POEMS

EASTER HOLIDAYS1

VERSE 1ST

HAIL! festal Easter that dost bring
Approach of sweetly-smiling spring,

When Nature's clad in green:

When feather'd songsters through the grove
With beasts confess the power of love

And brighten all the scene.

VERSE 2ND

Now youths the breaking stages load
That swiftly rattling o'er the road
To Greenwich haste away:

While some with sounding oars divide
Of smoothly-flowing Thames the tide
All sing the festive lay.

VERSE 3RD

With mirthful dance they beat the ground,

Their shouts of joy the hills resound

And catch the jocund noise :
Without a tear, without a sigh
Their moments all in transports fly
Till evening ends their joys.

VERSE 4TH

But little think their joyous hearts
Of dire Misfortune's varied smarts

Which youthful years conceal :
Thoughtless of bitter-smiling Woe
Which all mankind are born to know
And they themselves must feel.

1 From a hitherto unpublished MS. The lines were sent in a letter to Luke Coleridge, dated May 12, 1787.

COLERIDGE

B

1787.

VERSE 5TH

Yet he who Wisdom's paths shall keep
And Virtue firm that scorns to weep

At ills in Fortune's power,
Through this life's variegated scene
In raging storms or calm serene
Shall cheerful spend the hour.

VERSE 6TH

While steady Virtue guides his mind
Heav'n-born Content he still shall find
That never sheds a tear:

Without respect to any tide
His hours away in bliss shall glide
Like Easter all the year.

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DURA NAVIS1

To tempt the dangerous deep, too venturous youth,
Why does thy breast with fondest wishes glow?
No tender parent there thy cares shall sooth,
No much-lov'd Friend shall share thy every woe.
Why does thy mind with hopes delusive burn?
Vain are thy Schemes by heated Fancy plann'd:
Thy promis'd joy thou'lt see to Sorrow turn
Exil'd from Bliss, and from thy native land.

Hast thou foreseen the Storm's impending rage,
When to the Clouds the Waves ambitious rise,
And seem with Heaven a doubtful war to wage,
Whilst total darkness overspreads the skies;
Save when the lightnings darting wingéd Fate
Quick bursting from the pitchy clouds between
In forked Terror, and destructive state2

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Shall shew with double gloom the horrid scene?

1 First published in 1893. The autograph MS. is in the British Museum. 2 State, Grandeur [1792]. This school exercise, written in the 15th year of my age, does not contain a line that any clever schoolboy might not have written, and like most school poetry is a Putting of Thought into Verse; for such Verses as strivings of mind and struggles after the Intense and Vivid are a fair Promise of better things.-S. T. C. aetat, suae 51. [1823.]

Shalt thou be at this hour from danger free?
Perhaps with fearful force some falling Wave
Shall wash thee in the wild tempestuous Sea,
And in some monster's belly fix thy grave;
Or (woful hap!) against some wave-worn rock
Which long a Terror to each Bark had stood
Shall dash thy mangled limbs with furious shock
And stain its craggy sides with human blood.

Yet not the Tempest, or the Whirlwind's roar
Equal the horrors of a Naval Fight,
When thundering Cannons spread a sea of Gore
And varied deaths now fire and now affright:
The impatient shout, that longs for closer war,
Reaches from either side the distant shores;
Whilst frighten'd at His streams ensanguin'd far
Loud on his troubled bed huge Ocean roars.1
What dreadful scenes appear before my eyes!
Ah! see how each with frequent slaughter red,
Regardless of his dying fellows' cries

O'er their fresh wounds with impious order tread!
From the dread place does soft Compassion fly!
The Furies fell each alter'd breast command;
Whilst Vengeance drunk with human blood stands by
And smiling fires each heart and arms each hand.

Should'st thou escape the fury of that day
A fate more cruel still, unhappy, view.
Opposing winds may stop thy luckless way,

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And spread fell famine through the suffering crew,
Canst thou endure th' extreme of raging Thirst
Which soon may scorch thy throat, ah! thoughtless Youth!
Or ravening hunger canst thou bear which erst
On its own flesh hath fix'd the deadly tooth?

I well remember old Jemmy Bowyer, the plagose Orbilius of Christ's Hospital, but an admirable educer no less than Educator of the Intellect, bade me leave out as many epithets as would turn the whole into eight-syllable lines, and then ask myself if the exercise would not be greatly improved. How often have I thought of the proposal since then, and how many thousand bloated and puffing lines have I read, that, by this process, would have tripped over the tongue excellently. Likewise, I remember that he told me on the same occasion-'Coleridge! the connections of a Declamation are not the transitions of Poetry-bad, however, as they are, they are better than "Apostrophes" and "O thou's for at the worst they are something like common sense. The others are the grimaces of Lunacy.'-S. T. COLERIDGE.

Dubious and fluttering 'twixt hope and fear

With trembling hands the lot I see thee draw,
Which shall, or sentence thee a victim drear,

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To that ghaunt Plague which savage knows no law:
Or, deep thy dagger in the friendly heart,
Whilst each strong passion agitates thy breast,
Though oft with Horror back I see thee start,
Lo! Hunger drives thee to th' inhuman feast.

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These are the ills, that may the course attend-
Then with the joys of home contented rest—
Here, meek-eyed Peace with humble Plenty lend
Their aid united still, to make thee blest.
To ease each pain, and to increase each joy-
Here mutual Love shall fix thy tender wife,

Whose offspring shall thy youthful care employ

And gild with brightest rays the evening of thy Life.

1787.

60

NIL PEJUS EST CAELIBE VITÂ1

[IN CHRIST'S HOSPITAL BOOK]

I

WHAT pleasures shall he ever find? What joys shall ever glad his heart? Or who shall heal his wounded mind, If tortur'd by Misfortune's smart? Who Hymeneal bliss will never prove,

That more than friendship, friendship mix'd with love.

II

Then without child or tender wife,
To drive away each care, each sigh,
Lonely he treads the paths of life
A stranger to Affection's tye:

And when from Death he meets his final doom

No mourning wife with tears of love shall wet his tomb.

First published in 1898.

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III

Tho' Fortune, Riches, Honours, Pow'r,
Had giv'n with every other toy,
Those gilded trifles of the hour,
Those painted nothings sure to cloy:

He dies forgot, his name no son shall bear

To shew the man so blest once breath'd the vital air.

1787.

15

SONNET1

TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON

MILD Splendour of the various-vested Night!
Mother of wildly-working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil ;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
Behind the gather'd blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
Thy placid lightning o'er the awaken'd sky.
Ah such is Hope! as changeful and as fair!
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
Now hid behind the dragon-wing'd Despair:
But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

1788.

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ANTHEM 2

FOR THE CHILDREN OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL
SERAPHS! around th' Eternal's seat who throng
With tuneful ecstasies of praise :

O! teach our feeble tongues like yours the song
Of fervent gratitude to raise-

1 First published in 1796: included in 1803, 1829, 1834.

were made in the text.

2 First published in 1834.

No changes

Sonnet-Title] Effusion xviii, To the, &c.: Sonnet xviii, To the, &c., 1803. Anthem. For the Children, &c.] This Anthem was written as if intended to have been sung by the Children of Christ's Hospital. MS, 0.

3 yours] you Ms. 0.