829. 32 shall] will L. S., 1828, 1829. 34 th' approaching] 13 learned] learned L. S. 23 his] his L. ́S. the coming L. S. EPITAPHIUM TESTAMENTARIUM1 Τὸ τοῦ ΕΣΤΗΣΕ τοῦ ἐπιθανοῦς Epitaphium testamentarium αὐτόγραφον. Sordes 1826. Ἔρως ἀεὶ λάληθρος ἑταῖρος 2 In many ways does the full heart reveal The presence of the love it would conceal; But in far more th' estrangéd heart lets know The absence of the love, which yet it fain would shew. 1826. THE IMPROVISATORE 3 OR, JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN' Scene-A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining. Katharine. What are the words? Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore; here he comes. 1 First published in Literary Souvenir of 1827, as footnote to title of the Lines Suggested by the Last Words of Berengarius: included in Literary Remains, 1836, i. 60: first collected in 1844. 2 This quatrain was prefixed as a motto to 'Prose in Rhyme; and Epigrams, Moralities, and Things without a Name', the concluding section of 'Poems' in the edition of 1828, 1829, vol. ii, pp. 75-117. It was prefixed to 'Miscellaneous Poems' in 1884, vol. ii, pp. 55-152, and to 'Poems written in Later Life', 1852, pp. 319-78. First published in the Amulet for 1828 (with a prose introduction entitled 'New Thoughts on Old Subjects; or Conversational Dialogues on Interests and Events of Common Life.' By S. T. Coleridge): included in 1829 and 1834. The text of 1834 is identical with that of the Amulet, Title] ΕΠΙΤΑΦΙΟΝ ΑΥΤΟΓΡΑΠΤΟΝ L. R., 1844: ἐπιθανοῦς] ἐπιδανοὺς Ι. 5. The emendation èmbavovs (i. e. moribund) was suggested by the Reader of Macmillan's edition of 1893. Other alternatives, e.g. imdevous (the lacking), to the word as misprinted in the Literary Souvenir have been suggested, but there can be no doubt that what Coleridge intended to imply was that he was near his end. Greek motto: "Epws deì λáλos MS. S. T. C. I-4 In many ways I own do we reveal. The Presence of the Love we would conceal, But in how many more do we let know The absence of the Love we found would show. MS. S. T. C. Kate has a favour to ask of you, Sir; it is that you will repeat the ballad that Mr. sang so sweetly. Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies; but I do not recollect the words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this: Love would remain the same if true, When we were neither young nor new; By the same proofs would show itself the same. Eliz. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my mother admired so much? It begins with something about two vines so close that their tendrils intermingle. Fri. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother 2. We'll live together, like two neighbour vines, Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy. Kath. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile one to old age-this love-if true! But is there any such true love? Fri. I hope so. Kath. But do you believe it? Eliz. (eagerly). I am sure he does. Fri. From a man turned of fifty, Katharine, I imagine, expects a less confident answer. Kath. A more sincere one, perhaps. Fri. Even though he should have obtained the nick-name of Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at Christmas times? Eliz. Nay, but be serious. Fri. Serious! Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a Love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to 1828, but the italics in the prose dialogue were not reproduced. They have been replaced in the text of the present issue. The title may have been suggested by L. E. L.'s Improvisatrice published in 1824. 1Believe me if all those endearing young charms.' 2 See Beaumont and Fletcher, The Elder Brother, Act 1, Scene v. In the original the lines are printed as prose. In line 1 of the quotation Coleridge has substituted 'neighbour' for 'wanton', and in line 6, 'close' for 'shut'. remain so. It will be asked whether I am not the elderly gentleman' who sate 'despairing beside a clear stream', with a willow for his wig-block. Eliz. Say another word, and we will call it downright affectation. Kath. No! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for our presumption in expecting that Mr. would waste his sense on two insignificant girls. Fri. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem ! Now then commences the discourse; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often usurps its name, on the other Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the Friend). But is not Love the union of both? Fri. (aside to Lucius). He never loved who thinks so. Eliz. Brother, we don't want you. There! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the flower vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman. Luc. I'll have my revenge! I know what I will say! Eliz. (impatiently). Pshaw! Fri. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world: and mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the well-known ballad, 'John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within-to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide of life-even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away and which, in all our lovings, is the Love; Eliz. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself. Kath. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for us. Fri. I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the self for itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own ;-that quiet perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and, finding, again seeks on ;-lastly, when 'life's changeful orb has pass'd the full', a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of possessing the same or the correspondent excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow; and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged Virtue the caressing fondness that belongs to the Innocence of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine loveliness or in manly beauty. Eliz. What a soothing-what an elevating idea! Kath. If it be not only an idea. Fri. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife. A person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbour, friend, housemate-in short, in all the concentric circles of attachment save only the last and inmost; and yet from how many causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this! Pride, coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,one or the other-too often proves 'the dead fly in the compost of spices', and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this high sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part, grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of preserving |