Romantic Literature Poetry

Front 1

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

Back 1

Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth

Front 2

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Back 2

Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth

Front 3

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

Back 3

Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth

Front 4

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure: --

But the least motion which they made,

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

Back 4

Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth

Front 5

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

Back 5

Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth

Front 6

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature's holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

Back 6

Lines Written in Early Spring, William Wordsworth

Front 7

STRANGE fits of passion have I known:

And I will dare to tell,

But in the Lover's ear alone,

What once to me befell.

Back 7

Strange fits of passion have I known, William Wordsworth

Front 8

When she I loved looked every day

Fresh as a rose in June,

I to her cottage bent my way,

Beneath an evening-moon.

Back 8

Strange fits of passion have I known, William Wordsworth

Front 9

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

Back 9

Strange fits of passion have I known, William Wordsworth

Front 10

And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near, and nearer still.

Back 10

Strange fits of passion have I known, William Wordsworth

Front 11

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eye I kept
On the descending moon.

Back 11

Strange fits of passion have I known, William Wordsworth

Front 12

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

Back 12

Strange fits of passion have I known, William Wordsworth

Front 13

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover's head!
'O mercy!' to myself I cried,
'If Lucy hould be dead!'

Back 13

Strange fits of passion have I known, William Wordsworth

Front 14

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

Back 14

Song ("She Dwelt among th' untrodden ways"), William Wordsworth

Front 15

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
---Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

Back 15

Song ("She Dwelt among th' untrodden ways"), William Wordsworth

Front 16

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

Back 16

Song ("She Dwelt among th' untrodden ways"), William Wordsworth

Front 17

A slumber did my spirit seal
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

Back 17

A slumber did my spirit seal, William Wordsworth

Front 18

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Back 18

A slumber did my spirit seal, William Wordsworth

Front 19

At the corner of Wood-Street, when daylight appears,
There's a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the Bird.

Back 19

Poor Susan, William Wordsworth

Front 20

'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Back 20

Poor Susan, William Wordsworth

Front 21

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

Back 21

Poor Susan, William Wordsworth

Front 22

She looks, and her heart is in Heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade:
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes.

Back 22

Poor Susan, William Wordsworth

Front 23

Poor Outcast! return---to receive thee once more
The house of thy Father will open its door.
And thou once again, in thy plain russet gown
May'st hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own.

Back 23

Poor Susan, William Wordsworth

Front 24

—It seems a day

(I speak of one from many singled out)

One of those heavenly days that cannot die;

When, in the eagerness of boyish hope,

I left our cottage-threshold, sallying forth

With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung,

Back 24

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 25

A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my steps

Tow'rd some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint,

Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds

Which for that service had been husbanded,

By exhortation of my frugal Dame—

Back 25

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 26

Motley accoutrement, of power to smile

At thorns, and brakes, and brambles,—and, in truth,

More ragged than need was! O'er pathless rocks,

Through beds of matted fern, and tangled thickets,

Forcing my way, I came to one dear nook

Back 26

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 27

Unvisited, where not a broken bough

Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign

Of devastation; but the hazels rose

Tall and erect, with tempting clusters hung,

A virgin scene!—A little while I stood,

Breathing with such suppression of the heart

Back 27

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 28

As joy delights in; and, with wise restraint

Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed

The banquet;—or beneath the trees I sate

Among the flowers, and with the flowers I played;

A temper known to those, who, after long

And weary expectation, have been blest

With sudden happiness beyond all hope.

Back 28

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 29

Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves

The violets of five seasons re-appear

And fade, unseen by any human eye;

Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on

For ever; and I saw the sparkling foam,

Back 29

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 30

And—with my cheek on one of those green stones

That, fleeced with moss, under the shady trees,

Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep—

I heard the murmur, and the murmuring sound,

In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay

Tribute to ease; and, of its joy secure,

Back 30

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 31

The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,

Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,

And on the vacant air. Then up I rose,

And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash

And merciless ravage: and the shady nook

Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower,

Back 31

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 32

Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up

Their quiet being: and, unless I now

Confound my present feelings with the past;

Ere from the mutilated bower I turned

Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings,

Back 32

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 33

I felt a sense of pain when I beheld

The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky.—

Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades

In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand

Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods.

Back 33

Nutting, William Wordsworth

Front 34

There was a roaring in the wind all night;

The rain came heavily and fell in floods;

But now the sun is rising calm and bright;

The birds are singing in the distant woods;

Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;

The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;

And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

Back 34

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 35

All things that love the sun are out of doors;

The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops;—on the moors

The hare is running races in her mirth;

And with her feet she from the plashy earth

Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

Back 35

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 36

I was a Traveller then upon the moor;

I saw the hare that raced about with joy;

I heard the woods and distant waters roar;

Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:

The pleasant season did my heart employ:

My old remembrances went from me wholly;

And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

Back 36

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 37

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might

Of joys in minds that can no further go,

As high as we have mounted in delight

In our dejection do we sink as low;

To me that morning did it happen so;

And fears and fancies thick upon me came;

Dim sadness—and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

Back 37

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 38

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky;

And I bethought me of the playful hare:

Even such a happy Child of earth am I;

Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;

Far from the world I walk, and from all care;

But there may come another day to me—

Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

Back 38

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 39

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,

As if life's business were a summer mood;

As if all needful things would come unsought

To genial faith, still rich in genial good;

But how can He expect that others should

Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

Back 39

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 40

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,

The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;

Of Him who walked in glory and in joy

Following his plough, along the mountain-side:

By our own spirits are we deified:

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

Back 40

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 41

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,

A leading from above, a something given,

Yet it befell that, in this lonely place,

When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,

Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven

I saw a Man before me unawares:

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

Back 41

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 42

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie

Couched on the bald top of an eminence;

Wonder to all who do the same espy,

By what means it could thither come, and whence;

So that it seems a thing endued with sense:

Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf

Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

Back 42

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 43

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,

Nor all asleep—in his extreme old age:

His body was bent double, feet and head

Coming together in life's pilgrimage;

As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage

Of sickness felt by him in times long past,

A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

Back 43

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 44

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,

Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood:

And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,

Upon the margin of that moorish flood

Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,

That heareth not the loud winds when they call,

And moveth all together, if it move at all.

