Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

else like it,' says one of his critics; it is a poem by itself: between it and other compositions, in pari-materia, there is a chasm which you cannot over-pass. The sensitive reader feels himself insulated, and a sea of wonder and mystery flows round him as round the spell-stricken ship itself.

Coleridge further illustrates his theory of the connection between the material and the spiritual world in his unfinished poem of 'Christabel,' a romantic supernatural tale, filled with wild imagery and the most remarkable modulation of verse. The versification is founded on what the poet calls a new principle-though it was evidently practised by Chaucer and Shakspeare-namely, that of counting in each line the number of accentuated words, not the number of syllables. "Though the latter,' he says, may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four.' This irregular harmony delighted both Scott and Byron, by whom it was imitated. We add a brief specimen:

The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek;
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the
sky.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!
Jesu Maria shield her well!

She foldeth her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright.
Dressed in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck and arms were bare:
Her blue-veined feet unsandalled were;
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly!

A finer passage is that describing broken friendships;

Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;

And constancy lives in realms above;

And life is thorny; and youth is vain:

And to be wroth with one we love,

Doth work like madness in the brain.

And thus it chanced, as I divine.
With Roland and Sir Leoline.

Each spake words of high disdain'

And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted-ne'er to meet again!

But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining:
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder:

A dreary sea now flows between.

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

This metrical harmony of Coleridge exercises a sort of fascination even when it is found united to incoherent images and absurd con

ceptions. Thus in 'Khubla Khan,' a fragment written from recollections of a dream, we have the following melodious rhapsody:

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,

Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

Her symphony and song,

To such deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome, those caves of ice!

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, A damsel with a dulcimer

[blocks in formation]

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of paradise.

The odes of Coleridge are highly passionate and elevated in conception. That on France was considered by Shelley to be the finest English ode of modern times. The hymn on Chamouni is equally lofty and brilliant. His Genevieve' is a pure and exquisite lovepoem, without that gorgeous diffuseness which characterises the odes, yet more chastely and carefully finished, and abounding in the delicate and subtle traits of his imagination. Coleridge was deficient in the rapid energy and strong passion necessary for the drama. The poetical beauty of certain passages would not, on the stage, atone for the paucity of action and want of interest in his two plays, though, as works of genius, they vastly excel those of a more recent date which prove highly successful in representation.

[blocks in formation]

'And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannus and strong;

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

'With sloping masts and dripping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

'And the good south-wind still blew

behind,

But no sweet bird did follow;
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner's hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe;

For all averred I had killed the bird

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, That made the breeze to blow.
And southward aye we fled.

'And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold;
And ice mast-high came floating by
As green as emerald.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

"Ah, wretch," said they, "the bird to slay

That made the breeze to blow!"

'Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious sun uprist;

Then all averred I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.

""Twas right," said they, such birds to
slay

That bring the fog and mist."

The fair breeze blew, the white foam

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Each throat

"There passed a weary time.
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye!
When looking westward I beheld
A something in the sky.

'At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

'A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged, and tacked, and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood;
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried: "A sail! a sail !

'Alas. thought I, and my heart beat loud, How fast she nears and nears;

Are those her sails that glance in the sun Like restless gossameres?

'Are those her ribs through which the sun Did peer, as through a grate;

And is that woman all her crew?
Is that a death. and are there two?
Is death that woman's mate?

'Her lips were red. her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold;
Her skin was as white as leprosy.
The nightmare Life-in-death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

[blocks in formation]

From the sails the dew did dripTill clomb above the eastern bar

With throats unslaked, with black lips The horned moon, with one bright star

baked,

Agape they heard me call;

Gramercy they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

"See! see!" I cried, "she tacks no more,

Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel."

'The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was well-nigh done,
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly

Betwixt us and the sun.

'And straight the sun was flecked with bars

Heaven's mother send us grace!-
As if through a dungeon grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Within the nether tip.

'One after one, by the star-dogged moon, Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

'Four times fifty living men-
And I heard nor sigh nor groan-
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

'The souls did from their bodies fly-
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul it passed me by
Like the whizz of my cross-bow.'

PART IV.

I fear thee. ancient mariner,
I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long. and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

"I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand so brown.
Fear not, fear not, thou wedding guest,
This body dropped not down.

'Alone, alone. all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

'The many men so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on, and so did I.

'I looked upon the rotting sea,

And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

'I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gushed,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

'I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,

Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

'The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they;

The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away.

'An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that
Is a curse in a dead man's eye!

"Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

'O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

"The self-same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free

The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

PART V.

'Oh, sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given ! She sent the gentle sleep from heaven, That slid into my soul.

"The silly buckets on the deck, That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew; And when I awoke it rained.

'My lips were wet, my throat was cold, My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

'I moved, and could not feel my limbs: I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

.Seven days, seven nights, I saw that And was a blessed ghost.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« ZurückWeiter »