The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 94

[183] couldst thou be 1802: shouldst thou be 1809.

[184-5]

To me who from thy brooks and mountain-hills, Thy quiet fields, thy clouds, thy rocks, thy seas

1802.

To me who from thy seas and rocky sh.o.r.es Thy quiet fields thy streams and wooded hills

1809.

[207] Aslant the ivied] On the long-ivied MS. W., 4{o}.

[214] nook] scene MS. W., 4{o}, P. R.

THE NIGHTINGALE[264:1]

A CONVERSATION POEM, APRIL, 1798

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.

Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!

You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, 5 But hear no murmuring: it flows silently, O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers That gladden the green earth, and we shall find 10 A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, 'Most musical, most melancholy' bird![264:2]

A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!

In Nature there is nothing melancholy. 15 But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper, or neglected love, (And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself, And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale 20 Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he, First named these notes a melancholy strain.

And many a poet echoes the conceit; Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretched his limbs 25 Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell, By sun or moon-light, to the influxes Of shapes and sounds and s.h.i.+fting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! so his fame 30 Should share in Nature's immortality, A venerable thing! and so his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so; And youths and maidens most poetical, 35 Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt 40 A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, 45 As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!

And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, 50 Which the great lord inhabits not; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and gra.s.s, Thin gra.s.s and king-cups grow within the paths.

But never elsewhere in one place I knew 55 So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious pa.s.sagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, 60 And one low piping sound more sweet than all-- Stirring the air with such a harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed. 65 You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.

A most gentle Maid, Who dwelleth in her hospitable home 70 Hard by the castle, and at latest eve (Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate To something more than Nature in the grove) Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes, That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment's s.p.a.ce, 75 What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky With one sensation, and those wakeful birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, 80 As if some sudden gale had swept at once A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched Many a nightingale perch giddily On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, And to that motion tune his wanton song 85 Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve, And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!

We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes.--That strain again! 90 Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound, Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up, 95 And bid us listen! And I deem it wise To make him Nature's play-mate. He knows well The evening-star; and once, when he awoke In most distressful mood (some inward pain Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream--) 100 I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once, Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears, Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!-- 105 It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up Familiar with these songs, that with the night He may a.s.sociate joy.--Once more, farewell, Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell. 110

1798.

FOOTNOTES:

[264:1] First published in _Lyrical Ballads_, 1798, reprinted in _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800, 1802, and 1805: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834.

[264:2] '_Most musical, most melancholy._' This pa.s.sage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description; it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a _dramatic_ propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton; a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible. _Footnote_ to l. 13 _L. B._ 1798, _L. B._ 1800, _S. L._ 1817, 1828, 1829. In 1834 the footnote ends with the word 'Milton', the last sentence being omitted.

LINENOTES:

_Note._ In the Table of Contents of 1828 and 1829 'The Nightingale' is omitted.

t.i.tle] The Nightingale; a Conversational Poem, written in April, 1798 L.

B. 1798: The Nightingale, written in April, 1798 L. B. 1800: The Nightingale A Conversation Poem, written in April, 1798 S. L., 1828, 1829.

[21] sorrow] sorrows L. B. 1798, 1800.

[40] My Friend, and my Friend's sister L. B. 1798, 1800.

[58] song] songs L. B. 1798, 1800, S. L.

[61] And one, low piping, sounds more sweet than all--S. L. 1817: (punctuate thus, reading _Sound_ for _sounds_:--And one low piping Sound more sweet than all--_Errata_, S. L., p. [xii]).

[62] a] an all editions to 1884.

[64-9] On moonlight . . . her love-torch om. L. B. 1800.

[79] those] these S. L. 1817.

[81] As if one quick and sudden gale had swept L. B. 1798, 1800, S. L.

1817.

[82] A] An all editions to 1834.

[84] blossomy] blosmy L. B. 1798, 1800, S. L. 1817.

[102] beheld] beholds L. B. 1798, 1800.

THE THREE GRAVES[267:1]

A FRAGMENT OF A s.e.xTON'S TALE

'The Author has published the following humble fragment, encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than one of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was intended to be dramatic; that is, suited to the narrator; and the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a Poem, but of a common Ballad-tale.[268:1] Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusively psychological.

The story which must be supposed to have been narrated in the first and second parts is as follows:--

'Edward, a young farmer, meets at the house of Ellen her bosom-friend Mary, and commences an acquaintance, which ends in a mutual attachment. With her consent, and by the advice of their common friend Ellen, he announces his hopes and intentions to Mary's mother, a widow-woman bordering on her fortieth year, and from constant health, the possession of a competent property, and from having had no other children but Mary and another daughter (the father died in their infancy), retaining for the greater part her personal attractions and comeliness of appearance; but a woman of low education and violent temper. The answer which she at once returned to Edward's application was remarkable--"Well, Edward! you are a handsome young fellow, and you shall have my daughter." From this time all their wooing pa.s.sed under the mother's eye; and, in fine, she became herself enamoured of her future son-in-law, and practised every art, both of endearment and of calumny, to transfer his affections from her daughter to herself. (The outlines of the Tale are positive facts, and of no very distant date, though the author has purposely altered the names and the scene of action, as well as invented the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mistook[268:2] her increasing fondness for motherly affection; she at length, overcome by her miserable pa.s.sion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion--"O Edward! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you--she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you! Marry me, Edward!

and I will this very day settle all my property on you." The Lover's eyes were now opened; and thus taken by surprise, whether from the effect of the horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on his nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the sense of the guilt of the proposal in the feeling of its strangeness and absurdity, he flung her from him and burst into a fit of laughter. Irritated by this almost to frenzy, the woman fell on her knees, and in a loud voice that approached to a scream, she prayed for a curse both on him and on her own child. Mary happened to be in the room directly above them, heard Edward's laugh, and her mother's blasphemous prayer, and fainted away. He, hearing the fall, ran upstairs, and taking her in his arms, carried her off to Ellen's home; and after some fruitless attempts on her part toward a reconciliation with her mother, she was married to him.--And here the third part of the Tale begins.

'I was not led to choose this story from any partiality to tragic, much less to monstrous events (though at the time that I composed the verses, somewhat more than twelve years ago, I was less averse to such subjects than at present), but from finding in it a striking proof of the possible effect on the imagination, from an idea violently and suddenly impressed on it. I had been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effects of the _Oby_ witchcraft on the Negroes in the West Indies, and Hearne's deeply interesting anecdotes of similar workings on the imagination of the Copper Indians (those of my readers who have it in their power will be well repaid for the trouble of referring to those works for the pa.s.sages alluded to); and I conceived the design of shewing that instances of this kind are not peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes, and of ill.u.s.trating the mode in which the mind is affected in these cases, and the progress and symptoms of the morbid action on the fancy from the beginning.

'The Tale is supposed to be narrated by an old s.e.xton, in a country church-yard, to a traveller whose curiosity had been awakened by the appearance of three graves, close by each other, to two only of which there were grave-stones. On the first of these was the name, and dates, as usual: on the second, no name, but only a date, and the words, "The Mercy of G.o.d is infinite.[269:1]"' _S. L. 1817, 1828, 1829._