Back 44

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 45

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond

Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look

Upon the muddy water, which he conned,

As if he had been reading in a book:

And now a stranger's privilege I took;

And, drawing to his side, to him did say,

"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

Back 45

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 46

A gentle answer did the old Man make,

In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:

And him with further words I thus bespake,

"What occupation do you there pursue?

This is a lonesome place for one like you."

Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise

Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes.

Back 46

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 47

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,

But each in solemn order followed each,

With something of a lofty utterance drest—

Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach

Of ordinary men; a stately speech;

Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,

Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

Back 47

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 48

He told, that to these waters he had come

To gather leeches, being old and poor:

Employment hazardous and wearisome!

And he had many hardships to endure:

From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor;

Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance;

And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

Back 48

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 49

The old Man still stood talking by my side;

But now his voice to me was like a stream

Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;

And the whole body of the Man did seem

Like one whom I had met with in a dream;

Or like a man from some far region sent,

To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

Back 49

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 50

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;

And hope that is unwilling to be fed;

Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;

And mighty Poets in their misery dead.

—Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,

My question eagerly did I renew,

"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"

Back 50

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 51

He with a smile did then his words repeat;

And said that, gathering leeches, far and wide

He travelled; stirring thus about his feet

The waters of the pools where they abide.

"Once I could meet with them on every side;

But they have dwindled long by slow decay;

Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."

Back 51

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 52

While he was talking thus, the lonely place,

The old Man's shape, and speech—all troubled me:

In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace

About the weary moors continually,

Wandering about alone and silently.

While I these thoughts within myself pursued,

He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

Back 52

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 53

And soon with this he other matter blended,

Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,

But stately in the main; and, when he ended,

I could have laughed myself to scorn to find

In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.

"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;

I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!"

Back 53

Resolution and Independence, William Wordsworth

Front 54

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Back 54

I wandered lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth

Front 55

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance

Back 55

I wandered lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth

Front 56

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

Back 56

I wandered lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth

Front 57

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

Back 57

I wandered lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth

Front 58

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!

Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:

I saw thee every day; and all the while

Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

Back 58

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 59

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!

So like, so very like, was day to day!

Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there;

It trembled, but it never passed away.

Back 59

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 60

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;

No mood, which season takes away, or brings:

I could have fancied that the mighty Deep

Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

Back 60

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 61

Ah! then , if mine had been the Painter's hand,

To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,

The light that never was, on sea or land,

The consecration, and the Poet's dream;

Back 61

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 62

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile

Amid a world how different from this!

Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;

On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

Back 62

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 63

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine

Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;—

Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine

The very sweetest had to thee been given.

Back 63

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 64

A Picture had it been of lasting ease,

Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;

No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,

Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

Back 64

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 65

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,

Such Picture would I at that time have made:

And seen the soul of truth in every part,

A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.

Back 65

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 66

So once it would have been,—'tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;

A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.

Back 66

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 67

Not for a moment could I now behold

A smiling sea, and be what I have been:

The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;

This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

Back 67

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 68

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend,

If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,

This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

Back 68

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 69

O 'tis a passionate Work!—yet wise and well,

Well chosen is the spirit that is here;

That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,

This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

Back 69

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 70

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,

I love to see the look with which it braves,

Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,

The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves.

Back 70

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 71

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,

Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!

Such happiness, wherever it be known,

Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

Back 71

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 72

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,

And frequent sights of what is to be borne!

Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.—

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

Back 72

Elegiac Stanzas, WIlliam Wordsworth

Front 73

Peaceful our valley, fair and green,
And beautiful her cottages,
Each in its nook, its sheltered hold,
Or underneath its tuft of trees.

Back 73

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 74

Many and beautiful they are;
But there is one that I love best,
A lowly shed, in truth, it is,
A brother of the rest.

Back 74

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 75

Yet when I sit on rock or hill,
Down looking on the valley fair,
That Cottage with its clustering trees
Summons my heart; it settles there.

Back 75

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 76

Others there are whose small domain
Of fertile fields and hedgerows green
Might more seduce a wanderer's mind
To wish that there his home had been.

Back 76

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 77

Such wish be his! I blame him not,
My fancies they perchance are wild
--I love that house because it is
The very Mountains' child.

Back 77

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 78

Fields hath it of its own, green fields,
But they are rocky steep and bare;
Their fence is of the mountain stone,
And moss and lichen flourish there.

Back 78

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 79

And when the storm comes from the North
It lingers near that pastoral spot,
And, piping through the mossy walls,
It seems delighted with its lot.

Back 79

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 80

And let it take its own delight;
And let it range the pastures bare;
Until it reach that group of trees,
--It may not enter there!

Back 80

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 81

A green unfading grove it is,
Skirted with many a lesser tree,
Hazel and holly, beech and oak,
A bright and flourishing company.

Back 81

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 82

Precious the shelter of those trees;
They screen the cottage that I love;
The sunshine pierces to the roof,
And the tall pine-trees tower above.

Back 82

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 83

When first I saw that dear abode,
It was a lovely winter's day:
After a night of perilous storm
The west wind ruled with gentle sway;

Back 83

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 84

A day so mild, it might have been
The first day of the gladsome spring;
The robins warbled, and I heard
One solitary throstle sing.

Back 84

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 85

A Stranger, Grasmere, in thy Vale,
All faces then to me unknown,
I left my sole companion-friend
To wander out alone.

