SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 109 And how she wept, and clasped his knees; | On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc ! The scorn that crazed his brain; And that she nursed him in a cave, A dying man he lay; - His dying words—but when I reached All impulses of soul and sense And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, Subdued and cherished long. She wept with pity and delight, I heard her breathe my name. Her bosom heaved, she stepped aside, She half enclosed me with her arms, 'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 't was a bashful art That I might rather feel than see The swelling of her heart. I calmed her fears, and she was calm, My bright and beauteous Bride. HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wert blending with Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy, From dark and icycaverns called you forth, | Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud - Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. CHRISTABEL. PART I 'T Is the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing And hark, again! the crowing cock, Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over-loud; Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark. The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky. The moon is behind, and at the full; And yet she looks both small and dull. The night is chill, the cloud is gray; 'T is a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way. The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle gate? She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 111 And she in the midnight wood will pray | And the lady, whose voice was faint and For the weal of her lover that's far away. sweet, Did thus pursue her answer meet: She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low, And naught was green upon the oak, But moss and rarest mistletoe: She kneels beneath the huge oak-tree, And in silence prayeth she. "My sire is of a noble line, And my name is Geraldine: Five warriors seized me yestermorn, Me, ever me, a maid forlorn; They choked my cries with force and fright, And tied me on a palfrey white. And once we crossed the shade of night. Then Christabel stretched forth her hand And comforted fair Geraldine: She rose and forth with steps they passed That strove to be, and were not, fast. They crossed the moat, and Christabel Took the key that fitted well; |