With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
Far on-herself a glory to behold,
The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice,
Action and joy!-An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chaunted!

O great Bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linkéd lay of Truth,

Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!
Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn,

44 controlling] ? impelling, ?directing MS. W.
45-6
Virtue and Love-an Orphic Tale indeed
A Tale divine MS. W.

45 song] tale MS. B. Letter, 1815.

47-9

45

50

55

60

46 song] tale MS. B. thoughts] truths MS.

Ah! great Bard

Ere yet that last swell dying aw'd the air
With stedfast ken I viewed thee in the choir MS. W.

48 that] the MS. B.

49 With steadfast eyes I saw thee MS. B.

52 for they, both power and act MS. B. 54 for them, they in it S. L. 1828, 1829. 59 lay] song MSS. W., B.

61 foll.

53 them] them S. L. 1828, 1829. 58 lay] song MSS. W., B.

Dear shall it be to every human heart,
To me how more than dearest! me, on whom
Comfort from thee, and utterance of thy love,
Came with such heights and depths of harmony,
Such sense of wings uplifting, that the storm
Scatter'd and whirl'd me, till my thoughts became
A bodily tumult; and thy faithful hopes,
Thy hopes of me, dear Friend! by me unfelt!
Were troublous to me, almost as a voice,
Familiar once, and more than musical;

To one cast forth, whose hope had seem'd to die
A wanderer with a worn-out heart

5

10

The pulses of my being beat anew:

And even as Life returns upon the drowned,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains-
Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;

And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of Hope;
And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear;
Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain,
And Genius given, and Knowledge won in vain ;
And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out-but flowers
Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

That way no more! and ill beseems it me,
Who came a welcomer in herald's guise,
Singing of Glory, and Futurity,

To wander back on such unhealthful road,
Plucking the poisons of self-harm!

And ill

Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
Strew'd before thy advancing!

Nor do thou,

Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour
Of thy communion with my nobler mind
By pity or grief, already felt too long!

Nor let my words import more blame than needs.
The tumult rose and ceased: for Peace is nigh

11. 5-6

ll. 11, 12

Mid strangers pining with untended wounds.

O Friend, too well thou know'st, of what sad years

15

The long suppression had benumb'd my soul,
That even as life returns upon the drown'd,
The unusual joy awoke a throng of pains-

Keen pangs, &c. MSS. B, W with the following variants:
Such sense of wings uplifting, that its might
Scatter'd and quell'd me- MS. B.

As a dear woman's voice to one cast forth
A wanderer with a worn-out heart forlorn.

73 thee] thee S. L. 1828, 1829.

82 thy] thy S. L. 1828, 1829.

74 Strewed] Strewn MS. B., 1828, 1829

Thou too, Friend!

memory of that hour MS. W.

Thou too, Friend!

the memory of that Hour MS. B.

Where Wisdom's voice has found a listening heart.
Amid the howl of more than wintry storms,

The Halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours
Already on the wing.

Eve following eve,

Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed
And more desired, more precious, for thy song,
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive, by thy various strain
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
With momentary stars of my own birth,
Fair constellated foam,' still darting off
Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.

And when-O Friend! my comforter and guide!
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!
Thy long sustained Song finally closed,

And thy deep voice had ceased-yet thou thyself
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
That happy vision of belovéd faces-
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound-
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.
January, 1807.

90

95

100

105

110

A beautiful white cloud of Foam at momentary intervals coursed by the side of the Vessel with a Roar, and little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam dashed off from the vessel's side, each with its own small constellation, over the Sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar Troop over a wilderness.' The Friend, p. 220. [From Satyrane's First Letter, published in The Friend, No. 14, Nov. 23, 1809.]

93 Becomes most sweet! hours for their own sake hail'd MS. W.

98 my] her MS. B. 102 and] my MSS. W., B. 106 my] mine MSS. W., B.

(All whom I deepliest love-in one room all !) MSS. W., B.

AN ANGEL VISITANT 1

WITHIN these circling hollies woodbine-clad-
Beneath this small blue roof of vernal sky-
How warm, how still! Tho' tears should dim mine eye,
Yet will my heart for days continue glad,
For here, my love, thou art, and here am I!

? 1801.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE 2

I

How warm this woodland wild Recess !
Love surely hath been breathing here;
And this sweet bed of heath, my dear!
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,
As if to have you yet more near.

II

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay
On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills,
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills
Float here and there, like things astray,

And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

5

10

1 First published in Literary Remains, 1836, i. 280. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80. The title was prefixed to the Poems of Coleridge (illustrated edition), 1907. This 'exquisite fragment... was probably composed as the opening of Recollections of Love, and abandoned on account of a change of metre.'-Editor's Note, 1893 (p. 635). It is in no way a translation, but the thought or idea was suggested by one of the German stanzas which Coleridge selected and copied into one of his Notebooks as models or specimens of various metres.

2 First published in Sibylline Leaves, 1817: included in 1828, 1829, and 1834. It is impossible to fix the date of composition, though internal evidence points to July, 1807, when Coleridge revisited Stowey after a long absence. The first stanza, a variant of the preceding fragment, is introduced into a prose fancy, entitled 'Questions and Answers in the Court of Love', of uncertain date, but perhaps written at Malta in 1805. A first draft of stanzas 1-4 (vide supra) is included in the collection of metrical experiments and metrical schemes, modelled on German and Italian originals, which seems to have been begun in 1801, with a view to a projected 'Essay on Metre'. Stanzas 5, 6 are not contemporary with stanzas 1-4, and, perhaps, date from 1814, 1815, when Sibylline Leaves were being prepared for the press.

1807.

III

No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name; yet why
That asking look? that yearning sigh?
That sense of promise every where?
Belovéd! flew your spirit by?

IV

As when a mother doth explore
The rose-mark on her long-lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild!
As whom I long had loved before-
So deeply had I been beguiled.

V

You stood before me like a thought,

A dream remembered in a dream.

But when those meek eyes first did seem
To tell me, Love within you wrought-

O Greta, dear domestic stream!

VI

Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep,
Has not Love's whisper evermore
Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar?

Sole voice, when other voices sleep,
Dear under-song in clamor's hour.

15

20

25

30

TO TWO SISTERS'

[MARY MORGAN AND CHARLOTTE BRENT]

A WANDERER'S FAREWELL

To know, to esteem, to love,-and then to part-
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart;
Alas for some abiding-place of love,

O'er which my spirit, like the mother dove,
Might brood with warming wings!

O fair! O kind! 5

1 First published in The Courier, December 10, 1807, with the signature SIESTI. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877-80.

The following