Back 85

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 86

Lured by a little winding path,
I quitted soon the public road,
A smooth and tempting path it was,
By sheep and shepherds trod.

Back 86

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 87

Eastward, toward the lofty hills,
This pathway led me on
Until I reached a stately Rock,
With velvet moss o'ergrown.

Back 87

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 88

With russet oak and tufts of fern
Its top was richly garlanded;
Its sides adorned with eglantine
Bedropp'd with hips of glossy red.

Back 88

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 89

There, too, in many a sheltered chink
The foxglove's broad leaves flourished fair,
And silver birch whose purple twigs
Bend to the softest breathing air.

Back 89

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 90

Beneath that Rock my course I stayed,
And, looking to its summit high,
"Thou wear'st," said I, "a splendid garb,
Here winter keeps his revelry.

Back 90

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 91

"Full long a dweller on the Plains,
I griev'd when summer days were gone;
No more I'll grieve; for Winter here
Hath pleasure gardens of his own.

Back 91

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 92

"What need of flowers? The splendid moss
Is gayer than an April mead;
More rich its hues of various green,
Orange, and gold, & glittering red."

Back 92

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 93

--Beside that gay and lovely Rock
There came with merry voice
A foaming streamlet glancing by;
It seemed to say "Rejoice!"

Back 93

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 94

My youthful wishes all fulfill'd,
Wishes matured by thoughtful choice,
I stood an Inmate of this vale
How could I but rejoice?

Back 94

Grasmere--A Fragment, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 95

Harmonious Powers with Nature work

On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea:

Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze

All in one duteous task agree.

Back 95

Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 96

Once did I see a slip of earth,

By throbbing waves long undermined,

Loosed from its hold; — how no one knew

But all might see it float, obedient to the wind.

Back 96

Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 97

Might see it, from the mossy shore

Dissevered float upon the Lake,

Float, with its crest of trees adorned

On which the warbling birds their pastime take.

Back 97

Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 98

Food, shelter, safety there they find

There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;

There insects live their lives — and die:

A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room.

Back 98

Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 99

And thus through many seasons’ space

This little Island may survive

But Nature, though we mark her not,

Will take away — may cease to give.

Back 99

Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 100

Perchance when you are wandering forth

Upon some vacant sunny day

Without an object, hope, or fear,

Thither your eyes may turn — the Isle is passed away.

Back 100

Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 101

Buried beneath the glittering Lake!

Its place no longer to be found,

Yet the lost fragments shall remain,

To fertilize some other ground.

Back 101

Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 102

And has the remnant of my life
Been pilfered of this sunny Spring?
And have its own prelusive sounds
Touched in my heart no echoing string?

Back 102

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 103

Ah! say not so—the hidden life
Couchant within this feeble frame
Hath been enriched by kindred gifts,
That, undesired, unsought-for, came

Back 103

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 104

With joyful heart in youthful days
When fresh each season in its Round
I welcomed the earliest Celandine
Glittering upon the mossy ground;

Back 104

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 105

With busy eyes I pierced the lane
In quest of known and unknown things,
—The primrose a lamp on its fortress rock,
The silent butterfly spreading its wings,

Back 105

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 106

The violet betrayed by its noiseless breath,
The daffodil dancing in the breeze,
The caroling thrush, on his naked perch,
Towering above the budding trees.

Back 106

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 107

Our cottage-hearth no longer our home,
Companions of Nature were we,
The Stirring, the Still, the Loquacious, the Mute—
To all we gave our sympathy.

Back 107

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 108

Yet never in those careless days
When spring-time in rock, field, or bower
Was but a fountain of earthly hope
A promise of fruits & the splendid flower.

Back 108

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 109

No! then I never felt a bliss
That might with that compare
Which, piercing to my couch of rest,
Came on the vernal air.

Back 109

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 110

When loving Friends an offering brought,
The first flowers of the year,
Culled from the precincts of our home,
From nooks to Memory dear.

Back 110

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 111

With some sad thoughts the work was done.
Unprompted and unbidden,
But joy it brought to my hidden life,
To consciousness no longer hidden.

Back 111

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 112

I felt a power unfelt before,
Controlling weakness, languor, pain;
It bore me to the Terrace walk
I trod the Hills again; —

Back 112

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 113

No prisoner in this lonely room,
I saw the green Banks of the Wye,
Recalling thy prophetic words,
Bard, Brother, Friend from infancy!

Back 113

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 114

No need of motion, or of strength,
Or even the breathing air;
—I thought of Nature’s loveliest scenes;
And with Memory I was there.

Back 114

Thoughts on My Sick-bed, Dorothy Wordsworth

Front 115

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have passed,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,

Back 115

Sonnet To The River Otter, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 116

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

Back 116

Sonnet To The River Otter, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 117

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined

Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is

To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown

With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,

(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)

And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,

Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve

Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be)

Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents

Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!

The stilly murmur of the distant Sea

Tells us of silence.

Back 117

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 118

And that simplest Lute,

Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!

How by the desultory breeze caressed,

Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,

It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs

Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings

Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes

Over delicious surges sink and rise,

Such a soft floating witchery of sound

Back 118

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 119

As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve

Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,

Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,

Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,

Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!

O! the one Life within us and abroad,

Back 119

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 120

Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,

A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,

Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere—

Methinks, it should have been impossible

Not to love all things in a world so filled;

Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air

Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

Back 120

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 121

And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope

Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,

Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold

The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,

And tranquil muse upon tranquility:

Back 121

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 122

Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,

And many idle flitting phantasies,

Traverse my indolent and passive brain,

As wild and various as the random gales

That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!

Back 122

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 123

And what if all of animated nature

Be but organic Harps diversely framed,

That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps

Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

Back 123

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 124

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof

Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts

Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,

And biddest me walk humbly with my God.

Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!

