So shines my Lewti's forehead fair, Gleaming through her sable hair, Image of Lewti! from my mind Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the moon it passed; Still brighter and more bright it grew, With floating colors not a few,

Till it reach'd the moon at last : Then the cloud was wholly bright, With a rich and amber light! And so with many a hope I seek And with such joy I find my Lewti; And even so my pale wan cheek Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! Nay, treacherous image! leave mind,

If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud-it floats away,

Away it goes; away so soon? Alas! it has no power to stay: Its hues are dim, its hues are gray Away it passes from the moon! How mournfully it seems to fly,

my

Ever fading more and more, To joyless regions of the skyAnd now 'tis whiter than before! As white as my poor cheek will be, When, Lewti! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee. Nay, treacherous image! leave my

mind

And yet, thou didst not look unkind.

I saw a vapor in the sky.
Thin, and white, and very high;
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud:

Perhaps the breezes that can fly
Now below and now above,
Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud
Of Lady fair-that died for love.
For maids, as well as youths, have
perished

From fruitless love too fondly cherished. Nay, treacherous image! leave my

mind

For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush my heedless feet from under
Slip the crumbling banks for ever:
Like echoes to a distant thunder,

They plunge into the gentle river. The river-swans have heard my tread, And startle from their reedy bed.

O beauteous birds! methinks ye measure Your movements to some heavenly

tune!

O beauteous birds! 'tis such a pleasure

To see you move beneath the moon,
I would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies
When silent night has closed her eyes:
It is a breezy jasmine-bower,
The nightingale sings o'er her head:

Voice of the Night! had I the power
That leafy labyrinth to thread,
And creep, like thee, with soundless
tread,

I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,

As these two swans together heave
On the gently-swelling wave.

Oh! that she saw me in a dream,

And dreamt that I had died for care; All pale and wasted I would seem Yet fair withal, as spirits are! I'd die indeed, if I might see Her bosom heave, and heave for me! Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind! To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

1794. April 13, 1798.

LA FAYETTE

As when far off the warbled strains are heard

That soar on Morning's wing the vales

among;

Within his cage the imprisoned matin bird

Swells the full chorus with a generous

song:

He bathes no pinion in the dewy light, No Father's joy, no Lover's bliss he shares.

Yet still the rising radiance cheers his sight

His fellows' freedom soothes the captive's cares !

Thou, FAYETTE! who didst wake with startling voice

Life's better sun from that long wintry night,

Thus in thy Country's triumphs shalt rejoice

And mock with raptures high the dungeon's might:

For lo! the morning struggles into day, And Slavery's spectres shriek and vanish from the ray!

1794. December 15, 1794.

Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note

(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen Gleaming on sunny wings) in whispered tones

I've said to my beloved, "Such, sweet girl!

The inobtrusive song of Happiness, Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hushed,

And the heart listens !"

But the time, when first From that low dell, steep up the stony mount

I climbed with perilous toil and reached the top,

Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount,

The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep;

Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields:

And river, now with bushy rocks o'er browed.

ed mine eyes to blindness! meanwhile,

ɔm I never more may meet

On spring heath, along the hill-top edge,

Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told ; The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,

And only speckled by the mid-day sun; Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock

Flings arching like a bridge ;-that branchless ash,

Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves

Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,

Fanned by the water-fall! and there my friends

Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,

That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge

Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge Beneath the wide wide Heaven-and view again

The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the

Beat its straight path along the dusky air

Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing

(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)

Had cross'd the mighty orb's dilated glory,

While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still,

Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm

For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom

No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. 1797. 1800.

KUBLA KHAN

In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm. house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's" Pilgrimage": "Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall." The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the corre. spondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away, like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas without the after restoration of the latter. Then all the charm Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth who scarcely dar'st lift up thine

mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. Aupcov adiov aow, but the to-morrow is yet to come. (Coleridge's note, 1816.)

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round:

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A

mighty fountain momently was forced :

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding

hail,