Back 124

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 125

Well hast thou said and holily dispraised

These shapings of the unregenerate mind;

Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break

On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.

For never guiltless may I speak of him,

The Incomprehensible! save when with awe

I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;

Back 125

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 126

Who with his saving mercies healèd me,

A sinful and most miserable man,

Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess

Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!

Back 126

The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 127

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,

This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost

Beauties and feelings, such as would have been

Most sweet to my remembrance even when age

Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,

Friends, whom I never more may meet again,

Back 127

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 128

On springy 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;

Back 128

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 129

Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock

Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless ash,

Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves

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

Fann'd 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.

Back 129

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 130

Now, my friends emerge

Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again

The many-steepled tract magnificent

Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,

With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up

Back 130

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 131

The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles

Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on

In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,

My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined

And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,

In the great City pent, winning thy way

Back 131

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 132

With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain

And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink

Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!

Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,

Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!

Back 132

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 133

And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend

Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round

On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem

Less gross than bodily; and of such hues

As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes

Spirits perceive his presence.

Back 133

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 134

A delight

Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad

As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,

This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd

Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze

Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd

Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see

Back 134

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 135

The shadow of the leaf and stem above

Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree

Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay

Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps

Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass

Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue

Back 135

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 136

Through the late twilight: and though now the bat

Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,

Yet still the solitary humble-bee

Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know

That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;

Back 136

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 137

No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,

No waste so vacant, but may well employ

Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart

Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes

'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,

That we may lift the soul, and contemplate

With lively joy the joys we cannot share.

Back 137

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 138

My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook

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.

Back 138

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 139

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry

Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

Back 139

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 140

'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs

And vexes meditation with its strange

And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,

This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,

Back 140

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 141

With all the numberless goings-on of life,

Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame

Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;

Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,

Back 141

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 142

Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature

Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,

Making it a companionable form,

Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit

By its own moods interprets, every where

Echo or mirror seeking of itself,

And makes a toy of Thought.

Back 142

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 143

But O! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,

To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft

With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt

Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,

Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang

From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,

Back 143

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 144

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me

With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear

Most like articulate sounds of things to come!

So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,

Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

Back 144

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 145

And so I brooded all the following morn,

Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye

Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:

Save if the door half opened, and I snatched

A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,

For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,

Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Back 145

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 146

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,

Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,

Fill up the intersperséd vacancies

And momentary pauses of the thought!

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

Back 146

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 147

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,

And in far other scenes! For I was reared

In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,

And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

Back 147

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 148

Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

Of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach

Himself in all, and all things in himself.

Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Back 148

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 149

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

Back 149

Frost at Midnight, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 150

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din.'

Back 150

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 151

He holds him with his skinny hand,

'There was a ship,' quoth he.

'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—

The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years' child:

The Mariner hath his will.

Back 151

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 152

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

Back 152

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 153

The Sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right

Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon—'

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.

Back 153

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 154

The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes

The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,

Yet he cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

Back 154

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 155

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe,

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

Back 155

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 156

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—

The ice was all between.

Back 156

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 157

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God's name.

Back 157

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 158

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariner's hollo!

Back 158

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 159

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—

Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow

I shot the ALBATROSS.

Back 159

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 160

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,

And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;

Tu—whit! Tu—whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,

How drowsily it crew.

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.

Back 160

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 161

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:

'Tis a month before the month of May,

And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

Back 161

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 162

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 betrothèd knight;

And she in the midnight wood will pray

For the weal of her lover that's far away.

Back 162

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 163

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 misletoe:

She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,

And in silence prayeth she.

Back 163

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 164

The lady sprang up suddenly,

The lovely lady Christabel!

It moaned as near, as near can be,

But what it is she cannot tell.—

On the other side it seems to be,

Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

Back 164

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 165

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.

Back 165

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 166

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!

Jesu, Maria, shield her well!

She folded her arms beneath her cloak,

And stole to the other side of the oak.

What sees she there?

Back 166

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 167

There she sees a damsel bright,

Drest 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 unsandl'd 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!

Back 167

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 168

Mary mother, save me now!

(Said Christabel) And who art thou?

The lady strange made answer meet,

And her voice was faint and sweet:—

Have pity on my sore distress,

I scarce can speak for weariness:

Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!

Said Christabel, How camest thou here?

And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,

Did thus pursue her answer meet:—

Back 168

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 169

My sire is of a noble line,

And my name is Geraldine:

Five warriors seized me yestermorn,

Me, even me, a maid forlorn:

They choked my cries with force and fright,

And tied me on a palfrey white.

The palfrey was as fleet as wind,

And they rode furiously behind.

They spurred amain, their steeds were white:

And once we crossed the shade of night.

Back 169

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 170

As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,

I have no thought what men they be;

Nor do I know how long it is

(For I have lain entranced I wis)

Since one, the tallest of the five,

Took me from the palfrey's back,

A weary woman, scarce alive.

Some muttered words his comrades spoke:

Back 170

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 171

He placed me underneath this oak;

He swore they would return with haste;

Whither they went I cannot tell—

I thought I heard, some minutes past,

Sounds as of a castle bell.

Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she).

And help a wretched maid to flee.

Back 171

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 172

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand,

And comforted fair Geraldine:

O well, bright dame! may you command

The service of Sir Leoline;

And gladly our stout chivalry

Will he send forth and friends withal

To guide and guard you safe and free

Home to your noble father's hall.

Back 172

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 173

She rose: and forth with steps they passed

That strove to be, and were not, fast.

Her gracious stars the lady blest,

And thus spake on sweet Christabel:

All our household are at rest,

The hall as silent as the cell;

Sir Leoline is weak in health,

And may not well awakened be,

But we will move as if in stealth,

And I beseech your courtesy,

This night, to share your couch with me.

Back 173

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 174

They crossed the moat, and Christabel

Took the key that fitted well;

A little door she opened straight,

All in the middle of the gate;

The gate that was ironed within and without,

Where an army in battle array had marched out.

The lady sank, belike through pain,

And Christabel with might and main

Lifted her up, a weary weight,

Over the threshold of the gate:

Then the lady rose again,

And moved, as she were not in pain.

Back 174

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 175

So free from danger, free from fear,

They crossed the court: right glad they were.

And Christabel devoutly cried

To the lady by her side,

Praise we the Virgin all divine

Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!

Alas, alas! said Geraldine,

I cannot speak for weariness.

So free from danger, free from fear,

They crossed the court: right glad they were.

Back 175

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 176

Outside her kennel, the mastiff old

Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.

The mastiff old did not awake,

Yet she an angry moan did make!

And what can ail the mastiff bitch?

Never till now she uttered yell

Beneath the eye of Christabel.

Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch:

For what can ail the mastiff bitch?

Back 176

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 177

They passed the hall, that echoes still,

Pass as lightly as you will!

The brands were flat, the brands were dying,

Amid their own white ashes lying;

But when the lady passed, there came

A tongue of light, a fit of flame;

And Christabel saw the lady's eye,

And nothing else saw she thereby,

Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,

Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.

O softly tread, said Christabel,

My father seldom sleepeth well.

Back 177

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 178

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,

And jealous of the listening air

They steal their way from stair to stair,

Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,

And now they pass the Baron's room,

As still as death, with stifled breath!

And now have reached her chamber door;

And now doth Geraldine press down

The rushes of the chamber floor.

Back 178

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 179

The moon shines dim in the open air,

And not a moonbeam enters here.

But they without its light can see

The chamber carved so curiously,

Carved with figures strange and sweet,

All made out of the carver's brain,

For a lady's chamber meet:

The lamp with twofold silver chain

Is fastened to an angel's feet.

Back 179

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 180

The silver lamp burns dead and dim;

But Christabel the lamp will trim.

She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,

And left it swinging to and fro,

While Geraldine, in wretched plight,

Sank down upon the floor below.

O weary lady, Geraldine,

I pray you, drink this cordial wine!

It is a wine of virtuous powers;

My mother made it of wild flowers.

Back 180

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 181

And will your mother pity me,

Who am a maiden most forlorn?

Christabel answered—Woe is me!

She died the hour that I was born.

I have heard the grey-haired friar tell

How on her death-bed she did say,

That she should hear the castle-bell

Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.

O mother dear! that thou wert here!

I would, said Geraldine, she were!

Back 181

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 182

But soon with altered voice, said she—

'Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!

I have power to bid thee flee.'

Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?

Why stares she with unsettled eye?

Can she the bodiless dead espy?

And why with hollow voice cries she,

'Off, woman, off! this hour is mine—

Though thou her guardian spirit be,

Off, woman, off! 'tis given to me.'

Back 182

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 183

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,

And raised to heaven her eyes so blue—

Alas! said she, this ghastly ride—

Dear lady! it hath wildered you!

The lady wiped her moist cold brow,

And faintly said, ' 'tis over now!'

Again the wild-flower wine she drank:

Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,

And from the floor whereon she sank,

The lofty lady stood upright:

She was most beautiful to see,

Like a lady of a far countrèe.

Back 183

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 184

And thus the lofty lady spake—

'All they who live in the upper sky,

Do love you, holy Christabel!

And you love them, and for their sake

And for the good which me befel,

Even I in my degree will try,

Fair maiden, to requite you well.

But now unrobe yourself; for I

Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.'

Back 184

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 185

Quoth Christabel, So let it be!

And as the lady bade, did she.

Her gentle limbs did she undress,

And lay down in her loveliness.

But through her brain of weal and woe

So many thoughts moved to and fro,

That vain it were her lids to close;

So half-way from the bed she rose,

And on her elbow did recline

To look at the lady Geraldine.

Back 185

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 186

Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,

And slowly rolled her eyes around;

Then drawing in her breath aloud,

Like one that shuddered, she unbound

The cincture from beneath her breast:

Her silken robe, and inner vest,

Dropt to her feet, and full in view,

Behold! her bosom and half her side—

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!

Back 186

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 187

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs;

Ah! what a stricken look was hers!

Deep from within she seems half-way

To lift some weight with sick assay,

And eyes the maid and seeks delay;

Then suddenly, as one defied,

Collects herself in scorn and pride,

And lay down by the Maiden's side!—

And in her arms the maid she took,

Ah wel-a-day!

And with low voice and doleful look

These words did say:

Back 187

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 188

'In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,

Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!

Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,

This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;

But vainly thou warrest,

For this is alone in

Thy power to declare,

That in the dim forest

Thou heard'st a low moaning,

And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair;

And didst bring her home with thee in love and in charity,

To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.'

Back 188

Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 189

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 there 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.

Back 189

Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 190

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,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

Back 190

Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 191

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

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,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

Back 191

Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 192

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

Back 192

Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 193

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

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.

Back 193

Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 194

Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made

The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,

This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence

Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade

Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,

Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes

Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,

Which better far were mute.

Back 194

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 195

For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!

And overspread with phantom light,

(With swimming phantom light o'erspread

But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)

I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling

The coming-on of rain and squally blast.

Back 195

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 196

And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!

Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,

And sent my soul abroad,

Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,

Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!

Back 196

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 197

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,

Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear—

O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,

To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,

All this long eve, so balmy and serene,

Back 197

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 198

Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green:

And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!

And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,

That give away their motion to the stars;

Those stars, that glide behind them or between,

Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:

Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew

In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;

I see them all so excellently fair,

I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

Back 198

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 199

My genial spirits fail;

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?

It were a vain endeavour,

Though I should gaze for ever

On that green light that lingers in the west:

I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

Back 199

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 200

O Lady! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does Nature live:

Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!

And would we aught behold, of higher worth,

Than that inanimate cold world allowed

To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,

Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth

A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud

Enveloping the Earth—

And from the soul itself must there be sent

A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,

Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

Back 200

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 201

O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me

What this strong music in the soul may be!

What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,

This beautiful and beauty-making power.

Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,

Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,

Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,

Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,

Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower

A new Earth and new Heaven,

Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud—

Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—

We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,

All melodies the echoes of that voice,

All colours a suffusion from that light.

Back 201

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 202

There was a time when, though my path was rough,

This joy within me dallied with distress,

And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:

For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,

And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth:

Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;

But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,

My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,

But to be still and patient, all I can;

And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural man—

This was my sole resource, my only plan:

Till that which suits a part infects the whole,

And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

Back 202

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 203

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,

Reality's dark dream!

I turn from you, and listen to the wind,

Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream

Of agony by torture lengthened out

That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without,

Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree,

Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,

Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,

Back 203

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 204

Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,

Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,

Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,

Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,

The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.

Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!

Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold!

What tell'st thou now about?

Back 204

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 205

'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout,

With groans, of trampled men, with smarting wounds—

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!

But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,

With groans, and tremulous shudderings—all is over—

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!

Back 205

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 206

A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight,

As Otway's self had framed the tender lay,—

'Tis of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild,

Nor far from home, but she hath lost her way:

And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

Back 206

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 207

'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:

Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!

Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,

And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,

May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,

Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!

With light heart may she rise,

Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,

Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;

To her may all things live, from pole to pole,

Their life the eddying of her living soul!

O simple spirit, guided from above,

Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,

Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

Back 207

Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Front 208

Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Back 208

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 209

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.
Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Back 209

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 210

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility,
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Back 210

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 211

As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three
years since its advent: the Eternal Hell revives. And lo!
Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb: his writings
are the linen clothes folded up. Now is the dominion of
Edom and the return of Adam into Paradise (see Isaiah,
chapters XXXIV and XXXV)
Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and
Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are
necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call
Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason.
Evil is the active springing from Energy.
Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell

Back 211

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 212

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the
following Errors:
1. That Man has two real existing principles, viz. a
Body and a Soul.
2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body,
and that Reason, called Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for
following his Energies.
But the following Contraries to these are True.
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that
called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five
Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body, and
Reason is the bound or outward circumference of
Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

Back 212

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 213

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak
enough to be restrained; and the restrainer, or Reason,
usurps its place and governs the unwilling.
And being restrained it by degrees becomes passive,
till it is only the shadow of desire.
The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, and
the Governor, or Reason, is called Messiah.
And the original Archangel, or possessor of the
command of the heavenly host, is called the Devil or
Satan, and his children are called Sin and Death.
But in the Book of Job, Milton’s Messiah is called
Satan.
For this history has been adopted by both parties.
It indeed appeared to Reason as if Desire was cast
out, but the Devil’s account is that the Messiah fell and
formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss.
This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the
Father to send the comforter, or Desire, that Reason may
have Ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no
other than he who dwells in flaming fire.
Know that after Christ’s death he became Jehovah.
But in Milton the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio
of the five senses, and the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!
Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he
wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils
and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil’s
party without knowing it.

Back 213

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 214

As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with
the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like
torment and insanity, I collected some of their Proverbs;
thinking that as the sayings used in a nation mark its
character, so the Proverbs of Hell show the nature of
Infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings
or garments.
When I came home: on the abyss of the five senses,
where a flat-sided steep frowns over the present world, I
saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on
the sides of the rock; with corroding fires he wrote the
following sentence, now perceived by the minds of men,
and read by them on earth:
How do you know but every Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses
five?

Back 214

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 215

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the
dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plough.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of
wisdom no clock can measure.
All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number, weight and measure in a year of
dearth.
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become
wise.
Folly is the cloak of knavery.
Shame is Pride’s cloak.

Back 215

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 216

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks
of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of
the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are
portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the
sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, and the sullen frowning fool, shall
be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once only imagined.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit, watch the roots; the
lion, the tiger, the horse, the elephant, watch the
fruits.
The cistern contains; the fountain overflows.
One thought fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will
avoid you.
Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.
The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted
to learn of the crow.

Back 216

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 217

The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening.
Sleep in the night.
He who has suffered you to impose on him knows you.
As the plough follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of
instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is
more than enough.
Listen to the fool’s reproach! It is a kingly title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the
beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow,
nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
If others had not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius:
lift up thy head!
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs
on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
Prayers plough not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!

Back 217

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 218

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty,
the hands and feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to
the contemptible.
The crow wished everything was black, the owl that
everything was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.
Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads
without Improvement are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted
desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be
believed.
Enough! or Too much.

Back 218

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 219

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with
Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and
adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers,
mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their
enlarged and numerous senses could perceive.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city
and country, placing it under its mental deity.
Till a system was formed, which some took
advantage of and enslaved the vulgar by attempting to
realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects:
thus began Priesthood.
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounced that the Gods had
ordered such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human
breast.

Back 219

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 220

The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I
asked them how they dared so roundly to assert that
God spoke to them, and whether they did not think at
the time that they would be misunderstood, and so be
the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answered: ‘I saw no God, nor heard any, in a
finite organical perception; but my senses discovered the
infinite in everything, and as I was then persuaded, and
remain confirmed, that the voice of honest indignation is
the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.’
Then I asked: ‘Does a firm persuasion that a thing is
so, make it so?’
He replied: ‘All poets that it does, and in ages of
imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains;
but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of
anything.’

Back 220

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 221

Then Ezekiel said: ‘The philosophy of the East
taught the first principles of human perception: some
nations held one principle for the origin and some
another; we of Israel taught that the Poetic Genius (as
you now call it) was the first principle and all the others
merely derivative, which was the cause of our despising
the Priests and Philosophers of other countries, and
prophesying that all Gods would at last be proved to
originate in ours and to be the tributaries of the Poetic
Genius; it was this that our great poet King David
desired so fervently and invokes so pathetically, saying
by this he conquers enemies and governs kingdoms; and
we so loved our God, that we cursed, in his name, all
deities of surrounding nations, and asserted that they had rebelled; from these opinions the vulgar came to
think that all nations would at last be subject to the
Jews.

Back 221

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 222

‘This’, said he, ‘like all firm persuasions, is come to
pass, for all nations believe the Jews’ code and worship
the Jews’ god, and what greater subjection can be?’
I heard this with some wonder, and must confess
my own conviction. After dinner I asked Isaiah to favour
the world with his lost works: he said none of equal value
was lost. Ezekiel said the same of his.
I also asked Isaiah what made him go naked and
barefoot three years? He answered: ‘The same that made
our friend Diogenes the Grecian.’
I then asked Ezekiel why he ate dung, and lay so
long on his right and left side? He answered: ‘The desire
of raising other men into a perception of the infinite; this
the North American tribes practise, and is he honest who
resists his genius or conscience only for the sake of
present ease or gratification?’

Back 222

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 223

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in
fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have
heard from Hell.
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby
commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, and when
he does the whole creation will be consumed, and appear
infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite and
corrupt.
This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual
enjoyment.
But first the notion that man has a body distinct
from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do by
printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in
Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent
surfaces away and displaying the infinite which was hid.
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything
would appear to man as it is: Infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things
through narrow chinks of his cavern.

Back 223

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 224

I was in a Printing house in Hell and saw the method in
which knowledge is transmitted from generation to
generation.
In the first chamber was a Dragon-Man, clearing
away the rubbish from a cave’s mouth; within, a number
of Dragons were hollowing the cave.
In the second chamber was a Viper folding around
the rock and the cave, and others adorning it with gold,
silver and precious stones.
In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings and
feathers of air, he caused the inside of the cave to be
infinite; around were numbers of Eagle-like men who
built palaces in the immense cliffs.
In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire
raging around and melting the metals into living fluids.
In the fifth chamber were Unnamed forms, which
cast the metals into the expanse.
There they were received by Men, who occupied the
sixth chamber, and took the forms of books and were
arranged in libraries.

Back 224

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 225

The Giants who formed this world into its sensual
existence, and now seem to live in it in chains, are in
truth the causes of its life and the sources of all activity;
but the chains are the cunning of weak and tame minds
which have power to resist energy, according to the
proverb: ‘The weak in courage is strong in cunning.’
Thus one portion of being is the Prolific, the other
the Devouring: to the devourer it seems as if the
producer was in his chains, but it is not so; he only takes
portions of existence and fancies that the whole.
But the Prolific would cease to be Prolific unless the
Devourer as a sea received the excess of his delights.
Some will say: ‘Is not God alone the Prolific?’ I
answer: ‘God only Acts and Is, in existing beings or Men.’
These two classes of men are always upon earth,
and they should be enemies; whoever tries to reconcile
them seeks to destroy existence.
Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.
Note. Jesus Christ did not wish to unite but to
separate them, as in the Parable of sheep and goats! And
he says: I came not to send Peace but a Sword.
Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thought
to be one of the Antediluvians who are our Energies.

Back 225

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 226

An Angel came to me and said: ‘O pitiable foolish young
man! O horrible! O dreadful state! Consider the hot
burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all
eternity, to which thou art going in such career.’
I said: ‘Perhaps you will be willing to show me my
eternal lot, and we will contemplate together upon it and
see whether your lot or mine is most desirable.’
So he took me through a stable and through a
church and down into the church vault, at the end of
which was a mill: through the mill we went, and came to
a cave; down the winding cavern we groped our tedious
way till a void, boundless as a nether sky, appeared
beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees and hung
over this immensity. But I said: ‘If you please, we will
commit ourselves to this void, and see whether
providence is here also; if you will not, I will?’ But he
answered: ‘Do not presume, O young-man; but as we
here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when
the darkness passes away.’

Back 226

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

Front 227

So I remained with him, sitting in the twisted root of
an oak; he was suspended in a fungus, which hung with
the head downward into the deep.
By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the
smoke of a burning city; beneath us at an immense
distance was the sun, black but shining; round it were
fiery tracks on which revolved vast spiders, crawling after
their prey, which flew or rather swum in the infinite
deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals sprung from
corruption, and the air was full of them and seemed
composed of them: these are Devils, and are called Powers of the air. I now asked my companion which was
my eternal lot? He said: ‘Between the black and white
spiders.’

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But now, from between the black and white spiders,
a cloud and fire burst and rolled through the deep,
blackening all beneath, so that the nether deep grew
black as a sea, and rolled with a terrible noise; beneath
us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till
looking east, between the clouds and the waves, we saw
a cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many stone’s
throw from us appeared and sunk again the scaly fold of
a monstrous serpent; at last to the east, distant about
three degrees, appeared a fiery crest above the waves;
slowly it reared like a ridge of golden rocks till we
discovered two globes of crimson fire from which the sea
fled away in clouds of smoke, and now we saw it was the
head of Leviathan; his forehead was divided into streaks
of green and purple like those on a tiger’s forehead; soon
we saw his mouth and red gills hang just above the
raging foam, tingeing the black deep with beams of
blood, advancing toward us with all the fury of a spiritual
existence.

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My friend, the Angel, climbed up from his station
into the mill; I remained alone, and then this appearance
was no more, but I found myself sitting on a pleasant
bank beside a river by moonlight hearing a harpist who
sung to the harp, and his theme was: ‘The man who
never alters his opinion is like standing water, and
breeds reptiles of the mind.’
But I arose, and sought for the mill, and there I
found my Angel, who, surprised, asked me how I
escaped?

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I answered: ‘All that we saw was owing to your
metaphysics; for when you ran away I found myself on a
bank by moonlight hearing a harpist. But now we have
seen my eternal lot, shall I show you yours?’ He laughed
at my proposal; but I, by force, suddenly caught him in
my arms and flew westerly through the night, till we were
elevated above the earth’s shadow; then I flung myself
with him directly into the body of the sun; here I clothed
myself in white, and, taking in my hand Swedenborg’s
volumes, sunk from the glorious clime and passed all the
planets till we came to Saturn; here I stayed to rest, and
then leaped into the void between Saturn and the fixed
stars.

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‘Here’, said I, ‘is your lot, in this space, if space it
may be called.’ Soon we saw the stable and the church,
and I took him to the altar and opened the Bible, and lo!
it was a deep pit, into which I descended, driving the
Angel before me; soon we saw seven houses of brick; one
we entered; in it were a number of monkeys, baboons,
and all of that species, chained by the middle, grinning
and snatching at one another, but withheld by the
shortness of their chains; however, I saw that they
sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were
caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect first
coupled with and then devoured by plucking off first one
limb and then another, till the body was left a helpless
trunk; this, after grinning and kissing it with seeming
fondness, they devoured too; and here and there I saw
one savourily picking the flesh off of his own tail; as the
stench terribly annoyed us both, we went into the mill,
and I in my hand brought the skeleton of a body, which
in the mill was Aristotle’s Analytics.

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So the Angel said: ‘Thy phantasy has imposed upon
me and thou oughtest to be ashamed.’
I answered: ‘We impose on one another, and it is but
lost time to converse with you whose works are only
Analytics.’
Opposition is true Friendship.

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I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak
of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a
confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning:
Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new;
though it is only the Contents or Index of already
published books.
A man carried a monkey about for a show, and,
because he was a little wiser than the monkey, grew vain
and conceived himself as much wiser than seven men. It
is so with Swedenborg: he shows the folly of churches
and exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are
religious and himself the single one on earth that ever
broke a net.
Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written
one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the
old falsehoods.

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And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels
who are all religious, and conversed not with Devils who
all hate religion, for he was incapable through his
conceited notions.
Thus Swedenborg’s writings are a recapitulation of
all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more
sublime, but no further.
Have now another plain fact. Any man of mechanical
talents may, from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob
Boehme, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value
with Swedenborg’s, and from those of Dante or
Shakespeare, an infinite number. But when he has done this, let him not say that he
knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle
in sunshine.

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Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire who arose before an
Angel that sat on a cloud, and the Devil uttered these
words:
‘The worship of God is: Honouring his gifts in other
men, each according to his genius, and loving the
greatest men best; those who envy or calumniate great
men hate God, for there is no other God.’
The Angel hearing this became almost blue, but
mastering himself he grew yellow, and at last white pink
and smiling, and then replied:
‘Thou Idolater, is not God One? And is not he visible
in Jesus Christ? And has not Jesus Christ given his
sanction to the law of Ten Commandments? And are not
all other men fools, sinners and nothings?’

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The Devil answered: ‘Bray a fool in a mortar with
wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him. If
Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him
in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his
sanction to the law of Ten Commandments: Did he not
mock at the Sabbath, and so mock the Sabbath’s God?
Murder those who were murdered because of him? Turn
away the law from the woman taken in adultery? Steal
the labour of others to support him? Bear false witness
when he omitted making a defence before Pilate? Covet
when he prayed for his disciples, and when he bid them
shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to
lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without
breaking these Ten Commandments; Jesus was all
virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.’

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When he had so spoken I beheld the Angel, who
stretched out his arms embracing the flame of fire, and
he was consumed and arose as Elijah.
Note. This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my
particular friend; we often read the Bible together in its
infernal or diabolical sense, which the world shall have if
they behave well.
I have also: The Bible of Hell, which the world shall
have whether they will or no.
One Law for the Lion and Ox is Oppression.

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Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
‘‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’’
So I piped with merry cheer.
‘‘Piper, pipe that song again;’’
So I piped: he wept to hear.
‘‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer:!’’
So I sang the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
‘‘Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.’’
So he vanish’d from my sight;
And I pluck’d a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stain’d the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

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How sweet is the Shepherd’s sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he stays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.
For he hears the lambs’ innocent call,
And he hears the ewes’ tender reply;
He is watching while they are in peace,
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.

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The sun does arise,
And make happy the skies;
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring;
The skylark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around
To the bells’ cheerful sound;
While our sports shall be seen
On the echoing Green.
Old John, with white hair,
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say,
‘‘Such, such were the joys
When we all — girls and boys —
In our youth-time were seen
On the echoing Green.’’
Till the little ones, weary,
No more can be merry:
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end.
Round the laps of their mothers
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest,
And sport no more seen
On the darkening green.

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Songs of Innocence (The Echoing Green) William Blake

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Little Lamb, who make thee
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

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My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointed to the east, began to say:
‘‘Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
‘‘And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
‘‘For when our souls have learn’d the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
Saying, ’Come out from the grove, my love and care
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice’,’’
Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy
I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee;
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.

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Songs of Innocence (The Little Black Boy) William Blake

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When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry ‘‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’’
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said,
‘‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head’s bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’’
And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! —
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins, and let them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.
And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:
So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

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’Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
Came children walking two and two, in read, and blue, and green:
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow.
Oh what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.
Now like a mighty wild they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:
Beneath them sit the aged man, wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

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Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land, —
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their son does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns:
It is eternal winter there.
For where’er the sun does shine,
And where’er the rain does fall,
Babes should never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.

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Little Fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength and breath
And the want
Of thought is death;
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

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Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could Frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

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Songs of Experience (The Tyger) William Blake